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We didn’t come from a monolithic culture where everybody used the same chants and knew the same prayers. We weren’t born and raised in countries where everyone had the same images, ancestors, icons, and holy days. Small wonder that occasionally we get confused. We are part of the encounter between East and West and although the essential truth, the kernel of the Dharma, retains its integrity, the husk continues to evolve and change.

Although there are different views on this, one of the most interesting things about Buddhist spirituality is that it does not necessarily require that you immediately abandon your current faith or the faith of your ancestors. Kalu Rinpoche said that you could take refuge in the Three Jewels, practice Buddhism, and get results without necessarily renouncing an earlier faith or belief system. And, in fact, today many people have a Buddhist meditation practice such as mindfulness or zazen without identifying themselves as Buddhists.

I personally had to sift through many forms and varieties of the teachings before I could really appreciate the essence of Dharma within myself and in our own culture. I had to learn foreign languages, take ordination, shave my head, wear monastic robes, live abroad in monasteries, and learn to practice all the many rites and rituals of Tibetan Buddhism until finally finding the distilled heart-essence of the Dharma in the Dzogchen teachings. However, within that framework I discovered that finding my own practice actually required that I synthesize and streamline what I found most useful and applicable from different traditions, including my intellectual roots here in the West. My own makeup actually required this synthesis; I could not do otherwise. I am an American, and I am a Buddhist. This is our Western karma.

LOOKING FORWARD

I believe deeply that we must find, all of us together, a new spirituality. This new concept ought to be elaborated alongside the religions in such a way that all people of good will could adhere to it.

—HIS HOLINESS, THE DALAI LAMA

Today I see a great need for us to be very forward rather than backward-looking in our approach to spirituality. To be torchbearers in a benighted and violent world we need to collaborate harmoniously, effectively, and with a spirit of mutual respect, genuine understanding, and openness. We need to keep to the high ground and remain honest, ethical, humane, and even lighthearted—not taking ourselves too seriously. We need to be willing to go beyond routine thinking.

There have been three waves of Buddhist transmission in the West represented by three generations of Dharma teachers. The first group were the Asian-born teachers, who were mainly traditional in their approach. They introduced meditation and related practices as well as personally instructing Western disciples, both in the West and in Asia. The second wave was the generation of Western Buddhist teachers who trained under these teachers. Their task was to further translate the Buddhist words, concepts, and forms of practice for transmission to Western students in their own countries. Now beginning to emerge are the first generation of Dharma teachers who have trained solely in the West under the guidance of Western teachers.

Some people from other cultures are proud that they have maintained much of their cultural identity; others have eagerly adapted and assimilated. We are bringing about a synthesized or an amalgamated Dharma distilled from the best of what has been transmitted to us from the past and from Asia. Added into this Dharma mix is what is most useful from our own modern experience. This is a present day version of what the Buddha himself termed “Ekayana”—the single great way of awakening—when he referred to all of his teachings as a whole. It is one Dharma, one coherent liberating path to enlightenment.

To be contemporary, we can’t ignore that our modern landscape is much influenced by democratic principles, ecology, feminist thought, civil rights, psychotherapy, entrepreneurship, and