{"id":1695,"date":"2012-10-23T09:38:01","date_gmt":"2012-10-23T08:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/?p=1695"},"modified":"2012-10-23T21:03:44","modified_gmt":"2012-10-23T20:03:44","slug":"is-tibetan-buddhism-the-most-popular-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/americanbuddhist\/2012\/10\/is-tibetan-buddhism-the-most-popular-in-america.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Tibetan Buddhism the most popular in America?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Anam<\/a>
Anam Thubten Rinpoche teaches in Missoula, MT to a standing-room-only crowd (2010).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

My friend\u00a0Jeffrey Kotyk<\/a>*\u00a0of the\u00a0Flower Ornament Depository \u83ef\u56b4\u85cf<\/a>\u00a0blog has another interesting post worth reading this week, discussing the visibility, if not overall popularity of Tibetan Buddhism<\/a> in America<\/strong>. His post is titled\u00a0Why is Tibetan Buddhism more popular?<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see by my title, I\u2019m not so sure that it is<\/em>, though I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Tibetan Buddhism as a whole had more adherents in America than Theravadin or Zen. But the methodology of counting who\u2019s who gets tough. Do we count Seon and Ch\u2019an practitioners with the Zen? And do all of the \u2018mindfulness\u2019 practitioners, followers of Kornfield and Kabat-Zinn, somehow fit into Theravadin (some might self-affiliate with it, some might not). However, difficulties with methodology and categories shouldn\u2019t stand in the way of thoughtful discussion and fruitful research<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

(I wrote about the broad issue of Buddhists in America recently here<\/a>.) Jeffrey notes about a dozen reasons he thinks Tibetan Buddhism is most popular (I\u2019ll liberally paraphrase them \u2013 see his post<\/a>for the full discussion). And I note that he is particularly comparing Tibetan Buddhism here with other forms of Mahayana Buddhism<\/a>, but I think it\u2019s fair to toss in Theravada:<\/p>\n

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