米国仏教の起源（メモ）

Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness, and the Man Who Found Them All

Perry Garfinkel Buddha or Bust: In Search of Truth, Meaning, Happiness, and the Man Who Found Them All*1から少しメモ；

Historically, San Francisco was where people went to
reinvent themselves*2. It became a creative environment where cultures colided and fed off each other., a perfect breeding ground for Buddhism, as I had seen elsewhere.
It already had a head start during the gold rush of the 1840s with the influx of Chinese immigrants, who established one of the largest Chinese communities in America. They opened a Buddhist temple in San Francisco in 1853, believed to be the first such temple in the United States. In the small bustling city, immigrants from throughout the world, looking for gold in them thar*3 hills, would have had at least a tangential introduction to Buddhism through Chinese merchants with whom they did business. Later in the century, the Japanese came, too. Pure Land Japanese Buddhists*4 had established the Buddhist Mission of North America in San Francisco by about 1898. Now called the Buddhist Churches of America*5, it remains an active organization. They, too, would have exposed the local to their practices. (pp.226-227)

米国仏教の起源は1853年に中国系移民が桑港に寺を建立したことに始まる。そういえば、宗教学者の山折哲雄先生*6は浄土真宗布教師の子どもとして桑港に生まれたのだった。
桑港を巡って、もう１パラグラフ抜き書きしておく；

In the middle of the 20th century, San Francisco palyed host to another wave, this time of American themselves. In the late 1950s, the Beat Generation set up its unoficial headquarters at Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books in North Beach. Around their lit'ry scene swirled progressive jazz musicians, topical folksingers, controversial comedians. The Beats drew their spiritual sutenance from Zen Buddhism, which is why Shunryu Suzuki saw this garden by the Golden Gate as rich mulch in which the ever-ready-to-adapt Buddhism could easily take root and grow a distinctly Ameican strain. (p.227)

Shunryu Suzuki（鈴木俊隆）*7は1959年に桑港に渡り、後にヒッピー運動の震源地ともなったハイト＝アシュベリー地区に禅センターを開設した。著者のガーフィンケル氏は俊隆の息子、鈴木包一老師を静岡県焼津の林叟院に訪ねている（pp.207-212）。

*1:Mentioned in http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20150105/1420423105

*2:See eg. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110703/1309710487

*3:?

*4:この場合は、浄土宗ではなく浄土真宗。

*5:http://buddhistchurchesofamerica.org/ See eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_Churches_of_America http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%B1%B3%E5%9B%BD%E4%BB%8F%E6%95%99%E5%9B%A3

*6:Mentioned in http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20090310/1236658467 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20090716/1247679249 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20100729/1280372675 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20110726/1311697481 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20130228/1362032063 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20140907/1410051583

*7:See eg. http://www.shunryusuzuki.com/suzuki/base.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunry%C5%AB_Suzuki http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%88%B4%E6%9C%A8%E4%BF%8A%E9%9A%86