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This chapter discusses the differences among the three major branches of Western Buddhism and then turns to the common ground they share. These include Zen, Vajrayana, and Vipassana Buddhism. Zen was the first style of Asian Buddhism to take root in North America and, not surprisingly, it is has the largest influence there. Vajrayana groups practice many complex and intricate rituals, but in contrast to the formality of most Zen practice their approach seems far more casual. The Vipassana movement's roots are in the Theravada Buddhism of Southern Asia, which is by far the world's most conservative branch of Buddhism—in both its steadfast adherence to the Buddha's original teachings and its strong emphasis on the importance of celibate monasticism. Yet Vipassana is more westernized and less traditional than either Zen or Vajrayana.

The Ekoji Buddhist Sangha of Richmond, the “Temple of the Gift of Light” located in Richmond's Museum District in Virginia, houses five distinct groups practicing in separate lineages of Buddhism: Pure Land, Soto Zen, Kagyu (Tibetan), and Vipassana, and the Meditative Inquiry group. This book discusses the exceptional degree of pluralism at Ekoji and the ways in which regionalism may manifest in relation to Buddhism in America. Using the Ekoji Buddhist Sangha of Richmond as the primary case study, the chapter shows how bodily practices serve as paths through the shared space of Ekoji and the streets of Richmond and reveals more about identity formation and expression.

Ekoji Buddhist Sangha of Richmond is the only temple in the country that shelters five diverse groups practicing in distinct lineages—Pure Land, Zen, Tibetan, Vipassana, and the Meditative Inquiry group. This chapter defines each group's lineage and practices, including how and why their practices evolved over the years. Each of Ekoji's five groups is officially aligned with a specific form of Buddhist practice and doctrine. The chapter explores the differentiation among groups by looking at how they use space, objects, and bodies to carve out their own Buddhist identity.

This chapter promotes an understanding of religious self-constitution as a relational and embodied process. The aim is to de-center the emphasis on belief in the commonly used category of the religious self and re-center it on an approach that studies the self as an embodied process contextualized in ongoing social relations. The chapter explores three dimensions of the embodied space in which religious selves develop: the importance of collective practice, the relation to the body, and the engagement with the material environment. Examples are provided from ethnographic research on the practice of Vipassana meditation, a Theravada Buddhist meditation of mindfulness. These examples are further supported by references to ethnographic studies that explore other religious practices such as Muslim fasting or Christian prayer.

Certain patterns have developed around meditation and enlightenment, or awakening, as many prefer to call it, in the American Insight network. Network here is defined as a loose affiliation of individuals and communities that prioritize Vipassana meditation as their central practice and trace their immediate Buddhist roots to Burmese and Thai Theravadin lineages. One current network emphasizes a more relational and integrative orientation toward meditation and draws significantly on psychotherapeutic discourse. The other stresses a more systematic and goal-oriented approach to awakening and relies heavily on traditional Buddhist canonical and commentarial literature. This chapter traces these currents, across both first- and second-generation convert teachers, highlighting the orientation toward meditation, the preferred style of practice, the gendering of meditation, the understanding of enlightenment, and the strategies of legitimation advanced within each before reflecting on their significance for the unfolding of Buddhist modernism in the United States.

What makes a meditation object? This essay explores early Pāli accounts of objects still used in modern practice, especially in Southern Buddhism. Their very variety reflects this tradition’s stress on a graduated path, where different stages and individuals require different teaching approaches, at different times. Usually, in practice, objects inducing “calm” and various states known as jhāna, are recommended, before those producing “insight”. Some objects produce both calm and insight; others balance, ensuring health of mind. So, early Pāli literature describes many meditative routes: variety and skillful combinations for individuals are considered key. What is essential, however, is how objects are given and used. Dhammapada narratives in particular, describing a gradual path, a movement between internal and external, “shocks” in chance occurrences in the world, and skilled interventions by friends or teachers, demonstrate a pedagogy striking for its stress on individual need rather than rigid imposition and structure.