Dharma Wheel

Hi, all.
So, I was wondering, are there any Chan groups here in the west?
Specifically the United States, Canada, and the UK?

If so, are they "Western" Chan groups (with Western practitioners) or are they mostly in the asian communities?

Thanks in advance!

In Gassho,

Sara H

There are quite a few Ch'an centers in the west. I hope they'll chime in.

The late Sheng-yen's Dharma Drum organization is one of the best known, with affiliates worldwide including quite a few in the USA, Canada and Europe. At the center in Queens, NY in the late 1980's there were at that time a good number of non-Asian Americans at the retreats together with students from the local Chinese community. I assume it is still the case, if not more so.

Dharma Drum: http://www.dharmadrum.org/content/globa ... .aspx?sn=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hsuan Hua's City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is also quite famous: http://www.cttbusa.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've seen students of his post on DW as well.

~ Meido

In the UK (and affiliated centres in other European countries) there is the Western Chan Fellowship, it is within the Dharma Drum lineage but a separate organisation.

Sara H wrote:Hi, all.
So, I was wondering, are there any Chan groups here in the west?
Specifically the United States, Canada, and the UK?

If so, are they "Western" Chan groups (with Western practitioners) or are they mostly in the asian communities?

Thanks in advance!

In Gassho,

Sara H

Hi this reply is rather late but .... look up Humanistic Buddhism - of Ven. Hsing Yun (Ch'an) .... there are temples and even Universities across the West

On that note, it may be easier to identify the Humanistic Buddhism branches by the name Fo Guang Shan.

Here's a directory for their North American branches:
http://www.fgs.org.tw/english/objective ... erica.html
and their European branches:
http://www.fgs.org.tw/english/objective ... urope.html

In my experience, whether there are western practitioners and accommodation for western practitioners depends entirely upon whether there is an established western community at the temple beforehand. Sometimes there is, and they will have frequent English classes and activities, and sometimes there simply aren't enough westerners there to warrant it - compared to, say, Tibetan temples.

I came across Dharma Realm Buddhist University which is based in Ukiah CA. It has an amazingly well-developed academic curriculum and online journal. You can find some details here: http://www.drbu.org/info/ven-hsuan-hua

jeeprs wrote:I came across Dharma Realm Buddhist University which is based in Ukiah CA. It has an amazingly well-developed academic curriculum and online journal. You can find some details here: http://www.drbu.org/info/ven-hsuan-hua

I regularly attend classes and sit at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery which is one of the "campuses" of DRBU, and I have visited CTTB several times, which is the other. They are both excellent resources for bay area Buddhists.

Ben Yuan wrote:On that note, it may be easier to identify the Humanistic Buddhism branches by the name Fo Guang Shan.

Thanks for the post, but just to note, the term "Humanistic Buddhism" (人間佛教) certainly is not just Fo Guang Shan. In general, this could be considered the mainstream of modern Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan, PRoC, HK, etc. The groups associated with Ven. Yin Shun, Ven. Hsing Yun, Ven. Cheng Yen, Ven. Sheng Yen and others all use the term, for example. Though in English at least, it may appear that it is just / mainly FGS.

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA% ... B%E6%95%99

~~ Huifeng

dzogchungpa wrote:

jeeprs wrote:I came across Dharma Realm Buddhist University which is based in Ukiah CA. It has an amazingly well-developed academic curriculum and online journal. You can find some details here: http://www.drbu.org/info/ven-hsuan-hua

I regularly attend classes and sit at the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery which is one of the "campuses" of DRBU, and I have visited CTTB several times, which is the other. They are both excellent resources for bay area Buddhists.

hmmm, maybe we have sat together at BBM, during one of my short stays there no so long ago.

~~ Huifeng

Huifeng wrote:hmmm, maybe we have sat together at BBM, during one of my short stays there no so long ago.

~~ Huifeng

I only go to the 5:15 sessions, so I assume you sat in the mornings, as I'm quite certain I would have noticed a white monk.

The Sunshine Zen Center is ch'an, in that it's patriarchal zen, aka the original zen from china, not today's modernized institutional stuff from japan, for example

http://sunshinezen.org/about-zen/

This is on the west coast of canada, so in the west of the west, huh!