A Few Grains of Salt

Abstract

This chapter assesses some common cultural associations people have with Buddhism and where these associations came from. In the case of Europe and America, early in the 1800s, two groups—the Romantics and the Transcendentalists—started to take an interest in ideas from Asia in general and from Buddhism in particular. Another early source of Western interest in Buddhism is a religious movement called Theosophy. It is through these channels that many in the West first came into contact with Buddhism. It arrived filtered through people with very particular agendas and interests. People who had little, if any, command of Buddhist texts or the languages they were written in. Though they popularized ideas and texts from Asia, they did so with a very specific spin, one that still can be felt today. Ultimately, it is important to keep in mind that there is more to Buddhism than one's own idealized version of it because there is a real danger in projecting what one wants onto Buddhism and ignoring the rest.