This is a list of notable converts to Buddhism from Christianity.
Name | Former denomination | Nationality | Notes | Refs. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nyanatiloka Mahathera (Anton Walther Florus Gueth) | Catholic Church | German | one of the earliest western Buddhist monks and founder of Island Hermitage | [1] |
Anthony Lee | Baptist | American | actor and activist | [2] |
Ananda Metteya (Charles Henry Allan Bennett) | Catholic Church | British | one of the earliest western Buddhist monk and established the first Buddhist Mission in the United Kingdom | [3] |
Thomas William Rhys Davids | Congregationalism | British | scholar of the Pāli language and founder of Pali Text Society | [4] |
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott | Presbyterianism | American | military officer, lawyer and first well-known American to make a formal conversion to Buddhism | [5] |
Lokanatha (Salvatore Cioffi) | Catholic Church | Italian | Theravadin Buddhist missionary monk | [6] |
Roberto Baggio | Catholic Church | Italian | footballer | [7] [8] |
Kotahene Soma Maha Thera | Catholic Church | Sri Lankan | Theravadin Buddhist monk, translator and missionary | [9] |
Aliana Lohan | Catholic Church | American | actress, singer and fashion model | [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] |
Solomon Bandaranaike | Anglicanism | Sri Lankan | former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and founder of Sri Lanka Freedom Party | [15] |
Dewi Lestari | Catholic Church | Indonesian | writer, singer, and songwriter | [16] |
Prince Esper Esperovich Ukhtomsky | Russian Orthodox Church | Russian | poet, publisher and Oriental enthusiast | [17] |
Helena Blavatsky | Russian Orthodox Church | Russian | philosopher, occultist, founder of the Theosophical Society | [18] |
Richard Tiffany Gere | Methodism | American | Famous actor and producer, co-founder of Tibet House US | [19] |
Jimmy Barnes | Protestantism | Australian | Singer and rapper | [20] |
Orlando Bloom | Church of England | English | Famous actor and leading man in Hollywood films | [21] [22] |
Ajahn Sumedho (Robert Karr Jackman) | Episcopal Church (United States) | American | the one who introduced Thai Forest Tradition to the West and most senior western disciple of Ajahn Chah | [23] |
Ajahn Viradhammo (Vitauts Akers) | Lutheranism | Canadian | senior western disciple of Ajahn Chah, founder & abbot of Tisarana Buddhist Monastery | [24] |
Ajahn Brahm | Not specific | English | senior western disciple of Ajahn Chah and abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery | [25] |
Ajahn Candasiri | Not specific | Scottish | Theravada Buddhist nun of Thai Forest Tradition and one of the senior monastics in western Buddhist circle | [26] [27] |
Ayya Nirodha (Elizabeth Gorski) | Catholic Church | Austrian, later Australian | Theravada Buddhist nun of Thai Forest Tradition, former Abbess of Santi Forest Monastery | [28] |
Tara Brach | Unitarianism | American | psychologist and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW) | [29] |
Belinda Carlisle | Southern Baptist Convention | American | singer (the Go-Go's), songwriter | [30] [31] |
Houn Jiyu-Kennett | Church of England | English | Soto Zen rōshi and founder of Shasta Abbey | [32] |
John Daido Loori | Catholic Church | American | Zen Buddhist rōshi, abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery | [33] |
Ananda Claude Dalenberg | Dutch Reformed Church | American | Zen priest ordained by Shunryū Suzuki | [34] |
Michael D. ("Mugaku") Zimmerman | Episcopal Church (United States) | American | prominent attorney and former justice of the Utah Supreme Court | [35] |
William Oliver Stone | Episcopal Church (United States) | American | film director, producer, and screenwriter | [36] |
Pema Chödrön | Catholic Church | American | Tibetan Buddhist nun | [37] |
Fabian Fucan | Catholic Church (Society of Jesus) | Japanese | writer of tracts, at first supporting Christianity and then criticizing it | [38] |
Ko Ye Lwin | Not specific | Burmese | prominent musician, guitarist and peace activist | [39] |
Alfred Bloom | Evangelicalism | American | professor and dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studies | [40] |
Seungsahn Haengwon | Presbyterianism | Korean | Seon master and the founder of Kwan Um School of Zen | [41] |
Junius Richard Jayewardene | Not specific | Sri Lankan | first President of Sri Lanka and former Prime minister | [42] |
Steve Jobs | Lutheranism | American | co-founder of Apple Computer, Inc. | [43] [44] |
Charles R. Johnson | African Methodist Episcopal Church | American | political cartoonist, novelist and Buddhist writer | [45] |
Dewi Lestari | Pentecostalism | Indonesian | singer and writer | [46] [47] |
Tsai Chih Chung | Catholic Church | Taiwanese | famous cartoonist, well-known in both Taiwan and mainland China | [48] |
Leung Man-tao | Catholic Church | Chinese | writer, critic and host | [49] |
Christine Rankin | Catholic Church | New Zealander | politician and former civil servant who served as head of the Ministry of Social Development | [50] |
Seta Manoukian | Armenian Apostolic Church | Armenian | Armenian painter | [51] |
Tina Turner | Baptist | Swiss | singer and actress | [52] |
Herman Vetterling | Swedenborgianism | American | mystic but he retained elements of Swedenborg thought after his conversion | [53] [54] |
Michael Imperioli | Catholicism | American | actor, writer, director, and musician. | [55] [56] |
Sam Lao | Church of the East | Chinese | Rishi, Dalit Buddhist and New Age Scientist. | [57] [58] |
Buddhism in the West broadly encompasses the knowledge and practice of Buddhism outside of Asia in the Western world. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist world have been occurring for thousands of years. The first Westerners to become Buddhists were Greeks who settled in Bactria and India during the Hellenistic period. They became influential figures during the reigns of the Indo-Greek kings, whose patronage of Buddhism led to the emergence of Greco-Buddhism and Greco-Buddhist art. There was little contact between the Western and Buddhist cultures during most of the Middle Ages but the early modern rise of global trade and mercantilism, improved navigation technology and the European colonization of Asian Buddhist countries led to increased knowledge of Buddhism among Westerners. This increased contact led to various responses from Buddhists and Westerners throughout the modern era. These include religious proselytism, religious polemics and debates, Buddhist modernism, Western convert Buddhists and the rise of Buddhist studies in Western academia. During the 20th century, there was a growth in Western Buddhism due to various factors such as immigration, globalization, the decline of Christianity and increased interest among Westerners. The various schools of Buddhism are now established in all major Western countries making up a small minority in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
Engaged Buddhism, also known as socially engaged Buddhism, refers to a Buddhist social movement that emerged in Asia in the 20th century. It is composed of Buddhists who seek to apply Buddhist ethics, insights acquired from meditation practice, and the teachings of the Buddhist dharma to contemporary situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering, and injustice.
Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, self-rendered in 1894 as "Daisetz", was a Japanese essayist, philosopher, religious scholar, translator, and writer. He was a scholar and author of books and essays on Buddhism, Zen and Shin that were instrumental in spreading interest in both Zen and Shin to the West. Suzuki was also a prolific translator of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Sanskrit literature. Suzuki spent several lengthy stretches teaching or lecturing at Western universities, and devoted many years to a professorship at Ōtani University, a Japanese Buddhist school.
Prajñā or paññā is a Buddhist term often translated as "wisdom", "intelligence", or "understanding". It is described in Buddhist texts as the understanding of the true nature of phenomena. In the context of Buddhist meditation, it is the ability to understand the three characteristics of all things: anicca ("impermanence"), dukkha, and anattā ("non-self"). Mahāyāna texts describe it as the understanding of śūnyatā ("emptiness"). It is part of the Threefold Training in Buddhism, and is one of the ten pāramīs of Theravāda Buddhism and one of the six Mahāyāna pāramitās.
The term American Buddhism can be used to describe all Buddhist groups within the United States, including Asian-American Buddhists born into the faith, who comprise the largest percentage of Buddhists in the country.
Buddhadasa was a Thai Buddhist monk. Known as an innovative reinterpreter of Buddhist doctrine and Thai folk beliefs, he fostered a reformation in conventional religious perceptions in his home country, Thailand, as well as abroad. He developed a personal view that those who have penetrated the essential nature of religions consider "all religions to be inwardly the same", while those who have the highest understanding of dhamma feel "there is no religion".
There were links between Buddhism and the pre-Christian Mediterranean world, with Buddhist missionaries sent by Emperor Ashoka of India to Syria, Egypt and Greece from 250 BC. Significant differences between the two religions include monotheism in Christianity and Buddhism's orientation towards nontheism which runs counter to teachings about God in Christianity, and grace in Christianity against the rejection of interference with karma in Theravada Buddhism on.
Theosophical teachings have borrowed some concepts and terms from Buddhism. Some theosophists like Helena Blavatsky, Helena Roerich and Henry Steel Olcott also became Buddhists. Henry Steel Olcott helped shape the design of the Buddhist flag. Tibetan Buddhism was popularised in the West at first mainly by Theosophists including Evans-Wentz and Alexandra David-Neel.
In Australia, Buddhism is a minority religion. According to the 2016 census, 2.4 percent of the total population of Australia identified as Buddhist. It was also the fastest-growing religion by percentage, having increased its number of adherents by 79 percent between the 1996 and 2001 censuses. The highest percentage of Buddhists in Australia is present in Christmas Island, where Buddhists constitute 18.1% of the total population according to the 2016 Census. Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the country after Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
David Robert Loy is an American scholar and author, and teacher in the Sanbo Zen lineage of Japanese Zen Buddhism.
Herman Constantin Vetterling, also known as Herman Carl Vetterling and by the pseudonym Philangi Dasa, was an American Swedenborgian philosopher who converted to Buddhism in 1884 and took the Arabic-cum-Sanskritic name Philangi Dasa.
Eastern philosophy in clinical psychology refers to the influence of Eastern philosophies on the practice of clinical psychology.
Buddhism in the United Kingdom has a small but growing number of adherents which, according to a Buddhist organisation, is mainly a result of conversion. In the UK census for 2011, there were about 247,743 people who registered their religion as Buddhism, and about 174,000 who cited religions other than Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Jainism and Sikhism. This latter figure is likely to include some people who follow the traditional Chinese folk religion which also includes some elements of Buddhism.
Buddhism in England has growing support. 238,626 people in England declared themselves to be Buddhist at the 2011 Census and 34% of them lived in London.
Ven. Migettuwatte Gunananda Thera or Mohottiwatte Gunananda Thera was a Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist orator. He is known for leading the Buddhist side in debates between Buddhists and Christians in Baddegama, Udanwita, Waragoda, Liyanagemulla, Gampola, and Panadura, where the most famous of the debates took place. As a result of the debates, Buddhism in Sri Lanka saw a revival.
The history of Theravāda Buddhism begins in ancient India, where it was one of the early Buddhist schools which arose after the first schism of the Buddhist monastic community. After establishing itself in the Sri Lankan Anuradhapura Kingdom, Theravāda spread throughout mainland Southeast Asia through the efforts of missionary monks and Southeast Asian kings.
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