On Dec 11, 2006, at 5:30 PM, jim_flanegin wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It did
not
die--it spread like wildfire.
On Dec 11, 2006, at 4:13 PM, jim_flanegin wrote:
Actually, it didn't. There are about two million adherents to
Buddhism in the US, so we can conclude that just a small
fraction of
those are Tibetan Buddhists.
Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Actually it did. Just a century ago there were few Tibetan
Buddhists
in any western country, that number has greatly increased since
the
Tibetan diaspora. From 1990 to 2001, Buddhism grew 170% in the US
alone! I heard around 6 million Buddhists is the US and that was
a
few years ago.
This is where I got my numbers from:
http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/4/baum2.html
Mine were from a recent National Geographic article. The largest
growth has been in the last ten years, so I suspect most estimates
will miss a growth spurt that recent.
The western country with the greatest percentage of Buddhists is
the
US with 1.6 percent. That's the "greatest percentage"(!),
followed
by France with 1.15 percent, then quickly dropping to Australia
and
Russia with .8 and .7 percent, respectively.
I don't think that's correct Jim. My guess would be Kalmykia which
is
around 50% Buddhist--even after the massive deportations and
persecution. Amazing!
There's 300,000 people in Kalmykia, that's less than Las Vegas!-
Hardly representative of a western country with a large percentage
of Buddhists!
Indeed it is small. But it is nonetheless a western Buddhist nation.
Despite years of megalomaniacal hunger for world domination, I don't
think even Mahesh can claim that. Unless you consider around 2000 in
Iowa (less if you subtract the Indian outsourcers...) a country...
Nonetheless I wish the hopeful Fairfielder's the best. They sure do
put a lot of effort into keeping the sinking ship afloat!
