Abstract:
In recent years insight (vipassana) practice in Australia has diversified
in content and spawned new institutions that present a more secular face.
These changes exemplify the development of global Buddhism
elsewhere rather than some local, sui generis divergence from
international trends. Nonetheless, the unusual prominence of Buddhist
migrants in the Australian population has influenced the interaction
between “traditional” and “western” Buddhists, and thus the emergence
of the new trends. In interpreting the transformations in question, we
make heuristic use both of Martin Baumann’s periodization of Buddhist
history, with its characterization of the present stage as global, and
Stephen Batchelor’s distinction between “religious Buddhism” and
“dharma practice.” The Australian experience highlights the value of the
earlier interaction between migrant and locally-born Buddhists, and the
formative effect their later separation has on lay practice. This
experience also points to the salience of forms of association when
secular Buddhist practice melds with the Western values of
inclusiveness and equality, not least in gender relations.
