From the Fillmore to the Zen-dō: The Trippy History of American Buddhism

Abstract

In this thesis, I consider both why boomers were driven to cultivate that psychedelic soil and what it was about that fertile seedbed that made it so conducive to the sprouts of American Buddhism. In doing so, I hope to shed light on how the blooms - the subsequent, various manifestations of American meditation-based convert Buddhism13 - have been fundamentally shaped by their shared relation to a psychedelic, countercultural past. The aspirations, beliefs, and views of the sixties counterculture continue to leave their mark on Buddhism in the United States. In future projects and research (likely including my PhD dissertation), I plan to continue the story by looking at how and why Buddhist practitioners and teachers that emerged from the counterculture report shedding other aspects of their “hippie” lifestyle (most notably, drugs, which for many had previously been a central element) as their dedication to Buddhist practice increased.