Buddhism in Australia

Buddhism in Australia has attracted increasing scholarly interest in recent years. This work has produced new understandings of Buddhist social and civic engagement; Buddhist youth identity, intercultural engagement, religious belonging and (in)visibility; deathcare practices; and transnational flows of religion to and from Australia. Much of this research has built on earlier scholarship analysing historical, demographic and case-study data, as well as pivotal works identifying characteristics of Buddhism in Australia. There has been increasing engagement with theoretical frameworks developed in the Northern hemisphere (particularly North America), as well as theories and concepts pertinent to the above-mentioned topics of study. However, to date, much of the research on Buddhism in Australia has remained peripheral to understandings of Buddhism in the West. The proposed roundtable addresses the siloing of research on Buddhism in Australia by bringing together Australian and North-American-based Buddhist Studies scholars to discuss and reflect on these developments. The presenters and respondent comprise a mix of junior, mid-career and senior scholars, drawing expertise from Sociology, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Buddhist Ethics, and Buddhist Pedagogy. The panel will present an opportunity to juxtapose historical, archival, survey, interview, digital, case-study and mixed methods research based in Australia. The first presentation will review preliminary findings from a recently commenced, nationwide study of Buddhism in Australia. It will present an overview of findings from literature reviews and census data, and discuss how this informs the scope and design of digital multi-media educational resources to be developed in multicultural Australia. In doing so, it identifies key considerations for the development of these resources, including language, age, cultural and religious diversity, levels of religious and digital literacy, cultural norms regarding religion and spirituality in Australia, delivery contexts and audiences (schools, tertiary institutions, museums, Buddhist communities), and the current availability (or lack thereof) of Buddhist educational resources. The development of the resources represents an effort to decolonise understandings of Buddhism in Australia by drawing attention to the rich history and contemporary presence of Buddhism in Australia. The presentation will extend understandings about the significance of the national context and the evolving digital landscape in the development of Buddhist pedagogical resources as it applies to the Australian context. Drawing from the same study, the second presentation will present findings from interviews and online content analyses of Buddhist youth groups’ social and digital media usage. It extends on previous work unpacking how Buddhist teachings of non-self are lived out by young Australian Buddhist practitioners amid the racialisation of Buddhism as an Asian religion, low levels of religious literacy about Buddhism, the rise in ‘no-religion’ among young people, and social norms regarding religion and spirituality in Australia. In centering young people, the presentation engages the experiences of individuals who have grown up with digital media, for whom it is not merely perceived instrumentally or as a novel technology, but is entwined in their everyday lives. Consequently, digital media is imbricated in young Australian Buddhists’ lives in ways that speak to the complexities of negotiating religious belonging, (in)visibility and identity in ‘real world’ contexts. These contexts may be multiple in scale, extending beyond the national imaginary due to the transnational scope of many Buddhist youth groups in Australia. The presentation considers the relevance of postmodern theories to make sense of the ways traditional religious teachings are reinterpreted in a contemporary digital and globally-connected era. The third presentation will focus on the little investigated but significant presence of Buddhism in the Far North of Australia from colonial times to the end of WWII. It will draw on the cultural heritage of Asian migrants in the region (museum collections, temples, cemeteries, former mines, pearling areas, and market gardens) as well as publications by historical societies and scholars, to examine their relations with Indigenous communities and white-settlers in the region. In doing so, it aims to re-centre religious populations excluded in dominant narratives of Australia as an exclusively Christian nation in its origins. As such, it employs three frameworks that disrupt the primacy of textual approaches – post-colonial Buddhism, lived religion, and material religion – to highlight everyday embodied experiences and the materiality of early Asian-Australian communities in the Far North. This paper then contributes to recent scholarship on Buddhism that has similarly sought to re-centre Asian voices in the early development of Buddhism in the United States. The fourth presentation investigates the question of how Buddhism may be shaping a ‘way of death’ for Australians, just as it has increasingly influenced popular culture, wellness, and lifestyle practice. Through interviews with ‘Buddhish’ practitioners (celebrants, nurses, spiritual carers and more) across Australia, the project investigates the current influence and future potential of Buddhist-inspired teachings and practice in end-of-life and deathcare, and unearthed a range of phenomena, from mindfulness tools aimed at confronting terminal diagnoses and supporting hospice staff, to incense and chanting at otherwise ‘secular’ funerals. The work suggests that death is an important site for religious complexity within Australia, whereby ‘Buddhish’ death practices appeal because they are perceived as not wholly religious, spiritual, or secular, but occupy a valuable middle ground within this triangulation. Each presenter will speak for 10-15 minutes, leaving time for Q&A. The respondent will provide context for the study of Buddhism in the West and suggest what non-Australians can productively learn from the session for their own research. The respondent will be a senior scholar of North American Buddhism. The chair will be a senior scholar of Buddhism in Asia and an expert on Space, Place and Religion, who will offer reflections on Australia’s locatedness in the Asia-Pacific and what this means for understanding Buddhism in this region.