Source: Rapid City Journal
http://rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2008/10/26/news/religion/doc49021fc3039de882120639.txt
The Buddhist prayer flags that hang in Don Jones’ driveway are Tibetan, but the Buddhist meditation that Jones practices in his living room is not.
Jones hosts an informal Insight Meditation group in his west Rapid City home, an Americanized strain of Buddhism that stems from the Theravedan tradition. The prayer flags out front belong to the better-known Tibetan tradition, the form of Buddhism most familiar to Americans, thanks to the high public profile of its spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
The Buddha was Siddhartha Gautama, who lived in India about 2,500 years ago. The religion he founded split into four main traditions after his death: Theravada, Mahayana, Tibetan and Zen, which now claim 350 million adherents worldwide, including about 1.5 million in America. The Buddha did not consider himself a god, so some of its practitioners consider Buddhism a philosophy, not a religion.
Buddha is a Sanskrit word that translates to “awakened” — and that’s an accurate description of what is happening to the world’s fifth-largest religion here in America, ever since it was imported to mainstream U.S. populations in the 1960s. In Rapid City, there currently are at least three Buddhist meditation groups that practice three different varieties of Buddhism.
A Zen Buddhist group, the Laughing Teabowl Sangha, has been meeting in Rapid City for 12 years, said Suzan Nolan. That tradition practices seated meditation (zazen), as well as the formal Japanese tea ceremony and a walking meditation called kin hin. It meets at 7 p.m. Tuesdays and at 9 a.m. Sundays in the Yoga Studio, 2050 W. Main St.
A Tibetan Buddhist meditation group, the Mother of Wisdom Buddhist Sangha led by Joe Tolson, meets weekly at 7:15 p.m. Wednesdays at 907 Columbus St.
Tibetan Buddhism, with its dense, complex theology, can sometimes appeal to Catholics or people from Orthodox church backgrounds who seek a Buddhist practice, Jones said.
“There are differences of style, more than of belief,” he said. “Zen is very formal, very ritualized, very traditional. Insight Meditation is more casual, more relaxed.”
Still, it can be hard for Rapid City residents to practice Buddhism, which is why Jones decided to launch an Insight Meditation group.