‘A Remarkable Step’ : 45 American Buddhist Groups Convene, Form National Unit

Forty-five American Buddhist organizations of various ethnic and sectarian traditions have formed a national body to further their own cooperation, to educate and grow, and, perhaps eventually, to add another religious perspective to church-state debates and national issues.

“We’ve taken a remarkable step,” said the Rev. Karl Springer of Boulder, Colo., the Jewish-born co-chairman of the new American Buddhist Congress.

Looking around at the assembled Asian and Caucasian delegates, many in colorful saffron robes, Springer adjourned a three-day meeting at the Kwan Um Sa Korean Temple in Los Angeles this week with hopes of even more members joining soon.

Growth Expected

“I expect that within 90 days the membership will go up to 70 groups,” Springer said after the meeting. Many groups have expressed interest but could not send a representative, Springer said.

Organizers said that between 3 million and 5 million Buddhists may live in in the United States, but that through the Congress it may be possible next year to come up with a more exact estimate.

The body’s newly approved constitution said that all Buddhists “share a strong and fundamental common ground in the essential teachings of Lord Buddha. The most central message of nonaggression, compassion and benevolence to all beings is paramount. . . .”

Elected to chair the executive committee along with Springer were the Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, a Sri Lankan monk living in Los Angeles, and the Rev. Do Ahn Kim, abbot of the meeting’s host temple.

Springer and Ratanasara were the principal leaders behind the Congress, which started with a call to organize in August, 1986.

If the first Congress lacked anything in representation it was the absence of the largest Japanese Buddhist groups among the founding members, Springer conceded. Interest has been shown by the San Francisco-based Buddhist Churches of America, which recently received approval from the Defense Department to certify the first Buddhist chaplains for the armed forces.

Ratanasara said the Buddhist Churches of America will first have to “get consent of all the groups in its organization.”

Resolutions approved by delegates included those which “wholeheartedly request” the government of Vietnam to release religious prisoners and which “call upon” the Chinese government “to desist from excessive population transfer and other threats to the people of Tibet” and to begin negotiations with the Dalai Lama, the self-exiled holy leader of Tibet, to protect Tibetans’ rights.

Springer and Ratanasara said it may be a few years before the American Buddhist Congress speaks to domestic issues. Buddhist Churches of America, for example, has issued statements opposing legislative attempts to permit prayer in public schools. “Maybe in four years,” Springer said. “Right now we’re concerned with organizational areas.”

Another resolution, aimed at informing more Americans about Buddhism, urged joint observances at local levels of Buddha’s birthday, also known as Vesak. Though all ethnic traditions celebrate the day in the spring, the actual dates vary.

“Everybody still celebrates their own traditional date, but at the regional level we already hold joint celebrations on a day that does not conflict with anyone’s observances,” said Ratanasara, who is also president of the large Buddhist Sangha Council of Los Angeles.

Springer said he also hopes that the Congress can achieve an agreement on a set national day for Buddha’s birthday.

Nominated for Office

Springer, 38, who said he has been a Buddhist for the last 18 years, was also approved as a suggested nominee for vice president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, a group that will meet next fall in Los Angeles at the invitation of a Hacienda Heights temple. The international group, which only recently admitted mainland American Buddhist groups as members, has always met in Asia.

Besides the three men chosen to chair the executive committee and elected to four-year terms, the delegates elected one woman among six vice chairpersons, the Rev. Karuna Dharma of the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles.

Others elected were the Venerable Phra Sunthorn Plamintr, Buddhist Council of the Midwest, Chicago; the Venerable Thich Thien-Thanh, Buddhist Congregation of the United States, Long Beach, Calif.; the Rev. Jomyo Tanaka Roshi, Mandala Buddhist Center, Bristol, Vt.; the Rev. Jakusho Kwong Roshi, Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, Santa Rosa, Calif., and the Venerable Kurunegoda Piyatissa, American-Sri Lanka Buddhist Assn., New York.

Officials said the Congress will meet next in New York, at the latest by 1989. The organization, which adopted a modest first-year budget of $55,000, will have two headquarters, in Los Angeles and New York, they said.