The encounter between Buddhism and the West is one of the greatest collisions of the twenty-first century
Arnold Toynbee
Buddhism brings a sophisticated psychology, techniques of meditation, a profound metaphysics, and a universally admired code of ethics. The West brings a skeptical empiricism, a pragmatic science and technology, and a commitment to democracy and individual liberty. If the history of the spread of Buddhism to other cultures teaches any lessons, it is that a genuinely new and distinctive form of Buddhism will be born from this encounter.
Demien Keown, Buddhism- A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 145.
The Dhamma ...is immortal, but its form must ever change to serve the ever-changing human need
Christmas Humphreys (1901-1983), Founder President of the Buddhist Society in England, Sixty Years of Buddhism in England, p. 80
The emergence of the CyberSangha, a network of Buddhist groups linked by computers, and the availability of online information about Buddhism
Source:
Demien Keown, Buddhism- A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2013).
