This Time Magazine article is about a new sect of Buddhism that is flourishing in New Delhi, India. This Buddhist movement is called Soka Gakkai, and is becoming very popular among the more wealthy people of India and surrounding areas. Because early Buddhism focuses on an almost deprived life and rejection of many worldly things, it was not very attractive to the wealthier people groups. Soka Gakkai emphasises "personal affirmation, positive thinking, and the basic Buddhist principles of peace and non-violence" (1). Composed mainly of doctors, scientists and other well-learned people, they meet in members' homes to have community time to simply talk about the struggles of their lives.
Not only Soka Gakkai, but other forms of Buddhism have arisen in India. In these cases, people choose elements of Buddhism like meditation or chanting to take part in, but continue to observe the holidays and traditions they had in the past. This allows people to be part of the Buddhist philosophy while not leaving their family heritage or favorite holiday past times behind. For instance, someone who practices Hinduism could take up Buddhist meditation and not give up their first religion. Because the many new developments in Buddhism, the population of Buddhists have reached high numbers in India. Although the last census recorded a 1.7% Buddhist population, with India's vast number of people that 1.7% is actually 170 million people.
I think that this article was fascinating, especially because I am learning about Buddhism in many areas of school right now. It was valuable to see how the religion is adapting to the current needs of people in different countries, because that makes it applicable to many more people. I would definitely recommend this article to someone because of its understandable and worthwhile information.
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From what I learned so far in World History, after the death of Ashoka, Buddhism declined and hasn't been able to get its foot back up until now. After reading your comments on the article, I can see that the newly founded Buddhism is easier for people to adjust to. Also, it doesn't require extreme sense of concentration and meditation like the other types of Buddhism. For the part of Buddhism as being practiced as a philosophical way is also interesting to me. The religion views are too extreme, but it seems like adapting the basic principles of it can make it a philosophy and not a religion making it so that you are able to focus on your own religion while carrying out the philosophy.
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