The article reports that in his book "Awakening the Buddha Within," Lama Surya Das, a popular American Buddhist writer and lecturer, surveyed the current state of "Western Buddhism" and identified ten emerging trends. Most revealing is the observation that "the Dharma is very suited to a Western way of life." Indeed, Buddhism is flourishing in America and in Western Europe. In its catechetical form, apologetic content, moralistic tone, and anti-ritual polemicism, the Buddhist Catechism suspiciously echoes nineteenth-century Protestant polemics against Roman Catholicism.
