Theravada Buddhism

History and Number of Theravada Groups in Latin America

Theravada Buddhism, which is considered the closest to the original teachings of Siddhartha Gautama among the three “classical” Buddhist vehicles (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), has played an important role in the history of the emergence of Buddhism in the West. In some European countries, the study of the Pali Canon from the second half of the nineteenth century onward led to the formation of the first circles of Buddhist converts long before Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism became popular. This early tendency had no equivalent in Latin America, where immigrants from East Asia introduced Buddhism and scholars of Pali are rare even today. However, in some Latin American countries, there is another trend related to Theravada Buddhism, which is in tune with the general evolution of Western Buddhism in the last decades: the growing interest in contemplation. One of many Buddhist methods which satisfy the demand for introspection and...