Becoming Buddhist

What does it mean to be a Western Buddhist? For the predominantly Anglo-Australian

affiliates of two Western Buddhist centres in Australia, the author proposes an

answer to this question, and finds support for it from interviews and her own

participant-observation experience.Practitioners'

prior experiences of experimentation with spiritual groups and practices-and

their experiences of participation, practice and self-transformation-are

examined with respect to their roles in practitioners' appropriation of the

Buddhist worldview, and their subsequent commitment to the path to

enlightenment.Religious commitment is

experienced as a decision-point, itself the effect of the individual's

experimental immersion in the Centre's activities.During this time the claims of the Buddhist

worldview are tested against personal experience and convictions.

 Using rich ethnographic data and Lofland and

Skonovd's experimental conversion motif as a model for theorizing the stages of

involvement leading to commitment, the author demonstrates that this study has

a wider application to our understanding of the role of alternative religions

in western contexts.