‘Diaspora’ Buddhism is really a redundant term. Buddhism, like many wisdom traditions, has always been a diverse, trans-civilizational arc of transmission, community, practice, and more. While modernity has seen an explosive increase in Buddhism’s global reach and diversity, there also has been a mass uptake of reductive notions of Buddhism. In fact, since the colonial encounter, white Western Buddhists and so-called “sympathizers” criticized Asian Buddhists for their “diasporicity”, or their shared embodiment of uprootedness and scatteredness. (Bakare-Yusuf, 2008) Asian Buddhist diasporicity, the argument goes, prevents a coherent, unified, and sensible Buddhist tradition from emerging. (Lee, 2009) (McMahan, 2008) Many colonizers therefore concluded that it was up to their white savior selves to “rescue” Buddhism from its primitive, corrupted, and uncivilized Orient(al) captor. (Lopez et al, 1999) This, in part, led to the hypertextual, Protestant Buddhism still prevalent in the West today. (Cheah, 2011) (Lopez et al, 1999) 

Simultaneously, diaspora Buddhism also disrupts what many Asian Buddhist modernizers themselves have often advocated for — a “purification” of premodern Buddhism intended to distill it into a modern form. (Cheah, 2011) (McMahan, 2008) These purifications have generally produced meditation-focused, deritualized, and bioscience-aligned sectarian innovations. Even further, many of new, modernist sects will claim authenticity as being the timeless, natural, and ultimate “essence” of Buddhism “all along”. (Cheah, 2011) Of course, Asian-led modernization projects are never in a single relationship with colonial domination. In many historical contexts, such projects emerged as ways to resist colonial power, assert national independence, and preserve Buddhism’s transmission. (Cheah, 2011) But they have also trafficked in standards of white supremacy and preoccupations of modernity, often leading to unintended consequences far beyond the intentions of the original Asian modernizer. (Iwamura, 2011)  

Both arcs treat diaspora as a liability. Diaspora is messy, uncontainable, and undefinable. It is an unpredictable variable to be controlled. Although many noble efforts exist to bridge sectarian difference, they fall short of any robust solidarity because anti-diasporic notions of Buddhism go unaddressed. Along these lines, diaspora Buddhism can perhaps most simply be defined as the inversion of purist, modern, and colonial ways of knowing and living Buddhism — making the opposite assertion that diasporicity is really a foremost asset of the living Buddhist wisdom tradition. If we define our ideal future Buddhism not by reductive purity, but instead by expansive diversity, I believe it will be far more likely, accessible, and desirable to minister to self, other, and system in liberatory ways.