Becoming Buddhist

What does it mean to be a Western Buddhist? For the predominantly Anglo-Australian<br/>affiliates of two Western Buddhist centres in Australia the author proposes an<br/>answer to this question and finds support for it from interviews and her own<br/>participant-observation experience.Practitioners'<br/>prior experiences of experimentation with spiritual groups and practices-and<br/>their experiences of participation practice and self-transformation-are<br/>examined with respect to their roles in practitioners' appropriation of the<br/>Buddhist worldview and their subsequent commitment to the path to<br/>enlightenment.Religious commitment is<br/>experienced as a decision-point itself the effect of the individual's<br/>experimental immersion in the Centre's activities.During this time the claims of the Buddhist<br/>worldview are tested against personal experience and convictions.<br/>Â Using rich ethnographic data and Lofland and<br/>Skonovd's experimental conversion motif as a model for theorizing the stages of<br/>involvement leading to commitment the author demonstrates that this study has<br/>a wider application to our understanding of the role of alternative religions<br/>in western contexts.<br/>