Buddhism in Switzerland

This note is intended to provide a brief survey of the state of Buddhism in Switzerland. A brief look at the urban scene in Switzerland reveals that it is no longer necessary to travel to Asia to meet Buddhists and to visit Buddhist monasteries. In Lausanne, for instance, it is possible to participate in the activities of four different Buddhist centers: three Tibetan Buddhist circles and one Zen meditation group. Not far from Lausanne, the Rabten Choeling Buddhist monastery welcomes visitors. Inaugurated in 1977 near Mont Pelerin, a community of Western monks striving to be educated in the traditional ways of Tibetan liturgy and Gelugpa teaching set up their center. The project of a study center specifically established for Western converts failed, however, and the monastery's mission was changed. Nowadays, the monastery has some 25 monks and nuns, who primarily take care of the spiritual needs of Tibetans living in Switzerland. However, to focus on Tibetan Buddhism exclusively would not do justice to earlier Buddhist endeavors and activities in Switzerland. For this purpose, a brief historical outline and some statistical information on the contemporary state of Buddhism are provided in the following paragraphs.

Some ninety years ago, in the winter of 1909/1910, the German-born Theravada monk Nyanatiloka sojourned in southern Switzerland, near Lugano. This stay and his plan to establish a vihara (Pali: a dwelling place for monks) mark the beginning of the history of institutionalized Buddhism in Switzerland. Nyanatiloka and his lay supporters from the German Pali Society ambitiously intended to build a monastery in which at least five monks could live according to the rules of the Vinaya (monastic codex) and work towards the spreading of Buddhist teachings within the German language area. The thirty-two year-old monk lived in an Alpine shepherd's chalet, dressed in a traditional Theravada monk's robe and scanty sandals. Nyanatiloka wrote his Pali grammar and translated texts from the Abhidhamma. He did, however, suffer from the snow and the "unspeakable cold," as he later wrote in his autobiographical notes (edited in Hecker 1995). In danger of succumbing to his illness, Nyanatiloka left for North Africa in order to found a monastic settlement near Tunis. However, only a few weeks later he was told by the French colonial authorities to leave the country. Thus Nyanatiloka accepted an invitation to come to Lausanne to stay in a Buddhist vihara called "Caritas-Viharo." This building with its exotic appearance, publicly displaying Buddhist symbols (a picture is provided in Hecker 1995: 328), was built by a certain Rodolphe-Adrien Bergier in the L'avenue d'Echallens. The local archives...