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Buddhism is a prominent religion and cultural concept in the United States accounting for 0.9% of...

Buddhism is a prominent religion and cultural concept in the United States accounting for 0.9% of the US population making it the fourth largest belief-set behind Christianity, Judaism and Nonreligious. Many American Buddhists are Asian Americans as well as a large number of converts. . The U.S. presents a strikingly new and different environment for Buddhists, leading to a unique history and a continuing process of development as Buddhism and America become increasingly compatible. Occasional intersections between Western civilization and the Buddhist [[Media: Example.ogg]]world have been occurring for thousands of years. Perhaps the most significant of these began in 334 BC, early in the history of Buddhism, when the Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered most of Central Asia. The Seleucids and successive kingdoms established an important Hellenistic influence in the area, which interacted with the Buddhism that had been introduced from India to produce Greco-Buddhism. In the Christian era, Buddhist ideas would periodically filter into Europe via the Middle East. A notable example is the story of Barlaam and Josaphat, folk heroes who were canonized by the Roman Catholic