Buddhism Around the World

Buddhism is a tradition that is growing exponentially throughout the world, and not just those countries where is English is the dominant language spoken. If you are a blogger, I'm sure you are more than aware of people from around the globe coming to visit your site. But I bet you weren't perhaps aware of the vast and diverse amount of non-English language Buddhist blogs out there. While the Blogisattva awards are primarily about recognizing English language blogs, we feel it is important that those voices around the globe, whatever language they maybe, have a chance to be heard and be part of the community. With technology today, language isn't the barrier to communication and the sharing of ideas that it once was.

With that in mind, Nate and I thought it would be a great idea to get bloggers from traditionally non English language countries to talk a little bit about Buddhism in their country, including a bit of the history, culture, growth and online world. So over the next several months, the Blogisattvas will feature posts from several different bloggers from around the world, who are kind enough to share their thoughts and experience from their perspective. We thought this not only a unique opportunity to expand our community, but a great way we all can learn what other wonderful voices are out there.

So far we have bloggers from Hungary, Brazil and Mexico lined up, and are working on bringing others in. If you are a Buddhist / Buddhist blogger from a non-English language country, and would like to share your thoughts and experience, send us an email here. It would be great publicity for not only your blog, but Buddhism within your country!

Also, Google has this handy tool that anyone can plug into their blog or website, that allows your blog to be translated into almost a hundred different languages instantly. We have put one up here on the right tool bar, and encourage everyone to put up a translator button.