"Stanford, Harvard get $5.2 million for Buddhist studies," San Francisco Business Times, 10/3/11

Two American ivy league schools, Stanford and Harvard, just received several million dollar grants from a Chinese based foundation. As this article discusses, this money is to be used specifically for the development of a comprehensive Buddhism curriculum. Although the author's tone (informative in nature) does not provide for much discussion, I think the foundation providing the funding, Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, is worth reflection. Browsing the website of the foundation, they seem to have several main goals:

1. Developing arts education, creative development, and cross cultural understanding
2. Exploring the arts/buddhism intersections and Buddhist views and practices
3. Creating Buddhist learning networks.

If we evaluate the trends of charity organizations or independent donors, there always seems to be a common ground between the donor and the receiver (religious, political, etc.). Similarly, several million dollars invested into these U.S. scholarly institutions can not be a simple coincidence. On the surface, many Westerners' ignorance makes them seem intolerant of other religions. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and other 'foreign' religions all carry primitive and negative connotations in the Western world. In today's American culture, the media primarily discusses religion in association with some international conflict. The goal of 'cross cultural understanding' of this organization stands out here -providing the common ground necessary for such an investment. I would think the American media to play a large role in the general ignorance of the population in terms of world religions, so clearly this foundation wouldn't target the media to bring about their influence (there is little common ground there). Alternatively, providing funding to enhance knowledge of Buddhism to a couple of influential and prestigious educational facilities would be far more fitting -and far more effective. I believe this sort of subtle infiltration to enhance the 'world-view' of many Westerners is a very clever tactic and I applaud the aims of the R.H.N Ho Family Foundation.