Green Mountain Buddhists....

A few years ago, I wondered what cultural line might be crossed when there were more Buddhists in the U.S. than Episcopalians. I realize definitions are slippery things, and will return to this question another day, but...

Yesterday, the Boston Globe ran a piece under the headline, "Green Mountains, Good Karma." It noted that Vermont has what surveys suggest is the hightest concentration of Caucasian Buddhists.

"The number of Buddhist followers in Vermont is far above 'what's normal for New England or the United States,' said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University who has analyzed the numbers.

In Caledonia County, 15.5 percent of the residents "who practice religion describe themselves as adherents of an Eastern religion and that Buddhism is the dominant religion practiced within that subset," according to the Globe. Barnet, located in Caledonia County, is the home of Karmê Chöling, the oldest of six year-round retreat centers founded by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, so, perhaps, that accounts for a bit of an uptick. But Prothero says in the Globe piece that Vermont is far above "what's normal for New England or the United States."

It seems Vermont has long been fertile ground for alternative thought.

"'Of all the states in the Northeast, Vermont has been the most accommodating of people who want to do their own thing,' said Garrison Nelson, a politics professor at the University of Vermont. ''There is less orthodoxy.'

Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born in Vermont; the state constitution was the first to abolish slavery; the legislature the the first to approve civil unions for gays and lesbians. And Vermont has sent Bernie Sanders -- a Socialist -- to D.C. as its representative.

And, just for the record, Vermont is among the top 10 U.S. states with the highest proportion of Episcopalians (affiliated) in the population, as of 1990. That would be 1.71 percent of the state's population.