Buddhism in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has more Buddhists than the other countries in Central America with almost 100,000 (2.34% of total population), followed closely by Panama with almost 70,000 (2.1% of total population). Buddhism was primarily driven by the presence of Chinese immigrants during the earlier part of the 19th century.Fact|date=September 2008 Nowadays, it is also driven by the very minor presence of Buddhist missionary groups, such as Soka Gakkai International.Fact|date=September 2008 It's now also driven by the influence of the Japanese culture, specially manga and anime which sometimes have Buddhist-related stories.Fact|date=September 2008

But mostly, there has being a tendency on recent years of growing insatisfaction of Catholicism, the religious majority. Some convert to other branches of Christianism, most notably Protestantism (with a growing number of Protestant centers throughout Costa Rica). But others stay as agnostics, atheists or "free thinkers". It is this later groups, specially if already interested or practicing some form of meditation, that can become influenced or inspired by "exotic religions" (in Costa Rica) such as Buddhism and therefore convert to it, or adopt it as a philosophy.__TOC__

Tibetan Buddhism

In Costa Rica there's few centers of Tibetan Buddhism; the best know is the "Asociación Cultural Tibetano-Costarricense" [ [http://www.tibetencostarica.com/ tibet in costa rica] (official website, in spanish)] (Tibetan-Costarrican Cultural Asociation), which was born in 1989 CE after the first visit of the XIV Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso in Latin America. Years later, in 2004 CE the XIV Dalai Lama revisited Costa Rica [ [http://www.tibetencostarica.com/VisitaSS.html Visit of H.H. the XIV Dalai Lama - 2004] (in spanish)] . He gave some discourses, including one in the University of Costa Rica.

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