Buddhism in Belgium

Buddhism is a small religion in Belgium but despite lack of official recognition by the Belgian government has grown rapidly in recent years.

Alexandra David-Néel introduced the Maha Bodhi Society to the Congress of Free Thinkers in Brussels as early as 1910.

[3] Buddhism had already come to the attention of Belgians academically through the works and translations of the two famous Indologists Louis de La Vallée Poussin at the Ghent University and his disciple Étienne Lamotte at the Catholic University of Louvain, founders of what is internationally known as the Belgian School of Buddhist studies, still now active in Ghent (with the Ghent Centre for Buddhist Studies of the UGent) and Louvain-la-Neuve (at the Institut orientaliste de l'Université catholique de Louvain).

There was also for a while in Brussels an Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Bouddhiques where several Belgian scholars (Jean Dantinne, José Van den Broeck, Charles Willemen) published translations of Buddhist texts between 1969 and 1980.

[4] Nonetheless, in 1999 there were about thirty active Buddhist organizations and centres in Belgium, representing all traditions of Buddhism.