MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And it is August. For a lot of kids across the country, that means summer camp. According to the National Study of Youth and Religion, nearly 40% of American teenagers have attended camps with some religious affiliation. Christianity has been part of summer camp since camping started. Jewish camps followed later, but only a handful of American summer camps are Buddhist. Reporter Deena Prichep spent the day at one of them.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Chanting, inaudible).
DEENA PRICHEP, BYLINE: Dharma Camp is in the foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains, an hour outside of Portland. In some ways, it's like every other sleepaway camp - swimming hole...
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER SPLASHING)
PRICHEP: ...Friendship bracelets, dusty fields. But there's also a meditation service in the Zen tradition.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)
PRICHEP: Campers actually spend the entire morning in silence, quietly doing chores, eating a wordless breakfast. The only real noise comes when they chant a Buddhist sutra of compassion.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Chanting, inaudible).
PRICHEP: If you think teens and tweens might kind of struggle to start their day in silent reflection, you would not be wrong.
CYRUS BOYD: Honestly, my first day at camp, I'm always like, oof, I have to sit for 20 minutes. But it kind of grows on you, you know?
PRICHEP: Cyrus Boyd is 16, one of the older campers. For the youngest, like 10-year-old Isabell Brice, the quiet morning can be even more challenging.
ISABELL BRICE: You just want to talk and talk and talk. Like, you just want to talk about your dreams and like, oh, I saw a flying chameleon. Oh, I saw a flying whale.
PRICHEP: It's not easy. But a lot of the kids come to really get something out of it, like 12-year-old Evie Phillips.
EVIE PHILLIPS: I'm definitely going to meditate, like, a lot more after this 'cause, like, it just calms you down and stuff.
PRICHEP: Dharma Camp started over 30 years ago. Kakumyo Lowe is the abbot at Portland's Dharma Rain Zen Center and is here for his 27th summer.
KAKUMYO LOWE: This is a fairly, like, low church environment, so to speak. But we have monks here. We have priests here. You know, we're wearing robes for service. It's just kind of sprinkled throughout the entire day, and most of it is summer camp. Most of it feels like playtime.
PRICHEP: But even that play is shaped by Buddhist practice, like their version of color war, where each team is competing on behalf of a particular enlightened figure from the Buddhist lineage.
UNIDENTIFIED COUNSELOR: Welcome to the Bodhisattva Olympics.
(CHEERING)
PRICHEP: As the counselors explain, these games are not about trouncing the other team.
UNIDENTIFIED COUNSELOR: We're watching how you work together, if you're cooperating, if you're being kind, if you're staying calm.
PRICHEP: One event involves a sort of live-action version of Hungry Hungry Hippos, where kids on scooters snag plastic eggs...
UNIDENTIFIED CAMPER #1: (Laughter).
PRICHEP: ...And then use the words hidden inside to craft haiku about Dharma Camp.
UNIDENTIFIED CAMPER #2: Trust your history. Even beyond death, it is steady from deception.
UNIDENTIFIED COUNSELOR: Wow. Amazing.
(CHEERING)
PRICHEP: It's creative and silly, but also Buddhist. This camp is a way to instill religious practice and values, which faith-based camps have been doing since summer camp began. Jacob Sorenson is the director and lead researcher at Sacred Playgrounds, an organization that works with Christian summer camps.
JACOB SORENSON: It immerses them in a really faith-centric environment. So that gives that opportunity to consider the question - hey, do I really believe this stuff? Do I really believe this faith that I was raised in?
PRICHEP: Sorenson says that at a time when religious identity is on the decline, data suggests that faith-based camps of any faith may make an impact. But not all Dharma Camp parents are Buddhist, and even some that are, like Konen Clark, say religious identity is not really the goal for their kids.
KONEN CLARK: It's not so much that I necessarily want him to become a Buddhist as that I just - I want him to have that experience of being around people whose hearts are open, who have a practice of coming back to compassion.
PRICHEP: Dharma Camp seems to be doing a surprisingly good job of translating that compassion into a daily summer camp schedule. It's a mix of mindfulness and playfulness and religious practice.
VIOLET O'HERRON: Every year when I leave Dharma Camp, my mom tells me I have this glow.
PRICHEP: Nineteen-year-old Violet O'Herron has gone from camper to counselor.
O'HERRON: Like, I have this profound sense of self that I always find here and then can take with me wherever else I go.
PRICHEP: Evenings at Dharma Camp end around a campfire. The occasional eagle flies by, the sun goes down, and the stars and guitars come out.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing) Spin me, Buddha, like a dharma wheel.
PRICHEP: One of the Buddha's core teachings is that everything is impermanent. Campers here have been learning the Zen practice of being still in the middle of all that flux and listening to what's true - that fires will go out, summer will end, and these kids will become adults. And maybe they'll take a piece of this camp with them. For NPR News, I'm Deena Prichep. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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