Source: ABC News

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030912_120.html

On September 12, 2003 ABC News reported that "the 14th Dalai Lama is simultaneously the exiled monarch of Tibet, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning statesman and Buddhism's most renowned world leader aspects that are all evident during his current U.S. tour. ...apparently the biggest gathering of Buddhist teachers ever held in the United States. Only followers of the Dalai Lama's own Tibetan form of the faith are invited, although some speakers will come from other traditions...Such get-togethers are rare because North American Buddhism is highly individualistic and decentralized, with less unity and nationwide cooperation than is found in Christianity, Judaism or Islam.... One survey puts U.S. Buddhists at 3 million to 4 million. Most are immigrants, their numbers swelled by the 1965 liberalization of U.S. immigration laws."