Freemasonry has a complex history—too much to discuss on this blog. Turning to Freemasonry in America, it played a major role in the formation of the U.S. George Washington was a Freemason as were other Americans like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

So what does Freemasonry have to do with Buddhism you ask? You’ll be surprised. Albert Pike, Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction, whose remains are in the House of the Temple in Washington D.C., had this to say about Buddhism.

"The first Masonic Legislator whose memory is preserved to us by history, was Buddha, who, about a thousand years before the Christian era, reformed the religion of Manous. He called to the Priesthood all men, without distinction of caste, who felt themselves inspired by God to instruct men. Those who so associated themselves formed a Society of Prophets under the name of Samaneans. They recognized the existence of a single uncreated God, in whose bosom everything grows, is developed and transformed. The worship of this God reposed upon the obedience of all the beings He created. His feasts were those of the Solstices. The doctrines of Buddha pervaded India, China, and Japan. The Priests of Brahma, professing a dark and bloody creed, brutalized by Superstition, united together against Buddhism, and with the aid of Despotism, exterminated its followers. But their blood fertilized the new doctrine, which produced a new Society under the name of Gymnosophists; and a large number, fleeing to Ireland, planted their doctrines there, and there erected the round towers, some of which still stand, solid and unshaken as at first, visible monuments of the remotest ages” (Morals and Dogma, p. 278).

The above is a little antiquarian in style not notwithstanding other problems, I bow to Albert Pike for at least having the presence of mind to make the Buddha “the first Masonic Legislator.” By making the Buddha the first Mason—if you read The Zennist bog—Freemasons have entered into the mysteries of mysteries; the religion that sets beings free from their bondage to temporal bodies (pañca-skandha) and the demiurge (i.e., Mara the Evil One).