Dear John H:

In the Jodo Shinshu sect of Pure Land Buddhism, there was an attempt, after the internment of the 2nd World War, to be as American-looking as possible. Hence, unlike other Buddhist sects, they actaully have pews, and call their houses of worship churches, and, to answer your question, they inded have Sunday School. However the Tibetans and the Zennies and others go for the exotic look, which attract a lot of people too. So there's a few ways to run the game. Buddhism, like Judaism, or Christianity, or Hinduism, or Islam, is practiced in so many wildly contradictory ways that one can only say something vague like this:

"Buddhism is a vast collection of ideologies whose methods of salvation, even within the same schools, are so variegated that we can only say that they all refer back, in some way or another, often not logically, back to Siddhartha Gotama, that is Shakyamuni Buddha, that particular Buddha is said by some to have been a historical character from North India. But beyond that, there are, in the "Buddha Speaks of Amitabha Sutra," which I chant small portions of with some frequency passages saying such things as " . . . the hundreds of thousands of million of Buddhas of the other directions." And some sutras go on listing Buddhas allegedly originating at the dawn of the Universe itself, or even billions of universes before this one in the cosmic cylce who preached, "expedient means", meaning any friggin' way that you could device to trick, smoothy, reason, motivate, cajole or beat people into enlightenment, and each would vary according to time, place, culture and prevailing circumstances and psychologies." Alas, finally, no answer of any sort can be given that would carry weight at the nearest temple probably a mile from your house. So the first task of a Buddhist, is to sort of drift around various books, temples, teachers, celebrities, acquaintances or whatever or whoever, and see if anything tugs at one. If so, one sort of stumbles into that theory for a while, and this may go on for decades until something, some person, some scripture, some method, makes one feel at home or comfortable or on the path, and then one sticks with that for a number of years until the wheel turns again. In this way, it is very similar to some Hindu journeys, although Hinduism has a bit more to say and preach, whereas Buddhism is always sort of turning back on itself and making sure it's never to smug.

Very cool! Welcome!

I've had the good fortune of meeting Prof. Unno, very compassionate, down-to-earth man.

I'll have to devote more time to this tribe to get some conversations going. :)