Buddhism is for people who are concerned with improving the quality of everyday life without being required to adhere to obscure or magical beliefs. Appealing to those who have a sneaking feeling that life may not be as clear-cut as once believed, Buddhism encourages an unrelentless examination of "big questions"; its reward for this unswervingly honest look at beliefs and attitudes is increased happiness, kindliness and peace. Buddhism, on the other hand, is not for people who believe reflection to be a waste of time.

More important than the different traditions, which only confuse newcomers, are your feelings about teachers and the atmosphere which they have created around them. Keep in mind that much greater differences exist between teachers within a tradition than between traditions. The following list, paraphrased from "The Heart of Buddhism" by Guy Claxton, draws a rough and hopefully not too offensive outline of the kind of style you may expect. In Guy Claxton's words, "Don't take this too seriously."

Zen

Fairly traditional Zen, as you might find it in a Western Zen center or monastery, is mostly characterized by strictness, seriousness, an emphasis on real hard work and struggle in meditation, and the encouragement of a fairly grasping attitude towards "spiritual experiences" - though they deny it. They also have a puzzling attitude to thinking.

On the one hard they loudly condemn it as being a hindrance rather than a help on the Buddhist path. On the other they are clearly fascinated by it, and won't let it go. Some Zen teachers, particularly from the Rinzai school, see thinking as a dragon guarding the way to enlightenment, which has to be slain if progress has to be made, whereas the Theravadans lull it to sleep and quietly tiptoe round it and the Tibetans exercise it by training monks to be lightning fast thinkers in debate.

For contrast, look at a caricature of Alan Watts' approach. He once wrote a provocative essay called "Beat Zen, Square Zen and Zen" (included in the anthology called "This Is It"), in which he accused Zen monasteries, in Japan at least, of having become humourless character-building institutions on the model of the Victorian English public school. The response of much of the Buddhist "establishment" to this charge, and indeed to Watts' eloquent and profound writings in general, certainly gives evidence of the humourlessness. He is no longer with us to offer a "school" of his own, nor would he wish to if he were, but his emphasis on Buddhism as being "Nowhere to go, and no way to get there", very reminiscent of the attitude to be found in Tibetan dzogchen, for example, is a valuable antidote to the military solemnity of much orthodox Zen training.

Tibetan

If you like "religious", then Tibetan Buddhism may well be for you. If often looks like an exotic version of very High Church Christianity, with pictures of the "gods" and "saints", strange music, incense and lots of prayers and chanting. Tibetan teachers, quite rightly, are attached to their threatened culture, and are at pains to keep the rituals and observances alive. A tsok, or feast, for example which is celebrated on certain days, may consist of pretty well a whole day spent chanting in Tibetan while the teacher does important things that most of the students don't understand. There are also four schools within Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyimgma, Kagyu, Gelug and Sakya, as well a mysterious "inner teachings" like dzogchen - which actually looks like an escape from all the complexity into something that is very reminiscent of simple old Theravada.

Theravadin

Theravada Buddhism is seen as the oldest school and is rather looked down on by the others. Zen sees itself as a branch of the self-styled Mahayana school - the "Greater Vehicle" - which dubbed Theravada the "Lesser Vehicle", or Hinayana. Tibetan Buddhism is sometimes called Vajrayana, the "Diamond Vehicle", which is supposed to be a major improvement even on the Mahayana. "You can get there in a Hinayana Morris Minor, but it's better by Luxury Mahayana Coach, because there's room to pick up all the other sentient beings hitch-hiking along the way, and definitely faster by Vajrayana Ferrari." Some Buddhist teachers still remain uncritical of their own traditions and dogmatic in reproducing judgments about other people's. "...for what it's worth, Theravadan monks more reliably manifest the simple human-heartedness and sense of inner peace that I am after than do the others, for all their sophistication."

IMS

Insight Meditation Society, founded by two Americans who'd undergone extensive meditation training in the East, Joseph Goldstein in India and Jack Kornfield in Burma and Thailand. The approach which they brought back with them is basically Theravadin, but it focuses absolutely on the careful training of mindfulness within a framework of understanding that is basic, unpretentious and universal. For those who just want to get down to the business of meticulous self examination and who are willing to put in some hard work sharpening the tools of awareness and concentration, this is one of the simplest forms of Buddhism around right now.