How do I choose a school in Buddhism? 

What criteria should I use? 

The Buddha taught 84,000 methods, a number symbolizing uncountable. All methods are equally good—no one method is superior or inferior to another. Each person just needs to find the most suitable one in light of their abilities and the way they live. 

In your search, you might listen to different teachers, read various books, and check out Buddhist websites.

If you live where there is a Buddhist center, you could visit it to get a better feeling for the practice and teachings. If there isn’t a center close by, you might attend a day-long or weekend retreat to see if the practice and teachings feel appropriate for you.

Finding the right method depends on your conditions. Recognizing the method is mainly intuitive. When you are fortunate enough to find the correct method for you, everything just feels right—the practice, the teachings, the people—everything. This rightness has been likened to a feeling of “coming home.” Finally.

Whether learning or teaching . . . (Click image for video)

“We are to endure what others cannot 

and practice what others cannot achieve.” 

These words from Pure Land Patriarch Yinguang were spoken to guide and encourage us. While others engage in perceived pleasures, and are so often enthralled by them, we are to challenge ourselves to seek other rewards.

Like meeting basic needs instead of indulging ourselves.

Knowing that being uncomfortable is OK, with no need to remedy it.

Living simply so that others will have a better chance at survival, now and in the future.

Seeking true joy rather than fleeting, often hedonistic, worldly happiness.

In lives uncountable, we existed in ignorance because good teachers were absent. And so we squandered our good fortune and burned our merits with our anger. But in some other lives, we practiced. Doing so, we set the stage for this lifetime, this rarest of opportunities to practice what so many others do not have the conditions or inclination to.

And so as the Master wisely advised, we are to practice. Do not follow the others who do not.