Read the Basic Buddhism Guide posted by BuddhaNet, the website of the Buddha Dharma Education Association Inc., based in Australia. BuddhaNet is an effort to create a nonprofit, online “cyber sangha” of people committed to the Buddha’s teachings and lifestyle — an effort to combine an ancient tradition with the information superhighway.

Listen to a March 17, 2005, program from Minnesota Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith in which Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn speaks of “engaged Buddhism,” peace and mindfulness.

Read an interview from the May 2, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle with a Methodist-turned-Buddhist who took a six-year vow of silence.

View a multimedia presentation on the National Geographic website based on a December 2005 story in the magazine about the growth of Buddhism in the West. There is a link to an excerpt from the story (the full text is only available to subscribers).

The Buddhist Association of the United States operates the Chuang Yen Monastery, an education center in Carmel, N.Y., dedicated to explaining the different schools of Buddhism and the common beliefs uniting them.

Soka Gakkai International (SGI)-USA is an American Buddhist association based on the teachings of the Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism. Its website includes state-by-state contact information for Soka Gakkai centers around the United States.

Carl W. Bielefeldt is a professor of religious studies and director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University in California. He specializes in East Asian Buddhism and is editor of the Soto Zen Text Project, which is preparing annotated translations of the scriptures of the Soto school of Japanese Zen.

The Rev. Ejo McMullen is resident priest at the Eugene Zendo, a Soto Zen Buddhist temple in Eugene, Ore.

The seminary was founded in 1976. Its name and location have changed through the years; since 2006 it has been in Roswell, N.M.