Can a person follow the teachings of Buddha and the teachings of Jesus at the same time? Well you can try and you’ll have some measure of success. The teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Buddha overlap and complement one another at different points of connection. At the same time they are distinct in different ways and so you’ll come to places where you need to make a choice about the nature of ultimate reality, about what love is and how we fully experienced it, about the role of grace versus karma, significantly different ways of looking at how the universe works. And so when that time of choice comes between the two, you can bounce back and forth, be friendly and non-committal but I would like to suggest that for some of us, we become like that person who just has commitment issues in our dating life. We want to continue to enjoy the best of everyone around us and so we date multiple people but as you grow old just dating and you never commit to one, there is a kind of richness and depth of intimacy and completeness of love that you will forfeit experiencing. You’ll have the joy of dating many but you’ll never have the joy of fully giving your life over to the one. And the same thing is true spiritually. And so I would encourage you to make a choice of who you’re going to marry, who you are going to give your life to and then for me, as someone who fully follows Jesus and allow his teaching to be my centerpiece, I can also learn from the Buddha, learn from other religious systems but I know who I’m committed to and we’re doing life together. Of course it still leaves the question for someone who follows Jesus: how do we do that well in a way that still respects and honors other religions but that’s another question.