This follows a side-discussion on the syncretic potential of western liturgical and religious traditions for introducing Buddhism to people. You know, people who wouldn’t otherwise get anywhere close to a Buddhist monastery or temple.
Admittedly, my phrase syncretic potential will turn some people off or even be upsetting – please don’t keep reading if it does!
Otherwise, Snowbird and Aahan’s comments above seem worthy of attention and more discussion.
As well as Ven. Khemarato’s. I found my way to Buddhism through a yoga studio – not through the yoga itself but because the front desk had postcards on display that advertised a Buddhist outreach event in the community. If not for that, I don’t know how much longer it would have taken this blind turtle to poke its head into the yoke.
I agree with Ven. Khemarato that, absent a yoga studio experience, people may gravitate toward Tibetan centers (here in the US, anyway). They think, Oh, prayer flags and Tibetan-looking monastics who are obviously religious…Let me check that out. Are there more Tibetan centers in the US than any other kind of Buddhist center? (I don’t know which is why I’m asking.)
Interestingly, in the small-size city in the southeast US where I grew up, there’s now a Tibetan center right in the center of suburbia. A converted house and lawn. Visited by the Dalai Lama himself 
.
The few times I’ve been there, I’ve notice a preponderance of cars in the parking lot with window stickers from the local Roman Catholic high schools. It makes me think that, indeed, there’s magnetism for Roman Catholics because of the ornate atmosphere inside, the bells, the incense, the chanting – even though no one understands what’s being chanted.
And I have to think that most of these folks go back and forth between their Roman Catholic mass experience and the Tibetan Sunday programs.
I read the article and did a little more research on the cited temple. Importantly, the temple is located in Houston, Texas, which is one of the largest cities with a heavy evangelical Christian presence.
So we see an unimagined syncretism between a version of Vietnamese Pure Land Buddhism and Latino Roman Catholicism in a large city dominated by the so-called prosperity gospel movement.
For those who aren’t averse to going on Instagram every now and then, here’s a very short video that reflects this syncretism. It’s posted on the temple’s official Instagram site.
I have learned of syncretic evangelical Christian and Latino Roman Catholic communities as well. So I realize that’s happening too.
This reflection leads me to larger questions of what’s happening as these Buddhist syncretisms develop.
I, for one, increasingly sense a kind of materialist abyss with more secularized meditation programs. The Covid/post-Covid online culture has given way to a proliferation of these programs, most of which seem stripped of any respectful nod to their obvious Buddhist roots. (I think I’m done with those.)
Of course we can’t ignore the monumental crises that rightly demand our attention, effort, and repair. But is there such a thing as over-saturation with our earth-based commitments? This is what a secularized & stripped Buddhist approach feels like to me.
Many people in this culture would gingerly approach Buddhism if they felt like they didn’t have to give up their faith community at the same time. That’s the only way they would ever get close. I think that’s part of what’s happening in that Houston temple. Isn’t that Plum Village for a lot of people too?