Amos,

That is true of course and the essence of a religion is shared belief or feeling. But most people interpret the word religion as having spiritual connotations. Most Buddhists do have spiritual belief but many do not. Since an adherence to Buddhism essentially comprises a journey towards "the centre of oneself" and an understanding of the nature of things some, perhaps the narrow-minded and silly amongst us (;>), do argue that it is a philosophy of life rather than a "classical" religion.

Poppagator,

The majority of Buddhist monks are members of a particular tradition, e.g. in the Tibetan tradition Gelugpa (the Dalai Lama's tradition), Kagyu, Nyingma and Sakya (and some would argue Bonpa as well). Each of these has a long tradition up to 1000 or more years) and tends to have its own main focus in practise, e.g. in Gelugpa, study and learning; in Kagyu, meditation) although these are not mutually exclusive. Theravadan (or "Southern", e.g. Thailand, Sri Lanka) Buddhism has its own tradition as does Zen Buddhism. Many practitioners in the West are not necessarily affiliated to any particular school or tradition.