When you are trained as a Buddhist, you don't think of Buddhism as a religion. You think of it as a type of science, a method of exploring your own experience through techniques that enable you to examine your actions and reactions in a nonjudgemental way, with a view toward recognizing, "Oh, this is how my mind works. This is what I need to do to experience happiness. This is what I should do to avoid unhappiness."
(Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living.)
