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Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter
I would sooner convert to Buddhism than any other religion, though. I like their philosophy of peace, enlightenment, and tapping in with your surroundings.
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Converting to it makes little sense, since converting to it has no real meaning for you or anybody else and will help you nothing. Of course there are many schools and sects and lineages you can gain membership in, and they have ceremonies and rituals like other religions, but all that has nothing to do with what Buddha wanted to point at, at best it teaches you over time what "
it" is
not. You already have one head on your shoulders, and you don't need somebody else's head put on top of it, not even Buddha's, so use what you've already been given. All what you will ever need you already have.
Learn about and then check for yourself with reason and logic the basic ideas of Siddharta's reasoning and argument. What you find convincing in your analysis and find to be of good for you and others, and not being at the cost of anybody else - keep that and live by it. Doing so is a thousand times better than practicing rituals and "spiritual practices". If you do so, the rest will come by itself. There is no enlightenment you could "gain". Free your mind from images and conceptions. Stop worrying about whether you want to "convert" to Buddhism or not. It is totally unimportant and will give you nothing, and the question can only hinder you. Leave it behind like the steps of the stairs behind you - you hardly give them any second thought, do you.
Stop searching for something, and don't yearn for it outside yourself. That's the essence of Buddhist practice, really, and it is quite simple: awareness. But people do not believe that and start to hassle around. Not before then life become's complicated and mind gets upset. Ideas raise, theories and and clever thoughts, arguments are given and counter-arguments appear - clearness leaves, confusion reigns.
Best way to clear a muddy water is not trying to clear it - but to let it be.