The Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.

Mahayana Buddhism is very methodical and logical and makes you delve much deeper than you can imagine when you first begin.

My teacher is Tibetan and he teaches at the University of Arkansas. The administration had a difficult time placing him in a department because it is not philosophy and it is not religion. They created a department of Tibetan Cultural Studies. He teaches meditation and Buddhism. I'm grateful he comes to our little village once a month.

and in all things and is pure love. And I kind of think that other Buddhists believe in something like that. I know they teach compassion as one of the best virtues and one of the best ways to find happiness. And they teach that ridding one's self of all types of negativity is necessary if one is to be happy.

I heard a cool thing the other day from a Buddhist teacher and that was, "If you seek happiness for yourself only you will be unhappy. If you seek happiness for others you will be happy"

that do believe in a universal Buddha nature, however, I don't know many that would directly call it a 'God force' outside of America.

Theravadan Buddhism typically does not even concern itself with that type of metaphysical questioning.

Compassion and ending suffering both agree upon.

Have you ever directly asked Buddhist teachers, priests, monks, etc. about the 'woo' as you put it?

I am ignostic, and I have been involved with Buddhism for pushing 30 years. I have never had a problem with the more esoteric aspects because all the teachers I communicated with made it very clear to those who were asking that things like Medicine Buddha's, the Pure Land, etc. were metaphors, allegories, and the Saddhana's were creative visualizations in order to tap into the psychic realities of certain Buddha's. For example, there is no literal Medicine Buddha. What you do in a meditation to the Medicine Buddha is visualize yourself as the Medicine Buddha to access that 'healing' component of one's own psyche.

So I guess I am saying as one non-believer to another, don't let the more mystical and esoteric aspects dissuade you from exploring it more deeply. The meditative practices are very helpful. The basic moral philosophy is quite acceptable. And the teachings on 'mind' are beyond what most of us in the West have explored.

But it is completely unnecessary as well.

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_Buddhism

I'm not making this shit up as a go along. (Well I am, of course, but I'm not alone.)

and have never given it any thought. There is much more freedom dare I say in Eastern traditions to reject the more esoteric and still be left with a quite pragmatic philosophy and set of useful practices.

I am very aware of secular Buddhism and have met and worked with several of those teachers like Kornfield and Batchelor. While it appears to be a decidedly Western and more modern movement, it really isn't. There have been many such traditions through out Buddhism's 2500 year history from India to China to Japan.

For example, the Kwan Um Korean Zen tradition is very secular. Required reading in the sangha's is Batchelor's Buddhism without Beliefs. There are Japanese Tendai schools that are extremely secular. And historically, a tradition developed in China between the 5th and 9th centuries called Hua-Yen. It is philosophically no different than Whiteheadean process metaphysics. Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism; A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration Vs. Interpenetration is a book I would recommend if interested in the topic.

Lastly I would recommend checking out Tarthang Tulku's secular school of Nyingma Tibetan Buddhism out in CA. His series called Knowledge of Time & Space is quite interesting to read.

Enjoy

The rest is just window dressing.