Question

Hello Rabbi Michael,
Here are a few facts about Buddhism, based on my initial survey:

• The main teaching of the Buddhists is dealing with the question of human suffering and the path laid out by the first Buddha (the meaning of the word “Buddha” is “the awakened one”), who lived about 3,000 years ago and was a prince named Siddhartha Gautama. According to Buddhist tradition, he left his palace and the comfortable life his parents had given him and devoted his life to finding a solution to human suffering. The main point of his approach is that suffering in this world is unavoidable, and the way to free oneself from it is to attain enlightenment (nirvana).
• All believing Buddhists accept his teaching and see themselves as his students and as continuing the path of the first Buddha, and therefore they place statues of him. In bowing to the statue, they are essentially accepting him as their teacher. Likewise, their temples are more like a “study hall” for learning and reviewing the Buddha’s teaching, and a place to practice meditation. The bowing itself is only meant to show that they accept the first Buddha as their teacher and his teaching; they do not worship him, offer sacrifices to him, or relate to him as if he were alive. To distinguish, of course, this might perhaps be compared to hanging a picture of a great rabbi in a study room (“and your eyes shall behold your teachers”).
• In some of the stories about the Buddha there are various gods or idols, but they are not really worshipped the way they are in pagan religions. According to Buddhism, they are actually part of the cycle of life, death, and rebirth (it is not clear exactly how they die), and they are generally described simply as beings who live in higher worlds. But they do not intervene in a person’s life or fate. Some claim they were borrowed for Buddhist parables from the Hindu culture that existed in that region at the time.
• Many people think Buddhism includes “reincarnation,” but that is not precise. In Buddhism there is no “self” (the ego) that exists in the world; rather, they believe that the ego is an illusion, and all the more so that this “self” does not return to the world after bodily death. Rather, they believe in what is called a “stream of consciousness,” which as I understand it (it really is a somewhat vague concept there) is the sum total of habits, cognitive conditioning, and impressions on the soul that cause a person to identify with his current form of life, and that bring him suffering in his life. So when a person dies, that same “stream of consciousness” continues on to the next form of life (what they call rebirth), until the person reaches what they call “nirvana,” which is total liberation from human suffering. But there is disagreement among Buddhist thinkers themselves about the nature of reincarnation, and some even claim it (like the gods) was borrowed from Hindu culture, which does believe in actual reincarnation.

So that is just a tiny bit regarding Buddhism, and without getting into whether it is nonsense, etc., my question is: if all of the above is true regarding Buddhism—does Buddhism count as idol worship at all? Is it permissible to study it? To visit Buddhist temples while traveling abroad? Is there any prohibition on keeping a Buddha statue at home?
Seemingly, they do not believe at all in a transcendent Creator God who gave a specific Torah and watches over and punishes His creatures. In fact, they emphasize that the first Buddha was a human being and not a god, and that, in their view, is what gives a sense of connection to him and to his teaching of liberation from suffering.
It is worth noting that even today Buddhist teachers are arising in the West who offer a secular approach to Buddhism, stripping away various features that might classify it as a religion (such as reincarnation, or stories that feature gods or idols), and teaching only the Buddha’s doctrine of release from human suffering (part of the New Age). In addition, there are those who claim it is not a religion at all, but rather a philosophy or a way of life.
Sorry for the length; I would be glad to hear your opinion.