Bert Tan does his second daily meditation Thursday night while facing a statue of the Buddha Amitabha in the basement of his Naperville home. Tan is the co-director of the Amitabha Buddhist Library in Lisle. The Library was started it in 2003 by Tan's wife Li-Su who serves as its director. The Tans, who practice a form of Buddhism called Pure Land Buddhism, travel around the world teaching people about Buddhism. Jonathan Miano / Staff photographer

Tan is the co-director of the Amitabha Buddhist Library in Lisle. The library was started in 2003 by Tan's wife Li-Su who serves as its director. The Tans, who practice a form of Buddhism called Pure Land Buddhism, travel around the world teaching people about Buddhism.

Tan: "I think Buddhism is commonly taken by people as a religion and in reality it is not and has never been, although the presentation, the formality, presents itself as a religious format. But the spirit of it has never intended to be a religion ... the reason is this. In Buddha Sakyamouni's time, which was in ancient India, there were so many different religions already, there was not a reason to invent another, quote unquote "better religion."

Buddha's compassion arose from very deep inside. He wanted to help people regardless of who you are, where you are, what you are. And therefore his great compassion is based on equality, total equality. And after six years of seeking the ultimate truth, ultimate reality, he became enlightened. He told us this is the reality we are facing. He never claimed himself to be a prophet or to be any type of representative of the god or anything. Neither he claimed that he had any type of communication with god. He is a human being. The difference between him and us is he is enlightened. ...

"My personal goal is to get myself enlightened. This is a long path. How long this path will be, really I don't know. I can only do what we call the cultivation, and the result will come based on the law of causality, which is the central idea of Buddhist teaching ... Whatever you do you are planting a seed. ...

"Buddhism practice is a day-by-day, moment-by-moment exercise. Its not two times a day, one time a day. However, when we say we do a daily practice, that is referring to a formalized time section when we want to put aside everything else to do our mind exercises. Meditation is just a way to cleanse our mind ... to clear up all the dirt from your mind. That is the way you can get down to what we call the Dhyana. Dhyana is a state that our mind is detached from everything, regardless whether it is good or bad in our terms. It is detached from everything. It is totally detached and has no binding to anything. No leash to anything. That is the purpose. Why do we do that? Buddha told us that Dhyana is the prerequisite to have our ultimate wisdom arise and function. Only in that state can our Buddha nature arise