There's Buddhism and then there's Buddhism.

That's the premise of David McMahan's book "The Making of Buddhist Modernism," just out from Oxford University Press.

Actually, there are many forms of Buddhism, in which one loses oneself to find enlightenment — to be released from the cycle of birth, death and suffering.

They include the popular Tibetan Buddhism, practiced by the Dalai Lama, whose mantra is to bring peace to the world by bringing peace to each individual through love, compassion and altruism.

Buddhism is an ancient religion that began more than 2,000 years ago. But in the West, McMahan writes, it also can be a modern, secular philosophy that's compatible with other religions and even science.

McMahan, Franklin & Marshall associate professor of religious studies, said scientists, interested in how meditation and loss of ego affect body organs, use monks as test subjects in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines.

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk during the Vietnam War now living in France, applies Engaged Buddhism to social and political problems including war, environmental destruction, poverty and HIV/AIDS.

To explain the thesis of his book, McMahan sometimes makes the analogy between Buddhism and Chinese food.

"People in the United States often think of Chinese food as, say, sweet and sour pork or Kung Pao chicken," he wrote in an e-mail, "and then are surprised if they go to China — or even to places in Chinatown where Chinese people actually eat — and find that it's very different: more likely to be squid meatballs, frogs legs, sheep stomach, etc.

"Then they realize that Chinese food in America is actually its own thing — a hybrid between Chinese and American food.

"Similarly, the Buddhism that westerners know is a unique hybrid of Buddhist ideas and practices with bits of the European Enlightenment, romanticism, Protestantism, transcendentalism, mid-20th-century counter-culture, etc.

"That doesn't mean either American Buddhism or sweet and sour pork is somehow wrong or inauthentic — I like them both! But they are modern adaptations with roots in both Asian and western cultures."

McMahan has traveled extensively to India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Japan, China, Indonesia and Thailand where Buddhism is practiced more as a ritual — with prayers, candles, incense, statues and holidays — than a meditation to clear the mind and live in the moment.

"It's not about the big philosophical questions," he said. "They live it in an everyday way, just like most Christians practice Christianity."

McMahan, 43, grew up in St. Clairsville, Ohio, in a "very religious, very conservative Christian home," in a evangelical faith, an offshoot of the Plymouth Brethren movement, founded in Dublin in 1827.

"Part of my study of religion comes from questioning that at an early age," he said.

He went on to study psychology and philosophy at Kent State University, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1987, followed by a master of arts degree in religious studies in 1991 from Florida State University and a doctorate in religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1998.

He taught for a year at the University of Vermont before coming to F&M nine years ago.

McMahan frequently attends the Red Rose Sangha, a Zen meditation group that meets at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday nights.

"It gets me through the day more sanely," he said. "I found it resonated with me. It keeps me grounded, so I can do my tasks."

But he is not exclusively a Buddhist. Rather he said he draws from a number of traditions, both religious and secular.

"Ultimately I don't think any religion has a monopoly on truth," he said.

At F&M, where he also chairs the religious studies department, McMahan teaches Asian religions, Introduction to Buddhism, Buddhism in America, Hinduism, and Self, Society and Nature in China and Japan.

"They are popular courses," he said. "The students are interested and surprised by what they find.

"Often, when you go to a bookstore and pick up a book about Buddhism, it's predigested, western," he said. "We go back and read texts from 2,000 years ago."

"The Making of Buddhist Modernism," an academic text geared for college seniors or first-year graduate students, is available for sale at the campus bookstore.

McMahan's wife, artist Karen Sattler, did the cover art for the book. She is co-editor of "The Green Pages, a Guide to Sustainable Business in Lancaster and York Counties" and co-founder of Susquehanna Sustainable Business Network.