Introduction
Practising Buddhism and being a Buddhist are two different things. You may not be a Buddhist but you can still practice Buddhism. On the other hand, you may be a Buddhist but not practice Buddhism. Quite different from both practising and being is becoming a Buddhist.
On the one extreme are the Westerners who experiment with Buddhist practice but do not become Buddhists. They miss the full benefit of the practice. On the other extreme are the Easterners, born in Buddhist countries and brought up in Buddhist cultures, who call themselves Buddhists but do not practise Buddhism. They get very little benefit, if any at all, from Buddhism. There is a third intermediate group of people, however, that avoids both extremes; that is, those who become Buddhists. They are the ones who really benefit from the teaching of the Buddha.
Those who call themselves Buddhists just because they have been born into a Buddhist family or because they practise some rituals, are mistaken. One does not become a Buddhist by birth, by practice, or even by initiation. One becomes a Buddhist by what one is. Buddhists by birth as well as non-Buddhists, practitioners of Buddhism or otherwise, can become Buddhists if they want to and know how. To do so, one has to understand what one is.