I imagine Chinese lay Buddhists are often Pure Land rather than Chan no? I used to practise Soto zen with a teacher but now I’m Pure Land, but I don’t know which tradition yet. Pure Land doesn’t need a teacher or temple to be safe and effective though: you just recite Amitabha Buddhas name.

I think modern western Buddhists seem to reject anything that they don’t perceive right at this moment. Really they should at least be agnostic. Regardless the Buddha did teach too extensively about such things for it to make sense to ignore them. People try and say he was talking metaphorically, or that it was his shallower teaching for stupid people (even Thich Nhat Hanh says this! Imo to appeal to the western ego, because he does not say similar things in his Vietnamese teachings). I just think people need to step back for a minute and really think about why they want to identify as a Buddhist and what their relationship to the Buddhas teachings is