From the outside, the nondescript two-story structure seems like any other home lining the streets of this Dallas neighborhood.
It's only when you step inside, especially inside the shrine room, that the differences appear. The room, a riot of color, sounds and fragrance, is the heart of Karma Thegsum Choling Dallas, a Tibetan Buddhist meditation center - a station, Buddhists would say, on the road to enlightenment.
It is in this 3,700-square-foot home, built in 1945, that followers of the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism have meditated, prayed and learned for several years. They come here to discover a religion and way of life new to most of them.
"This is place for spiritual seeking," said Beth Keenan, a member of the center.
"I would say that thousands of people have been through here, looking for something. Very few of them have made a direct connection and stayed. But a lot of people have been able to use what they learn here."
Therona Ramos, another member, agreed. She said many who visit the center, in Dallas' North Oak Cliff neighborhood, may not even know what they're looking for.
"But when they come here, they find something that's deeper than what they've experienced, and that touches them," she said.
The Dallas center, like many established in the West since the 1970s, is made up almost entirely of non-Asians.
Experts say American Buddhism is composed of two groups. One includes people who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from traditional Buddhist lands - Tibet, India, Vietnam, and Japan.
A smaller number, but one that has grown in recent decades, includes people like most of those at the Dallas center - non-Asian, native-born Americans.
They come from many religious backgrounds. Keenan was Southern Baptist. Her husband, Larry, grew up agnostic. Kay Lisch, who helped establish the center, was raised Catholic.
"I still feel like I have roots in Catholicism. I have great respect for that whole tradition of Catholicism," Lisch said. "But I was looking for something that would take you deeper into your soul."
For years she read and researched various Eastern religions, and even traveled to India. Lisch said it was in 1976, when she was a graduate student at Ohio State University, that she found Tibetan Buddhism.
"It was sort of like falling in love. Right away I knew this was what I had been looking for," she said.
While there are several Buddhist centers and temples in the area, members point out that the Oak Cliff location is the only one in North Texas that follows the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, which emphasizes meditation and oral teaching.
Buddhism, which originated in northeast India in the sixth century B.C., focuses on finding a way to become awakened, or enlightened. As it spread throughout Asia, it developed in different ways in different countries and cultures.
In Tibet, four major lineages developed, including the Kagyu tradition.
The Oak Cliff center is led by resident Lama Dudjom Dorjee, a widely known Tibetan monk previously based in Santa Cruz, Calif.
On most Sunday mornings, Lama Dorjee presides over a group of about 30 followers, ranging in age from late teens to late middle age. The group begins with a time of directed meditation, followed by a talk from Lama Dorjee, who lectures and teaches around the country.
The lama shares what he believes are the important elements of Tibetan Buddhism. On one recent Sunday, for example, he talked about the goals of wisdom and compassion.
"Wisdom without compassion doesn't work," he told the members.
Officials said the Dallas center has a membership of about 50 people, but twice that many attend classes or talks there.
"People find us in many different ways," said Assistant Director Bruce Roe. "A lot of people find us in the Yellow Pages - under Churches-Buddhist - and a lot of people these days find us on the Internet."
Roe estimated that as many as 70 percent of the people who come to the center to inquire about Buddhism do not become members or even regular attendees. Many are simply looking for information or classes on meditation.
And, he added, that is perfectly fine with the center.
The Dallas center was officially opened in 1984 when it was founded by Venerable Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche. But its roots go back to 1982.
That is when Lisch and her husband, having just arrived in North Texas from Ohio, decided they wanted to start a Buddhist meditation group like the one they'd attended back home.
"It actually started in our garage in Duncanville, where we lived at the time," she said. Once the center was officially established in 1984, "that magnetized a group of people fairly quickly," and the center grew, she said.
Members met in people's homes for several years, and on special occasions they would hold events at local hotels. In 1990, members decided to buy a dilapidated two-story house in Oak Cliff and turn it into their center's home.
In addition to the regular Sunday gatherings, the house is used for special occasions.
On a chilly morning a few weeks ago, the center celebrated Losar, the Tibetan New Year, with a special ceremony - at 6 a.m.
In the predawn dark, about 25 people, many of them baby boomers, gathered in the shrine room, sitting on cushions and praying softly. Some wore traditional Tibetan outfits.
"The idea of Losar is that it is a New Year, a new day," Lama Dorjee told them. "It is a time to use only good adjectives about everything. A time to speak only good about people and to people."
Lama Dorjee noted that many were wearing fine clothes on this special day, and they were likely to get them soiled by getting on the floor.
"If clothes get dirty, you use detergent to get them clean," he said. "It's the same thing in life. If you do something wrong, let it go. Don't carry it with you."
A five-member board of directors selected by the general membership runs the center.
Larry Keenan, who heads that board, explained that the group operates under bylaws and guidelines provided by the national headquarters of the lineage, which is based just outside Woodstock, N.Y.
Keenan said he knows that there is some discussion about whether Buddhism is a religion, since it is not centered on God.
"My personal opinion is that it is a religion. We have rituals. We pray. We have a body of doctrine," he said. "But our focus is on trying to become a Buddha, which just means being awake, to attain enlightenment.
"We believe that you can wake up a completely and entirely different sense of viewing your world and yourself," Keenan said.
One of the biggest misconceptions about people like himself, those who turn to Buddhism to improve themselves, is that they're selfish, Keenan said.
"People think that we meditate and look for happiness only for ourselves," he said. "But what we're doing is developing compassion and a desire to help others. We're doing that so we can make ourselves available to help others."