I have favorite Buddhists the way that, in my youth, I once had favorite baseball players. They are like athletes of the soul, to my mind. Which may well be a frivolous way of thinking of them, I don’t know. One of my favorite Buddhists is Japhy Ryder, the fictionalized version of the poet Gary Snyder, in Jack Kerouac’s novel The Dharma Bums. I have a great love for Kerouac himself, who remained Catholic throughout his life, but who valued Buddhism so highly that he would combine the very practice of it with his own faith, as is evident in his writings.