My only experience of Buddhism was during a visit to Bhutan years ago, to visit a friend who was doing voluntary work there. We travelled through as much of the country as we could manage in a fortnight. Inevitably we visited Buddhist monasteries. Some things have remained with me: the spectral vision of giant hands hanging out of the blank windows of one monastery (they were, it would seem, hands for a statue hung out to dry by being suspended from their inner wires, rather than evidence of diabolic activity) and a monastery with lots of little boy oblates, who ranged from the tinies right up to teenagers, all in orange robes.