When he was teaching many years ago at a retreat on Mt Ranier on the dreamlike nature of reality, I stood up and thanked him for these teachings directly from from our wonderful lineage of wise and kind teachers. Then I said that as a scientist I had another lineage from Archimedes through Galileo, Newton, Pasteur, and Darwin to Einstein and many others who found that close inspection of the phenomenal world as a shared reality can lead to deep understanding and amazing powers. He answered, "It's not a problem. Relative reality is orderly. If you plant an acorn you get an oak tree." This simple answer was very helpful to me. In a small group audience at that retreat, I asked him if I could be a good Buddhist if I didn't believe in rebirth. He told me that I didn't need to believe anything in particular to be a Buddhist. Then he looked right at me and said, "Still, you should make preparations."