| | I can tell you that having sat a little bit at a Kadampa center long ago, they are into their thing, and so if you go there you should meet them on their own terms as best you can, which is good general advice for all groups.
Particularly worth knowing is that they will likely reflexively make the Theravada=Hinayana Association, contrast that with "their" Mahayana, make a split in their minds by the standard comparison tendency, and then approach what you say from that point of view unless things are played carefully. This is just because they get so much of that and thus conditioning comes into play.
Knowing this, you might be careful about disclosing background or Theravadan influence initially until you get where they are coming from, assuming you go in the Kadampa direction.
As the man said, it is interesting to draw from various perspectives, as at least you will then be somewhat culturally fluent for later dialogue at the very least, and you may gain something from the practices and perspectives also, as for all the trappings and transposed cultural oddities, most of the traditions have good stuff buried under all that somewhere.
Daniel |