How has Buddhism changed and identify two effects of this change?
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It has morphed many times to incorporate aspects of the rituals and religions it found.
The earliest Buddhism of which we have any record is known today as Therevada, which still flourishes in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and other countries. It is a strict form of Buddhism, separating lay from monk and emphasizing study of the early writings along with begging and meditation.
When Buddhism reached Tibet, however, it found a existing and hugely rich tradition of gods and stories, and Buddhism absorbed it, creating Tibetan Buddhism. Again, there is strict separation between monk and lay, but there is much more ritual and a very formal hierarchy of monks by educational attainment.
When Buddhism got to China and Japan, it encountered a more austere approach to things, and it changed into what we know today as Zen (which is popularly believed to be from Japan, but was born in China). Zen completely refigured Buddhism, emphasizing sitting in "zazen" rather than study of scriptures, and the use of koans and other means of kicking the mind out of its accustomed ruts and achieving enlightenment suddenly, or in some schools gradually, but always as a result of retraining the mind with shocks and long meditation. Zen says that any mundane daily event can be a door into enlightenment.
Buddhism has changed again in the West, especially in the US, where ordinary people have taken on meditation and other practices. Early on, monks from other countries were astonished to find laymen sitting as monks do elsewhere. This fusion of monk and layman is unusual. But Buddhism has never stopped changing, so this too was assimilated and turned into practice. Because Buddhism is not a religion in the Western sense, lacking both theology and a god, it is free to adapt to whatever culture it encounters. Despite its many new faces, Buddhism retains its core: the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.
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