In Buddhism, there are postures, which indicate the position of the body, and gestures, (sometimes referred to as mudras) which indicate the position of the hands. Not only do they represent the most important events in the life of the Buddha, but they evoke a particular spiritual attitude or trait. These poses have been codified over the centuries and a different one assigned to each of the seven days of the week, plus one extra for Wednesday and Thursday. The question of the title "What Is Your Buddha?" refers to the day one was born on. The Buddha of that day is one's Buddha.

Each chapter of the book covers one day's pose containing: a description of the pose itself; the historical legend revealing the background and significance of the pose; the essence or what the pose dissolves; and the proper placement of the image in the environment. In addition, each chapter contains a series of chants and meditations specific to that days Buddha.

Born in Thailand, the author, P. W. Servais (aka Oi Servais), after living in Europe, married a successful international executive and moved to Danville, California, where she found herself leading the life of an American surburban housewife and pursuing a hectic career as a real estate broker. However, after years of this she started exhibiting all the symptoms of chronic depression without knowing why. The death of her mother, and a return to Thailand for her funeral, made her pause long enough to see that the spiritual aspects of her past that she had so casually abandoned needed to be brought back into her life. The image of the Buddha, which had surrounded her in childhood, needed to be reintroduced into her contemporary experience. This led her to write What Is Your Buddha? as she delved into her own spiritual ancestry and its relation to life in the modern world.