Buddhist Schools and Traditions
23 Buddhist schools and traditions - from Theravada to Secular Buddhism. Explore the history, practice, and key teachers of each path.
Theravada
Goenka Vipassana
The vipassana meditation tradition in the lineage of S.N. Goenka and Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Ten-day silent retreats with body scanning technique, noble silence, and a donation-based teaching model.
Insight Meditation (Western Vipassana)
Western lay meditation movement founded by Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg. Vipassana practice adapted for non-monastic life with psychological depth.
Mahasi Vipassana
Burmese insight meditation tradition. The noting technique - rising, falling, sitting, touching - and the map of Progress of Insight stages.
Pa-Auk Method
Burmese tradition of deep jhana meditation following the Visuddhimagga. Samatha first, then vipassana - the complete path through all four jhanas.
Thai Forest Tradition
Strict Theravada monastic tradition founded by Ajahn Mun in the early 20th century. Life in forest monasteries, meditation, and Vinaya observance.
Mahayana
Chan (Chinese)
Historical root of all Zen traditions, Chinese character, syncretism.
Fo Guang Shan (Humanistic Buddhism)
Buddhism for this world - education, charity, culture, practice.
Jodo Shinshu (Pure Land)
Radical 'other-power' (tariki), faith over meditation, lay-centered community.
Korean Son (Jogye Order)
Korea's unified Buddhist tradition. Hwadu practice - one question for a lifetime, 108 bows, Templestay program.
Nichiren Buddhism
A tradition built on exclusive devotion to the Lotus Sutra. One practice - daimoku - replaces all practices. Conviction, activism, and transformation of the world here and now.
Plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Buddhist tradition founded by Thich Nhat Hanh in 1982 in southern France. Mindfulness in everyday life, engaged Buddhism, accessible practice for everyone.
Rinzai Zen
The Zen tradition that uses the koan as a battering ram against conceptual thinking. Intensive koan practice, sudden awakening (kensho), and direct confrontation with habitual thought patterns.
Soto Zen
Japanese Zen school founded by Dogen Zenji in the 13th century. The practice of shikantaza - just sitting, without goal or object.
Vajrayana
Gelug
The most structured school of Tibetan Buddhism. Lamrim graduated path, philosophical debate, twenty-year monastic curriculum.
Kagyu
The practice school of Tibetan Buddhism. Mahamudra as direct introduction to the nature of mind, Six Yogas of Naropa, three-year retreat, and living transmission from teacher to student.
Nyingma
Oldest Tibetan Buddhist school, Dzogchen, terma tradition.
Sakya
Scholarly tradition, Lamdre (Path and Fruit), sutra-tantra integration.
Shingon
Japanese esoteric Buddhism, mandalas, mantras, mudras, fire ceremonies.
Reformist
Navayana (Ambedkar)
Buddhism of social liberation. A movement of tens of millions of Indian Dalits, founded by B.R. Ambedkar in 1956.
Triratna
Western ecumenism, friendship and community, balance of study, meditation, and ethics.
Won Buddhism
Korean reformism, modernized practice, gender equality, Zen in daily life.