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 by Mahashi Sayadaw. The noting technique - rising, falling, sitting, touching - and the map of Progress of Insight stages, Vipassana Nyanas.
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 Buddhism
The Chinese root of all Zen traditions. Direct pointing to mind, beyond scripture and philosophy. From Chan grew Japanese Zen, Korean Seon, and Vietnamese Thien.
Fo Guang Shan
Humanistic Buddhism from Taiwan. A global network of more than 200 temples, eclectic practice (nianfo, Chan, sutra study, social service), and an attempt to bring the Dharma back into everyday life.
Jodo Shinshu
Jodo Shinshu - "The True School of the Pure Land" - the largest Buddhist tradition in Japan. Radical "other-power" (tariki), nembutsu as gratitude, rejection of monasticism.
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
The oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism. Dzogchen as the pinnacle practice, the terma (treasure) tradition, the lineage of Padmasambhava, and a decentralized structure of six mother monasteries.
Sakya
Scholarly Tibetan Buddhist school with the Lamdre teaching (Path and Fruit) - integration of sutra and tantra, hereditary leadership in the Khon family for nearly a thousand years.
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 Buddhist order founded by Sangharakshita in 1967. A synthesis of traditions, emphasis on friendship and community, a reformist approach not tied to any single Asian culture.
Won Buddhism
Korean reformist tradition founded by Sotaesan in 1916. Buddhism for laypeople - a circle instead of a statue, mindfulness in daily life, a practice diary.
Secular
MBSR (Clinical Mindfulness)
Jon Kabat-Zinn's 8-week program that moved mindfulness meditation from a Buddhist context into a clinical one. An evidence-based approach to stress, pain, and anxiety - with no religious terminology.
Secular Buddhism
Stephen Batchelor's post-metaphysical approach. Buddhism without karma, rebirth, or cosmology - only meditation, ethics, and direct investigation of experience.