The earliest stratum of the tradition and the schools that grew from it before the rise of the Mahāyāna: the shared root from which every later branch descends. Sometimes called Nikāya Buddhism, after the early ordination schools.
The "Teaching of the Elders": the one school of "early Buddhism" that survives "unbroken" through to the present. Dominant across Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia and preserving its canon in Pāli, Theravāda is the living root of the Thai Forest tradition and the source from which the modern Insight Meditation movement descends.
A Theravāda reform lineage of wandering forest monastics, renewed in the twentieth century by Ajahn Mun and carried on by Ajahn Chah, emphasizing strict Vinaya, meditation, and renunciation over scholarship. Widely influential in the West through Ajahn Chah's monastic descendants.
An influential early school whose Abhidharma scholars set out to catalogue the dharmas: irreducible elements of experience. The Sarvāstivāda school taught that dharmas truly exist across past, present, and future (sarva-asti or "all exists"). Long extinct as a living school, it remains important in the history of Buddhism: because its teachings on the realism of dharmas is what the Perfection of Wisdom literature and the Heart Sutra's "no form, no feeling…," was written to answer.
The "Great Vehicle" that arose around the turn of the common era, centered on the bodhisattva's vow to free all beings and on the emptiness of all things. This is the trunk from which Madhyamaka and Yogācāra thought, the Pure Land schools, and the entire Chan/Zen family grow.
Nāgārjuna's "Middle Way": the dialectic that empties all things of inherent existence (svabhāva) without collapsing into nihilism, holding the two truths together. Madhyamaka is the philosophical bedrock beneath Chan and Zen's language of emptiness.
The "Yoga Practice" school of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, which analyzed experience in terms of consciousness and its transformations, sometimes oversimplified as "mind-only." Its detailed map of mind feeds directly into Chan and Zen's understanding of awakening.
A devotional stream of Mahāyāna Buddhism centered on Amitābha Buddha and rebirth in his Pure Land, practiced through the recitation of his name (nembutsu). Long intertwined with Chan in China through "dual cultivation," and the most widely practiced form of Buddhism in East Asia.
Tendai is the Japanese inheritor of Chinese Tiantai, established on Mt. Hiei by Saichō, holding the Lotus Sutra at its center within a broad synthesis of doctrine, meditation, and precept. The seminary of Kamakura Buddhism: Dōgen, Eisai, Hōnen, Shinran, and Nichiren all trained on Hiei before founding their own schools, making it the ground from which Japanese Zen itself sprouted.
Nichiren (13th c., another of the Hiei-trained Kamakura founders) taught that the Lotus Sutra alone suffices in this degenerate age, and that practice is essentially the chanting of its title: Namu-myōhō-renge-kyō (also called the daimoku).
The Chinese school of meditation (chán, from the Sanskrit dhyāna) that traces itself to Bodhidharma and flowered in the Tang and Song eras. Chan prized direct insight into one's nature over doctrine and text. The trunk from which Zen, Seon, and Thiền all branch, and the world of the Tang ancestors who fill the koan collections.
The earliest of the "Five Houses of Chinese Chan", named for Guishan and his student Yangshan in the Nanyue/Mazu line. Guiyang is known for a subtle teaching style of paired exchange between master and student. Although its lineage did not survive, its founders remain familiar figures in the koan record.
One of the "Five Houses of Chinese Chan" descended through Linji Yixuan: the archetypal iconoclast of Chan (with shouts, blows, and the "true person of no rank"). Much of living Chan-derived practice traces to Linji as it crossed to Japan as Rinzai, to Korea as the dominant strand of Seon, and to Vietnam as Lâm Tế.
One of the "Five Houses of Chinese Chan" descended through Dongshan and Caoshan: known for the dialectic of the Five Ranks and a quieter, "just sittingShikantaza (只管打坐, shikan ta za) — "just sitting," or more precisely, "nothing but wholeheartedly sitting" - is the zazen practice central to Soto Zen Buddhism. It is objectless, goalless, method-free meditation: open awareness without a focus point, without striving toward any particular state. Read more about just sitting »" style of practice. Caodong was carried to Japan by Dōgen as Sōtō Zen: Caodong and Sōtō are the same line, read in two different languages.
One of the "Five Houses of Chinese Chan" descended through Xuefeng in the Qingyuan/Shitou line and known for its compressed "one-word barriers." No lineage survives, yet Yunmen's cases (like "every day a good day") are still turned over constantly in koan work, including in Sōtō collections such as the Shōyōroku.
The last of the "Five Houses of Chinese Chan" to form and descended Xuefeng in the Qingyuan line and named for Fayan Wenyi: noted for a precise, phenomenological teaching style and close ties to the early Pure Land synthesis. Its lineage is long extinct, though its masters endure in the koan collections.
The Japanese inheritance of Chinese Chan (zen being the Japanese reading of the same character, 禪), transmitted from the Kamakura period onward and developed into the distinct Rinzai, Sōtō, and Ōbaku lineages. Zen is the primary form through which Chan reached most of the Western world.
The Japanese inheritor of the Linji house of Chan, brought from China by Eisai and later systematized by Hakuin: centered on koan introspection and vigorous, dynamic practice. One of the two great Japanese Zen lineages alongside Sōtō.
The Japanese lineage Dōgen carried home from Rujing in the Caodong line, centered on shikantazaShikantaza (只管打坐, shikan ta za) — "just sitting," or more precisely, "nothing but wholeheartedly sitting" - is the zazen practice central to Soto Zen Buddhism. It is objectless, goalless, method-free meditation: open awareness without a focus point, without striving toward any particular state. Read more about shikantaza » ("just sittingShikantaza (只管打坐, shikan ta za) — "just sitting," or more precisely, "nothing but wholeheartedly sitting" - is the zazen practice central to Soto Zen Buddhism. It is objectless, goalless, method-free meditation: open awareness without a focus point, without striving toward any particular state. Read more about just sitting »"): zazenShikantaza (只管打坐, shikan ta za) — "just sitting," or more precisely, "nothing but wholeheartedly sitting" - is the zazen practice central to Soto Zen Buddhism. It is objectless, goalless, method-free meditation: open awareness without a focus point, without striving toward any particular state. Read more about zazen » practiced as the realization of awakening rather than a means to it. This is the lineage which Sweeping Pine Sangha practices in.
The smallest and latest of the three Japanese Zen lineages, founded in the seventeenth century by the Chinese master Ingen (Yinyuan), who brought Ming-dynasty Linji practice (including nembutsu recitation) to Japan. The most visibly Chinese of the Japanese schools, a reminder that the line between Chan and Zen is a convention of language and geography rather than a wall.
Sanbō Kyōdan and White Plum (as well as perhaps Diamond Sangha, Ordinary Mind, etc.) are hybrid Japanese-derived Zen lineages. For example, Maezumi's dual transmission echos Dōgen lineage: houses converging in one teacher's body (six centuries later and on a different continent than Dōgen).
The Korean inheritance of Chinese Chan (seon being the Korean reading of 禪), shaped by Jinul's integration of meditation and doctrinal study and largely Linji-descended in its lineages. Carried to the West most prominently through the Kwan Um School.
The international Seon lineage founded by Seung Sahn, known for the teaching device of "don't-know mind" and for making Korean Zen widely accessible to Western students. The Korean Zen most likely to be encountered in the English-speaking world.
The Vietnamese inheritance of Chinese Chan (thiền being the Vietnamese reading of 禪), with lineages tracing largely to the Lâm Tế (Linji) line. Best known in the West through Thích Nhất Hạnh and the Plum Village tradition.
The Thiền lineage founded by Thích Nhất Hạnh, centered on mindfulness in daily life, engaged Buddhism, and the teaching of "interbeing": the deep interdependence of all things. Among the most widely read and quoted living expressions of the tradition.
Vajrayāna Buddhism is presented here as both a "third vehicle" (one of the "three yānas" framing), and as a tantric or "mantra" path that developed within Mahāyāna Buddhism. Both share the Bodhisattva path, Bodhicitta, and shunyata / emptiness while taking awakening itself as the path, while Vajrayāna is also often understood as a distinct and swift "resultant vehicle." Most surviving Vajrayāna schools are Tibetan (Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Gelug), though the esoteric stream also reached Japan, where it lives on as Shingon.
The earliest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Nyingma ("ancient") school traces to the first transmission of Buddhist teachings into Tibet in the eighth century, with Padmasambhava as its central figure. It is known for the Dzogchen ("Great Perfection") teachings and the terma tradition of revealed "treasure" texts.
One of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Kagyu (or Kagyü / Kagyud) school is known for its emphasis on meditation and direct transmission of teachings from teacher to student. The word “Kagyu” means “oral lineage” or “whispered transmission” which reflects its focus on personal instruction.
The youngest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelug (or Geluk; meaning "virtuous") school was founded by Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), a Tibetan philosopher, tantric yogi and lama. Gelugpa (or "yellow hat sect") is best known in the Western world as the school of Tibetan Buddhism associated with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
One of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Sakya school was founded in the 11th century in southern Tibet. The word “Sakya” means “pale earth,” named after the distinctive grayish soil found at the site where the first Sakya Monastery was built. The Sakya lineage is known for its emphasis on scholarship, systematic teachings, and tantric practices.
Founded by Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi) in early 9th century after he received esoteric transmission in Tang China: Shingon is a Japanese Vajrayāna school. Headquartered on Mt. Kōya, it is centered on the goal of sokushin jōbutsu: "buddhahood in this very body" with practices including mantra, mudrā, and mandala.
Twentieth- and twenty-first-century forms of practice that have shed many of their traditional institutional settings: lay-led, often psychologically informed, and ranging from explicitly Buddhist to fully secular. This is where the older streams meet the modern contemporary world.
A modern, largely lay movement descended from the twentieth-century Burmese revival of satipaṭṭhāna practice (Mahāsi Sayadaw, U Ba Khin) and brought to the west by teachers such as Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Sharon Salzberg. Its framing ranges from traditionally Theravāda to nearly secular, depending on the teacher, which is why it carries no single doctrinal flag.
Secular adaptations of Buddhist meditation for clinical and everyday use, beginning with Jon Kabat-Zinn's Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and extended into Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. Deliberately religiously neutral by design, these are Buddhist-derived, but presented as a health and wellbeing practice rather than a spiritual path.
