Southern, Eastern and Northern Buddhism

[2] Southern Buddhists are primarily connected by their strict adherence to the Pāli Canon, monasticism and its prevalent monastic rules, meditation, and ritual practices.

[2][3] Southern Buddhism tends to be in agreement that the canonical Pāli scriptures and commentaries are considered its textual authority, and a strong monastic tradition along with asceticism, celibacy, and the practice of renunciation (considered the best way to live one's life) allows its adherents to disregard worldly concerns and devote all of their attention to meditative techniques and religious practices alone in order to achieve liberation.

Ranking for the Saṃgha is based on seniority by the time of entry and gender, while many decisions are made ideally by consensus within the monastic community.

[2] There are two distinctions of monastic members within the Saṃgha: those whose primary duty are the Buddhist sacred scriptures, where they would be a resident in a monastic institution intending to study, preserve, and teach the traditions that are passed down to the next generations; whereas those whose primary duty is meditation would instead focus on the path to liberation by gaining insight and realizations on the true nature of reality, often through reclusive forest retreats, in order to achieve nirvāṇa.

Additionally, the main four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism are Kagyu (bka' brgyud), Sakya (sa skya'), Nyingma (rnying ma), and Geluk (dge lugs), but each of these major schools contains groupings within it, which may be to a greater or lesser extent autonomous.

It preserves large collections of scriptural and commentarial Buddhist texts in Tibetan language, including a comprehensive set of translations from Sanskrit literary sources as well as a vast indigenous literature.