Ordinary practice
For most Theravāda Buddhists, practice means supporting monks, keeping the five precepts, observing the full moon days, taking part in the rains retreat and the robe offering, chanting, and marking births and deaths with the help of the monastery. Meditation is respected and done by a minority, usually at particular times rather than daily.
Monasteries remain embedded: a village temple is a school, a hall, a place to leave a difficulty, and the home of monks who may be a neighbour's son.
Living questions
Full ordination for women lapsed in the Theravāda world centuries ago. It has been revived since 1996, with the first ordinations in Sri Lanka and later in Thailand and Australia, and there are now thousands of bhikkhunīs. Several national monastic authorities still do not recognise them, and the argument continues on textual and legal grounds.
Buddhist identity has also been drawn into nationalism, in Sri Lanka and Myanmar in particular, with monks among the voices on both sides. Teachers within the tradition have been among the sharpest critics of that.
What travels
The forest traditions and the meditation movements have given Theravāda a worldwide presence out of proportion to the size of its homelands: monasteries in England and California that keep the full monastic rule, retreat centres on every continent, and a complete English canon available free online.
Why it matters
A living tradition that shapes daily life for millions.
History and tradition
What historians can say
Pew Research Center's 2012 Global Religious Landscape study estimated about 488 million Buddhists worldwide, close to seven per cent of the world's population. Any such figure is an estimate: in several countries the question of who counts as Buddhist does not have a single answer.