The four principal Tibetan Buddhist traditions share a common Mahāyāna–Vajrayāna foundation, yet each articulates the path with its own characteristic emphasis. The Gelug school, shaped by Tsongkhapa, is renowned for rigorous monastic discipline, formal debate, and a carefully graduated path (lamrim) that moves from ethical training through meditative stabilization to a refined understanding of emptiness. Its scholars give particular weight to logical analysis and systematic study of classical Indian sources before engaging deeply in tantric practice, treating tantra as something to be built upon a thoroughly prepared basis. This creates a style in which analytical meditation and scholastic clarity are seen as indispensable supports for Vajrayāna methods.

The Kagyu lineage, often described as an “oral transmission,” leans more toward experiential realization than extensive scholasticism. Rooted in figures such as Marpa, Milarepa, and Gampopa, it emphasizes the intimate guru–disciple relationship and direct pointing‑out of the nature of mind. Mahāmudrā serves as a central contemplative framework, highlighting direct recognition of mind’s empty yet aware nature. Alongside this, the tradition is known for yogic methods such as the Six Yogas of Nāropa, and for a strong retreat culture that prizes intensive meditation. Within this ethos, devotion and practice manuals play a more prominent role than elaborate philosophical systematization.

The Nyingma, regarded as the “ancient” school, preserves the earliest tantric transmissions in Tibet and is especially associated with Padmasambhava. Its hallmark is Dzogchen, the “Great Perfection,” which presents the path as the recognition of primordial, nondual awareness that is both empty and luminous. Nyingma communities often draw on revealed “treasure” (terma) cycles, giving the tradition a rich, visionary ritual and textual landscape. The school is comparatively less centralized, with space for both monastic institutions and lay or semi‑monastic yogic practitioners. Within this milieu, ritual, terma‑based sādhanas, and contemplative instructions are woven together as complementary expressions of the same insight into primordial purity.

The Sakya tradition, historically linked to the Khön family, is known for a deliberate balance of scholarship and tantric practice. Its distinctive hallmark is the Lamdre, the “Path and Fruit,” a system rooted in the Hevajra Tantra that presents sūtra and tantra as a unified trajectory in which the result—Buddhahood—is understood as implicitly present within the path. Sakya scholars articulate a Madhyamaka view while integrating it closely with meditative and ritual practice, so that philosophical understanding and tantric engagement develop hand in hand. Hereditary leadership coexists with monastic teachers, and ritual, meditation, and study are organized into a single, structured curriculum. Taken together, these four lineages reveal different yet convergent ways of embodying the same Mahāyāna–Vajrayāna vision of awakening.