Another key difference is that Theravada Buddhism is primarily a monastic practice, meaning that most practitioners have renounced their ordinary lives and taken vows to become full-time monks or nuns. The lay community provides support for the monastic community, but laypeople don’t necessarily follow the same devotional path to enlightenment. In Mahayana schools, it’s more common to find a devotional path for laypeople who aren’t interested in becoming monks or nuns.
