Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online.A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder''s religious practice. The order is composed of initiates (laity) and, in some traditions, ordained clergies. Religious orders exist in many of the world''s religions.In Buddhist societies such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Korea and Tibet, a religious order is one of the number of monastic orders of monks and nuns, many of which follow under a different school of teaching, such as Zen. A well-known Chinese Buddhist order is the ancient Shaolin order in Ch''an (Zen) Buddhism.