Property:Glossary-BasicMeaning
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The reality or the objective state of things as they are. In the Buddhist context, it refers to the ultimate nature of things although what exactly suchness means would depend on the philosophical position of the specific schools. The Middle Way school, for instance, consider emptiness as the suchness of all things. +
A Mahāmudrā term for the basic state of consciousness that has not been fabricated or altered in any way. +
Persons who have experience in meditation on the nature of the mind or emptiness are said to be able to remain in a meditative equipoise after death. Although they have stopped breathing and are clinically dead, they are said to be able to retain their body without decay, often with lustre and flexibility. They are believed to have actualised their buddha-nature at the time of death and attained the state of enlightenment. +
Three successive stages of the Buddhist teachings. Though they are traditionally attributed to the historical Buddha, modern scholarship tends to view them as developmental stages that occurred over the course of an extended period of time, with interludes of several centuries, in which we see major doctrinal shifts often based on seemingly newly emergent scriptural sources. +
The three enlightened forms of a buddha one attains when one becomes fully enlightened. They include the truth body (''dharmakāya''), enjoyment body (''saṃbhogakāya''), and the emanation body (''nirmāṇakāya''). The three bodies comprise the many qualities and powers associated with buddhahood and thus are the result sought through Mahāyāna Buddhist practice. +
According to the Yogācāra school, all phenomena can be divided into three natures or characteristics: the imaginary nature (''parikalpitasvabhāva''), the dependent nature (''paratantrasvabhāva''), and the perfect or absolute nature (''pariniṣpannasvabhāva''). +
The three poisons are a reference to the afflictive emotions of ''rāga'' (Tib. '' 'dod chags''), ''dveṣa'' (Tib. ''zhe sdang''), and ''moha'' (Tib. ''gti mug''). These three detrimental states or afflictive behavioral patterns are difficult to definitively translate, and thus there are several common English variations of this group of three, such as desire, aggression, and bewilderment, or attachment, aversion, and delusion. It is useful to think of these three as a process that involves our insatiable urge to possess that which we desire and the ensuing aggravation that arises when we don't get what we want or have what we don't want forced upon us. Yet we are oblivious to the futility of these conditioned responses due to our lack of discernment, and thus we mindlessly continue to get caught up in this causal nexus. +
Commonly seen in a Mahāyāna context, the three vehicles are the Śrāvakayāna, Pratyekabuddhayāna, and Bodhisattvayāna, which reference the three different types of Buddhist practitioners. However, these three vehicles can also reference the three types of Buddhist teachings of the Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna (or Pāramitāyāna), and the Vajrayāna. +
Tsen Khawoche's "meditative tradition" of exegesis of the ''Uttaratantra''; it is one of two major Tibetan traditions of exegesis, both stemming from students of Sajjana. +
The ''Ultimate Continuum'', or ''Gyü Lama'', is often used as a short title in the Tibetan tradition for the key source text of buddha-nature teachings called the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' of Maitreya/Asaṅga, also known as the ''Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra''. +
Literally, vajra-footing, or base. In the context of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'', this is the name given to the seven subjects that are addressed in the treatise. These seven are the ''buddha'', ''dharma'', ''saṅgha'', the element (''dhātu''), enlightenment (''bodhi''), enlightened qualities (''guṇa''), and enlightened activities (''karman''). +
The esoteric Buddhist tradition which developed as a syncretic system involving deity worship, use of mantras, physical energy, and mystical practices. It is also known as the mantra tradition and the tantric school as a result of being based on texts known as tantras. +
Vinaya refers to the corpus of Buddhist teachings on moral discipline and precepts and is one of the three canonical sets of teachings alongside Sūtra and Abhidharma. It also refers to the monastic tradition which has been passed down since the Buddha's time until our time. +
The misperception or incorrect view a person has of reality, which must be overcome by having correct understanding and right view. The four well known incorrect views are seeing impermanent phenomena as permanent, dissatisfactory nature of things as blissful, impure things as pure, and illusory things as absolute and real. However, in the context of buddha-nature theory or other systems, there are also other forms of misconceptions which contradict with objective reality. +
One of the five types of effects, or fruitions. It refers to an effect that arises from removing that which obscures or hinders it. +
Diligence is the joyful and consistent effort applied to virtuous actions and spiritual practice. It acts as the engine that drives progress and prevents laziness or discouragement on the path. +
The seven branches, or sections, of devotional religious services, or prayers, recited consecutively in order to accumulate merit. The typical set of seven are prostrations, offering, confession, rejoicing in virtue, requesting to turn the wheel of Dharma, requesting to not pass into nirvāṇa, and the dedication of merit, presented in that order. +
Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the ''Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra'' and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana). +
One of the two main traditions within the Mahāyāna: the "[[bca:Explore/Lineage_of_the_Profound_View|Profound View]]" (ཟབ་མོ་ལྟ་བརྒྱུད་) of Nāgārjuna and the "[[bca:Explore/Lineage_of_the_Vast_Conduct|Vast Conduct]]" (རྒྱ་ཆེན་སྤྱོད་བརྒྱུད་) of Asaṅga. +
Mental stains that are not inherent to the nature of the mind but are temporarily present as the residue of past actions or habitual tendencies. It is sometimes iterated as adventitious defilements (Skt. ''āgantukakleśa'', Tib. ''glo bur gyi nyon mongs''), which references the fickle and temporary nature of disturbing emotions that lack an ultimately established basis for existence. +
