Property:Glossary-Senses
This is a property of type Text.
B
This term can be used in a variety of contexts, though one of the more common usages is related to the Buddhist notion of karma, cause and effect. In this sense, bīja are the seeds of karmic actions, which have the potential to ripen into karmic consequences. +
C
It is a philosophical position that places mentation at the forefront of our experience of the world, rather than the seemingly real objects that consciousness perceives. It can also be used to refer to a Buddhist school, a genre of texts, or as a section of the Tibetan Buddhist canon. For instance, the ''Gyü Lama'' is in the ''sems tsam'' section of the Tibetan canon. +
D
The ultimate source of phenomenal appearances, or the basic nature which allows for phenomena to arise in all their multiplicity. It is often treated as a synonym for emptiness and the ultimate truth. +
Although this term is sometimes rendered into English as “truth body,” dharmakāya seems to have originally been meant to refer to the entire corpus (''kāya'') of the Buddha’s transcendent qualities (''dharma''). (''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', p. 242) +
A term that has numerous meanings depending on the context, including physical realms or regions, the (five) elements, as well as aspects of the sense organs, bases, and fields. In terms of buddha-nature theory, it is often treated as synonymous with terms like ''gotra'' and ''garbha'' or even as equivalents of buddha-nature itself, such as ''sugatagarbha''. +
The practical approach to gaining incontrovertible conceptual certainty is called analytical meditation or superior insight. ([[Brunnhölzl]], ''[[The Center of the Sunlit Sky]]'', 29)
"Another division of meditation is into “the analytical meditation of scholars” and “the resting meditation of mendicants,” or simply analytical meditation and resting meditation. The analytical meditation of scholars refers to the intellectual examination of all phenomena through reasoning. There are two key terms here: “discriminating knowledge” and “personally experienced wisdom.” The first step in this analytical meditation is to cultivate discriminating knowledge. This refers to all the levels of increasingly refined inferential valid cognition that are based on reasoning and developed through studying, reflecting, and meditating." ([[Brunnhölzl]], ''[[The Center of the Sunlit Sky]]'', 279)
"The general scope of analytical meditation encompasses all of the teachings of the Buddha, starting from contemplating impermanence and the preciousness of human existence up through ascertaining the two kinds of identitylessness. Resting meditation includes all types of meditations in which the conclusions achieved through preceding investigation become absorbed by the mind." ([[Brunnhölzl]], ''[[The Center of the Sunlit Sky]]'', 281) +
Dzogchen, or Great Perfection, refers more specifically to the nature of awareness, which is the innate state of perfect enlightenment latent in the mind. More broadly, it refers to the associated system of teachings, theories, and practices. +
E
G
''Gotra'' is used in Buddhist literature in a wide variety of ways. In Yogācāra it is used in the sense of family, lineage, or type to classify beings according to their innate capacity for progress on the path to enlightenment. +
Though, as a noun, this term is commonly used to reference a subsect of the Madhyamaka school that lies in opposition to the more mainstream stance that asserts self-emptiness (''rang stong''), or the universal lack of inherent existence (''rang bzhin med pa''), it can also refer to different types of emptiness that describe the ultimate and relative levels of reality. Hence, relative phenomena are deemed to be self-empty since they lack independent defining characteristics, while the ultimate is said to be empty of other—namely, the afflictions and defilements that only incidentally seem to obscure it but by which it has actually never been sullied. +
In the Dzogchen teachings it is commonly counted among the trilogy of ground, path, and fruition. Sometimes referred to as the primordial ground (''ye bzhi''), it is the source from which all phenomena arise. +
H
The term was used mainly by the proponents of the Greater Vehicle, who considered the goals, understanding, practices, methods, and results of this school as being lesser in scope. +
I
Individuals who are so consumed by their desires or by a particular lifestyle that they would never even consider the need for self-improvement. Therefore, they have no interest in following any spiritual path, let alone the path to liberation. +
K
All things in Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna Buddhism are said to be primordially empty and thus pure and free from extremes and defilements. More specifically, primordial purity refers to the nature of consciousness or buddha-nature, which is empty by nature but endowed with spontaneous luminosity. Primordial purity is the empty aspect of the buddha-nature which is primordially present in all beings. +
The Marpa Kagyu (''mar pa bka’ brgyud'') tradition originated in the eleventh century with the Tibetan translator Marpa Chokyi Lodro, who studied in India with Nāropa. Marpa’s disciple Milarepa famously attained enlightenment in the caves of southern Tibet after renouncing a life of violent revenge; his disciple Gampopa merged the lay siddha practice of his master with the Kadampa monasticism and scholarship that he had previously studied. Gampopa founded the first Kagyu monastery, Daklha Gampo, in southern Tibet. Following Gampopa the tradition split into multiple autonomous subsects known as the four primary (Barom, Pakdru, Karma, and Tselpa), and eight secondary traditions (Drigung, Drukpa, Martsang, Shukseb, Taklung, Tropu, Yabzang, and Yelpa Kagyu). [https://treasuryoflives.org/tradition/Marpa-Kagyu Read more at Treasury of Lives] +
This term entered the Tibetan lexicon as a translation of ''ālaya'', and thus it is often rendered back to its Sanskrit antecedent in modern scholarship and translations. However, as a Tibetan term, it is more commonly read literally as the compound ''all-ground'', or ''ground of everything''. As such it is often used to describe a common locus, or substrate, out of which both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa emerge. +
A highly influential and important Tantric corpus throughout Tibetan Buddhism, especially for the Sakya, Geluk, and Jonang traditions. +
L
Lam rim has the sense of gradual or graded practice starting from basic techniques to cultivate the thoughts of renunciation, compassion and loving kindness, etc. to insight into ultimate emptiness. +
M
It has a sense of being the binding force and refers to the reality of all things. Just as a seal makes a document binding, reality binds all things, including our understanding of the true nature of things. It also refers to a symbolic gesture. +