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The term bodhicitta has been translated as the mind of enlightenment or the awakening mind.
Bodhicitta is the altruistic thought to seek enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. It is said to have two aspirations: (1) a compassion aspiration aimed at sentient beings and their suffering and (2) and an aspiration that aims for the fully enlightened state, since that is the most effective way to help sentient beings to be free of suffering and to attain the enlightened state themselves.
Maitreya states in his Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṃkāra) that bodhicitta is the wish to attain the state of perfect enlightenment for the sake of other sentient beings.
Bodhicitta is the gateway to the Mahāyāna path and is the motivating force that distinguishes a practitioner of the Great Vehicle from a Hināyāna practitioner. Because it is the desire for oneself to achieve the highest state of enlightenment, and when that is attained to continuously and spontaneously help other beings to also attain that unsurpassed state, it is called the thought of enlightenment or the mind of awakening.
To fully qualify as bodhicitta, it should be an uncontrived state of mind that arises almost automatically, without having to constantly recall all the preceding causal stages that bring it about. When this uncontrived mind of bodhicitta first arises in a being’s mindstream, that moment is considered the first moment of the Mahāyāna path of accumulation and marks the beginning of the bodhisattva path.
Bodhicitta is one of the principal factors on the Mahāyāna path, along with the realization of emptiness, that acts as a primary cause for the perfect enlightenment of the Buddhas.
Bodhicitta can be divided into ultimate and relative bodhicitta. This wish to attain enlightenment for the welfare of all is relative bodhicitta. Ultimate bodhicitta is the direct and nonconceptual apprehension of the ultimate nature of all phenomena. +
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Analytic meditation (''dpyad sgom'') is the style of meditation in which the person uses the faculty called ''[[prajñā]]'' (''shes rab''), which is the aspect of the intellect that can analyze things and decide on them as being this or that. Thus it is a faculty that is able to uncover deeper levels of the reality of phenomena. This style of meditation is the style of the practitioner who engages in study, particularly study supported with logic and reason. The intellect is used as a means of approaching reality. It is thus sometimes known as the paṇḍita's (scholar's) style of meditation. Note that there is a Sanskrit term, vicārabhāvanā, sometimes referred to in research for this Tibetan word, but according to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, it appears to be a back-translation or unattested Sanskrit equivalent. +
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This has also been translated as leisure and opportunity, or freedom and connection. The etymology of that translation relates to being free of certain negative states. It literally means having the support of a body which is free of eight states which themselves are unfree, and so it translates to meaning freedom.
These are the eighteen qualities specifically related to a precious human rebirth.
There are eight freedoms and ten endowments. The freedoms are qualities of being free from a particular condition or state, and the wealths are positive qualities or conditions which we are endowed with.The ten endowments are divided into five personal endowments and five external endowments.
The five personal endowments are:
1) Being a human
2) Being born in a central land
3) having complete sense faculties
4) having not engaged in wrong livelihoods
5) having faith in the Three Jewels
The five external endowments are:
6) a buddha has come into this world
7) a buddha has shown the Dharma
8) the teachings of the Buddha are still present
9) there are still followers of that teaching
10) there is the conducive circumstance of a spiritual friend +
S
the two accumulations refers to two sets of things that need to be gathered together in order to progress along the path to enlightenment. The two accumulations referred to here are teh accumulation of merit and the accumulation of wisdom +
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Inference (Skt. ''anumāna''; T. ''rjes dpag'') is a way of knowing something indirectly, using logic and reasoning to access rather than direct experience. It is used in the Buddhist tradition to gain insight into deeper levels of reality of self and phenomena.
In the Buddhist tradition of logic and epistemology, valid cognition (''pramāṇa''; T. ''tshad ma'') is required to validate phenomena and to establish their existence. There are principal forms of this valid cognition– direct perception (''pratyakṣa''; T. ''mngon sum'') and inference, or inferential valid cognition (Skt. ''anumāna''; T. ''rjes dpag'').
In contrast to non-conceptual direct perception, inference is a conceptual cognition that uses mental images of phenomena to apprehend things that are hidden from our senses and therefore not directly accessible to us. Inference is particularly used in the Buddhist tradition to establish the existence of slightly hidden phenomena (T. ''cung zad lkog gyur''), using correct logical reasons (''liṅga'') or signs (''hetu''). In the classical examples, we use these logical structures to infer simple examples, such as the existence of fire hidden behind a hill using the presence of smoke as evidence. Logical statements with deeper meaning are then used to prove the subtle impermanence of conditioned phenomena with the reason of being produced by causes and conditions; or proving the lack of true existence with the reason of being interdependent.
Inference is the conceptual cognition that apprehends these less manifest objects, and is the consciousness that is the product of the reasoning process.
The system of Buddhist epistemology using inference was particularly developed and systematized by the Indian masters Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. +
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Note that there is a Sanskrit term, sthāpyabhāvanā, sometimes referred to in research for this Tibetan word, but according to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, it appears to be a back-translation or unattested Sanskrit equivalent. +
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