The twelve factors or stages through which the process of birth and rebirth in cyclic existence takes place. They are ignorance, conditioning factors, consciousness, name-and-form, the sense powers, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, and aging-and-death. +
A follower of the Great Vehicle whose aim is perfect enlightenment for all beings. One who has taken the vow of bodhicitta and practices the six transcendent perfections. +
The immense mountain, wider at the top than at the bottom, that forms the center of the universe around which the four continents of the world are disposed, according to ancient Indian cosmology. +
Also called primal wisdom or primordial wisdom. The knowing (''shes pa'') that has always been present since the beginning (''ye nas''); awareness, clarity-emptiness, naturally dwelling in all beings. +
lit. “continuity” or “continuum.” Also translated as “stream of being,” or simply “mind.” This term denotes that aspect of an individual that continues from one moment to the next and from one life time to the next, and which therefore includes the individual’s stock of positive and negative deeds along with their positive and negative habitual tendencies. +
An Indian term of veneration for someone of high spiritual attainment, used in Buddhism as an epithet of the Buddha. In its Tibetan translation, which might be conveyed in English as “Transcendent, Virtuous Conqueror,” it is defined as “he who has overcome (''bcom'') the four demons, who possesses ''(Idan)'' the six excellent qualities, and who does not dwell in either of the two extremes of samsara and nirvana but has gone beyond them (''’das'').” +
The series of teachings on emptiness based on the second turning of the wheel of the Dharma first expounded by Nāgārjuna and considered to form the basis of the Secret Mantrayāna. “Middle” in this context means that it is beyond the extremes of existence and nonexistence. +
Also translated in this book as “actions,” or as “past deeds.” Implied in the use of this term is the force created by a positive or negative action which is then stored in an individual’s stream of being and persists until it is experienced as pleasure or pain (usually in another life), after which the deed is said to be exhausted or spent. Although the Sanskrit term ''karma'' simply means “action,” it has come to be widely used to signify the result produced by past deeds (Tib. ''las kyi ’bras bu''), which is sometimes wrongly equated with destiny or fate, that is, with something beyond one’s control. In the Buddhist teachings, the principle of karma covers the whole process of deeds leading to results in future lives, and this is taught as being something that is very definitely within one’s control. +
The vehicle of the bodhisattvas, referred to as great because it leads to perfect buddhahood for the sake of all beings, and because of the greatness of its object, accomplishment, gnosis, diligent application, skill in means, consummation, and activities. +