māra;dud;dud;Difficulties encountered by the practitioner. There are four kinds—skandhamāra which is inconect view of self, kleśamāra* which is being overpowered by negative emotions, mrtyumāra which is death and interrupts spiritual practice, and devaputramāra which is becoming stuck in the bliss that comes out of meditation. +
six realms of saṃsāra;six realms of saṃsāra;The possible types of rebirths for beings in saṃsāra: the god realm in which gods have great pride, the asura realm in which the jealous gods try to maintain what they have, the human realm which is the best realm because one has the possiblity of achieving enlightenment, the animal realm characterized by stupidity, the hungry ghost realm characterized by great craving, and the hell realms characterized by aggression. +
kāyas;ku;ku;The three bodies of the Buddha: the nirmāṇakāya, saṃbhogakāya and dharmakāya. The dharmakāya (the "truth body"), is the complete enlightenment of the Buddha which is unoriginated wisdom beyond form and manifests in the saṃbhogakāya and the nirmāiiakāya. The saṃbhogakāya (the "enjoyment body"), manifests only to bodhisattvas. The nirmāijakāya (the "emanation body") manifests in the ordinary world and in the context of the Uttara Tantra manifests as the Sākyamuni Buddha, +
luminosity;luminosity;sal wa;sal wa;In the vajrayāna everything is void, but this voidness is not completely empty because it has luminosity. Luminosity or luminous clarity allows all phenomena to appear and is a characteristic of emptiness +
mahāmudrā;cha ja chert po;cha ja chert po;Literally means "great seal" and is the meditative transmission handed down especially by the Kagyu school. +
five aggregrates;five aggregrates;skandha;pung po nga;pung po nga;Literally "heaps" are the five basic transformations that perceptions undergo when an object is perceived. These are form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness. +
prajñā;she rab;she rab;In Sanskrit it means "perfect knowledge" and can mean wisdom, understanding, intelligence, discrimination, or judgement according to context. +
absolute truth;absolute truth;paramārtha satya;dondam;dondam;There are two truths or views of reality—relative truth which is seeing things as ordinary beings do with the dualism of "I" and "other" and absolute truth, also called ultimate truth, which is transcending duality and seeing things as they are. +
pratyekabuddha;rang sang gay;rang sang gay;Literally means "solitary realizer" and in this text it is a realized hīnayāna practitioner who has achieved the jñāna of how-it-is and variety, but who has not committed him or herself to the bodhisattva path of helping others. +
wheel of dharma;wheel of dharma;dharmacakra;The Buddha's teachings correspond to three levels: the hĩnayāna, the mahāyāna, and the vajrayāna with each set being one turning. +
saṃsāra;kor wa;kor wa;Conditioned existence which is characterized by suffering in ordinary life because one is still afflicted by attachment, aggression, and ignorance. +