Property:Gloss-def
From Buddha-Nature
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One of the six classes of existence, these beings suffer from continuous hunger and thirst. The Sanskrit literally means "departed" and is inspired by the pitṛ, or ancestral spirits of India, who, without descendants to make the regular traditional offerings to them, are tormented by hunger and thirst +
Immeasurable love, compassion, rejoicing and impartiality +
The Sanskrit literally means "death." In the early sutras Māra is a deity that continually tries to stop the Buddhas enlightenment and the spread of his teachings. Māra has also been portrayed as the personification of obstacles to enlightenment, as in the list of four māras: the māra of the body, the māra of the defilements, the māra of death, and the divine māra (the distraction of pleasures). The Tibetan translation of māra (bdud) is also the name for a class of Tibetan local deities that can function as protectors +
A trident held by wrathful meditational deities such as Vajrayoginī. +
The Tibetan uses the term thig le for both tilaka and bindu, both of which can mean mark, spot, dot, or circle. Both terms were and still are used in India to denote a forehead mark, and in English are called tilak and bindi. The tilaka in particular is a traditional Indian mark worn on the forehead by religious devotees and is associated with enlightenment, but in Tibet its application normally occurs only in the context of some higher tantra empowerments. Bindu has a wider meaning than tilaka, but they both have the connotation of an essential point, a quintessence, and may be rendered here also as "drop." See the bindu entry for additional meanings +
The age of goodness and the first of four ages in which humans become progressively more degenerate and their lives progressively shorter. We live in the fourth and most degenerate age +
Vajravārāhī, also known as Vajrayoginī, rises to prominence within the Cakrasamvara literature. There she is both that deity's consort and features as the central deity in a number of practices. Instead of having a sow's head, as in the goddess Vārāhī, she is sometimes depicted with a sow emerging from the top of her head, its grunt destroying ignorance. She is also the principal deity within the Karma Kagyü tradition. +
One of the four classes of India. This upper class is roughly equivalent to the nobility, providing secular rulers and warriors. According to Buddhist mythology buddhas appear in the dominant class of its time; thus Śakyamuni was a ksatriya while the previous and next buddhas are brahmans +
Literally "nonattention." In early Buddhism, this term signified the negative state of inattentiveness. Maitripa, through reinterpreting the Sanskrit negative marker "a" as the primordial letter A, taught that this was a positive quality and really meant attention on the true nature. However, in the context of mahāmudrā, even if the "a" is interpreted as a negative marker, it can mean nonattention or nonengagement as a positive quality +
A follower of the Madhyamaka +
"Restraining or controlling the breath " This refers to specific breathing practices, primarily involving breath retention. The Tibetan is literally "life effort" referring to the deliberate control of the "life" breath +
The term can technically be applied to anyone who has taken the bodhisattva vow to attain buddhahood in order to benefit beings, but it usually refers to the deity-like beings who have reached the bodhisattva levels (bhūmis). +
The paradise ruled by Māra at the apex of the desire realm. The name of the paradise, which means "control over the emanations of others," reveals its superiority over the paradise below, where beings can create miraculous manifestations but not control those of others +
The "way of mantra"; a synonym for tantra, the esoteric vehicle of Mahayana Buddhism +
The Tibetan canon of translations of commentaries on the Buddhas teachings. It also includes some non-Buddhist works of literature on subjects outside the scope of Buddhist practice, such as astrology, medicine, grammar, and prosody +
See bindu; tilaka +
This term is difficult to translate due to its multiple meanings, which include "worship," "attendance," "service," and even "approach," a literal rendering of the Tibetan. It primarily refers to the practice of reciting a great number of mantras in conjunction with meditation on a specific deity. This is understood as both a process of familiarization to bring one's mind closer to the deity and thus to the nature of one's own mind and, in a dualistic sense, a propitiation of the deity. In the more dualistic approach of the lower tantras, this propitiation of the deity ultimately results in the deity's appearance to the devotee to grant a boon or siddhi +
This refers to the "precious human existence," which is free from eight states that prevent being able to practice the Dharma: being born in hell, as a preta, as an animal, as a long-living deva, in a time when a Buddha has not come, as a *savage" (i.e., in a land without the Dharma), having wrong views, and having impaired faculties. The opportunities are five from oneself: being human, in a land with the Dharma, having all one's faculties, not having done the worst karmic deeds, and having faith. The second five are from others: a Buddha has come, he has taught, the teachings remain, the teachings has followers, and there is a teacher that guides us +
This is synonymous with Cittamātra, the tradition based on the teachings of Maitryanātha, Asaṅga, and Vasubandhu, with an emphasis on all phenomena as being a mental experience. It remains a strong influence on the Kagyü tradition. See also Cittamātra +
Usually, this refers to the first Madhyamaka philosopher, who lived around the second century before the Mahayana arose as a distinct identity, but there are other authors of the same name, particularly a tenth-century author of tantric works. The Tibetan tradition assumes all Nāgārjunas to be one author +
