Property:Gloss-def
From Buddha-Nature
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The term may denote "accomplishment" or the "method of accomplishment," which is the way it is translated into Tibetan. It can refer to any method of practice, usually of a deity, and by association it can mean the liturgical text used in the practice of meditation on a deity that describes the visualizations, mantras, offerings, prayers, and meditations to be performed +
The graduated levels of enlightenment that a bodhisattva passes through to attain buddhahood, most often enumerated as ten. They usually refer to the different levels of an enlightened bodhisattva, but they can also include the level of buddhahood and two levels that correspond to the paths of accumulation and engagement +
One of the four continents (see entry). The Tibetan translation means "unpleasant sound," referring to a myth that all the beings in Kuru live for a fixed age of a hundred years, at the end of which they hear the "unpleasant sound" of a voice announcing their imminent death +
Seventeen paradises into which beings are born through the power of meditation +
Literally, "sound," it is pure sound as an expression of ultimate truth or emptiness and is also symbolized by the attenuated flickering line rising from the anusvāra +
The six central practices of a bodhisattva on the Mahayana path: the perfections of generosity, good conduct, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. The Tibetan for pāramitā literally means "gone to the other shore" (pha rol tu phyin pa) +
"Circular gathering" is the original meaning, and in India a gaṇacakra was held in charnel grounds, with the consumption of the five meats and five nectars. In Tibet, general food and drink are blessed, and the participants, visualized as deities, consume them +
This is a traditional, convenient enumeration of the various schools of Buddhism prior to the advent of the Mahayana. However the lists for these schools vary considerably, so the number eighteen is unlikely to be exact. They all developed from the initial schism within Buddhism into the Mahāsaṅgika and the more conservative Sthaviravadins. Subsequent schools were often the result of localized development among the widely dispersed sanghas. The Mahayana was a development from within these varied schools +
The "further Dharma." This set of teachings attempts to give an analytic overview of the foundation and worldview of Buddhism. It is primarily concemed with the constituents of mental activity and their relationship to the process of attaining enlightenment but it also includes descriptions of cosmology and the constituents of the external world. In Tibet, the texts of Vasubandhu and Asaṅga form the basis for the study of Abhidharma +
This can mean simply "breath," but it never means "air" in general as vāyu can mean. It is associated with the principle of life and so was translated into Tibetan as "life air" This has been used as a back translation for rlung in general, though technically it is specifically one of the five principal winds +
The generic name used for Cakrasamvara and other higher tantra deities. Like the dākinīs, herukas were originally terrifying supernatural creatures of the night, in this case specifically vampires, in that they drank human blood. The name is linguistically of South Indian, not Sanskrit, origin, and the term was translated independently into Chinese and Tibetan as "blood drinker." However, along with the dākinī, in the antinomian world of tantra they became embodiments of enlightenment +
See six perfections +
A general term for any god or deity, but is particularly associated with the gods in Indian mythology who possessed the amrita, or nectar of immortality, that the asuras kept trying to steal, without success. By extension it refers to any being who has been reborn in a samsaric paradise +
Vajrapāni is a wrathful deity that first appears in Buddhist literature as a bodyguard of the Buddha. With the rise of the Mantrayāna, he is promoted to the level of bodhisattva, and his presence in the audience of the Buddhas teachings is an indication that the sutra or tantra contains mantras +
The "source of phenomena." This is depicted as the tantric symbol of a triangle, which also represents the female genitalia. A more elaborate form is the crossed triangles forming a six-pointed star, representing an aerial view of an inverted pyramid containing the deity, which is upon a triangular base. dhātu (khams). "Element," which can refer to buddha nature, the quintessential nature of the mind, and also to the elements of sensory perception of which there are eighteen: the six consciousnesses (the five sensory consciousnesses and the mental); the six sensory organs, including the faculty of the mind; and the six objects of perception, including mental phenomena +
The word vāyu can mean air or wind, or even the god of the air. In the context of the higher tantras it can simultaneously mean the external element of air, the breath, and the winds or energies that flow through the body that cause digestion, defecation, and so on. These grosser winds can be transformed into wisdom winds thorugh[[sic]] completion-stage practices +
Followers of a tradition based on a text commonly referred to as the Vibhāsa, which was a compilation of Abhidharma teachings. vaiśya. The third of the four classes of Indian society; this is the merchant class and was the most important strata of society as a source for followers of Buddhism and Jainism +
A systematic breakdown of an individual into five psychophysical "heaps": form, sensations, identifications, mental actions, and consciousnesses +
A later subdivision of the form body of a buddha, which in earlier Buddhism meant solely the physical presence of the Buddha in this world. As Mahayana and later tantric literature were derived primarily from visions, these immaterial manifestations became an additional subdivision of the form body. As these beings were free of any of the failings of a human body, such as the sickness, aging, and death that afflicted the buddhas form body, they were known as "bodies of complete enjoyment" [of the qualities of buddhahood]. This was then an essential category for establishing the canonical nature of these later teachings +
This is a euphemism for a consort in sexual practices, also called a vidyā (rig ma, lit. "knowledge [lady]") and a prajñā (shes rab, lit. "wisdom"). All these terms are naturally feminine nouns so that they can be both abstract terms and signify actual females +
