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The Noble Eightfold Path or Eight Right Paths is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara, the painful cycle of rebirth, in the form of nirvana.
Theravāda is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching or Dhamma in the Pāli Canon for over two millennia.
Samādhi, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools, is a state of meditative consciousness. In many Indian religious traditions, the cultivation of Samādhi through various meditation methods is essential for the attainment of spiritual liberation.
Yogachara is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). Yogachara was one of the two most influential traditions of Mahayana Buddhism in India, along with Madhyamaka.
Ānāpānasati, meaning "mindfulness of breathing", is the act of paying attention to the breath. It is the quintessential form of Buddhist meditation, attributed to Gautama Buddha, and described in several suttas, most notably the Ānāpānasati Sutta.
In the Buddhist tradition, the five hindrances are identified as mental factors that hinder progress in meditation and in daily life. In the Theravada tradition, these factors are identified specifically as obstacles to the jhānas within meditation practice. Contemporary Insight Meditation teachers identify the five hindrances as obstacles to mindfulness meditation.
Prajñā or paññā is a Buddhist term often translated as "wisdom", "insight", "intelligence", or "understanding". It is described in Buddhist texts as the understanding of the true nature of phenomena. In the context of Buddhist meditation, it is the ability to understand the three characteristics of all things: anicca ("impermanence"), dukkha, and anattā. Mahāyāna texts describe it as the understanding of śūnyatā ("emptiness"). It is part of the Threefold Training in Buddhism, and is one of the ten pāramīs of Theravāda Buddhism and one of the six Mahāyāna pāramitās.
Buddhist meditation is the practice of meditation in Buddhism. The closest words for meditation in the classical languages of Buddhism are bhāvanā and jhāna/dhyāna.
The Visuddhimagga, is the 'great treatise' on Buddhist practice and Theravāda Abhidhamma written by Buddhaghosa approximately in the 5th century in Sri Lanka. It is a manual condensing and systematizing the 5th century understanding and interpretation of the Buddhist path as maintained by the elders of the Mahavihara Monastery in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
Saṃjñā is a Buddhist term that is typically translated as "perception" or "cognition." It can be defined as grasping at the distinguishing features or characteristics. Samjñā has multiple meanings depending on religions. Although Samjñā means the five aggregates in Buddhism, in Hinduism, it refers to art traditions and in Jainism, it points to recognition distinct from cognition.
The Ānāpānasati Sutta (Pāli) or Ānāpānasmṛti Sūtra (Sanskrit), "Breath-Mindfulness Discourse," Majjhima Nikaya 118, is a discourse that details the Buddha's instruction on using awareness of the breath (anapana) as an initial focus for meditation.
The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, and the subsequently created Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta, are two of the most celebrated and widely studied discourses in the Pāli Canon of Theravada Buddhism, acting as the foundation for contemporary vipassana meditation practice. The Pāli texts of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta are largely similar in content; the main difference being a section about the Four Noble Truths in the Observation of Phenomena (Dhammānupassana), which is greatly expanded in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta. These suttas (discourses) stress the practice of sati (mindfulness) "for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the extinguishing of suffering and grief, for walking on the path of truth, for the realization of nibbāna."
Luminous mind is a Buddhist term which appears only rarely in the Pali Canon, but is common in the Mahayana sūtras and central to the Buddhist tantras. It is variously translated as "brightly shining mind", or "mind of clear light" while the related term luminosity is also translated as "clear light" or "luminosity" in Tibetan Buddhist contexts or, "purity" in East Asian contexts.
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, "the awakened one".
In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna or jhāna is a component of the training of the mind (bhavana), commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions and "burn up" the defilements, leading to a "state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi)." Dhyāna may have been the core practice of pre-sectarian Buddhism, in combination with several related practices which together lead to perfected mindfulness and detachment.
Samatha, "calm," "serenity," "tranquility of awareness," and vipassanā, literally "special, super, seeing ", are two qualities of the mind developed in tandem in Buddhist practice.
Mental factors, in Buddhism, are identified within the teachings of the Abhidhamma. They are defined as aspects of the mind that apprehend the quality of an object, and that have the ability to color the mind. Within the Abhidhamma, the mental factors are categorized as formations concurrent with mind. Alternate translations for mental factors include "mental states", "mental events", and "concomitants of consciousness".
Buddhānusmṛti, meaning "Buddha-mindfulness", is a common Buddhist meditation practice in all Buddhist traditions which involves meditating on a Buddha. The term can be translated as "remembrance, commemoration, recollection or mental contemplation of the Buddha." It is also one of the various recollections (anusmṛti) taught by the Buddha in the sutras.
Buddhism has developed a complex psychology of personality types, personality traits and underlying tendencies (anusaya). This was mostly developed in the Buddhist Abhidharma literature and its major concern was to identify differing types of persons for pedagogical and soteriological ends. The Buddha was said to have skillfully taught different teachings depending on each person's personality and level of mental development. The development of a personality psychology was important to the Abhidharmikas who sought to adapt Buddhist teachings and practice to each personality type so as to better lead persons to nirvana by purifying their minds of their mental defilements.
The TheravadaAbhidhamma tradition refers to a scholastic systematization of the Theravāda school's understanding of the highest Buddhist teachings (Abhidhamma). These teachings are traditionally believed to have been taught by the Buddha, though modern scholars date the texts of the Abhidhamma Piṭaka to the 3rd century BCE. Theravāda traditionally sees itself as the vibhajjavāda, which reflects the analytical (vibhajjati) method used by the Buddha and early Buddhists to investigate the nature of the person and other phenomena.
References
- ↑ "SuttaCentral". SuttaCentral. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
- 1 2 Bikkhu Analayo (2023). The Signless and the Deathless. New York: Wisdom Publications. ISBN 978-1-61429-888-5.
- 1 2 Buswell, Robert E.; Lopez, Donald Sewell (2014). The Princeton dictionary of Buddhism. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15786-3.
- ↑ Weearatne, W. G. (2006). Encyclopedia of Buddhism. Government of Sri Lanka.
- ↑ Brahm, Ajahn (2013-03-18). "Stepping Towards Enlightenment". Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Retrieved 2024-02-08.
- ↑ Sona, Ajahn (2019). "The Mystery of the Breath Nimitta" (PDF). Retrieved February 8, 2024.
- ↑ Xuanzang; Vasubandhu (2018). Xuanzang; Vasubandhu; Vasubandhu (eds.). Three texts on consciousness only: Taishō volume 31, numbers 1585, 1586, 1590. BDK English Tripiṭaka series. Translated by Cook, Francis H. (Second printing ed.). Moraga, California: BDK America, Inc. ISBN 978-1-886439-04-7.
