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Mahayana Glossary

Note: A number of words and their uses are important to the study of Mahayana and these have been gleened from a number of sources.

Alaya:   "The storehouse consciousness", this is the 8th consciousness, containing all the potentialities of life. Regarded as our true home and our ultimate destination; the infinitely existent self-nature experienced directly by the Buddha, that is possible for everybody.
Anatta: the "not-self" idea of man's true nature, not conceivable my the human mind, because that mind knows only objects, and therefore what men call "myself" is not in any respect themselves, but a bundle of five tendencies called skandhas (heaps)
Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi:   unexcelled complete enlightenment, an attribute of every Buddha, the highest, correct and complete or universal knowledge or awareness, the perfect wisdom, omniscience.
Avalokitesvara:   Kanzeon, Kwannon, etc.  Bodhisattva of compassion, benevolence, portrayed as a female or a male
Avatamsaka Sutra:  (Kegon) Mahayana sutra embodying the sermons given by the Buddha immediately following his perfect enlightenment. Known as the "King of Kings" of all Buddhist scriptures because of its profundity and great length (81 rolls - 1500 pages), this Sutra contains the most complete explanation of the Buddha's state and the Bodhisattva's quest for Awakening.
Awakening of Faith:  (Mahayana-Sraddhotpada-Sastra or Ta-ch'eng Ch'i-Hsin Lun) attributed to Asvaghosha, a comprehensive summary of Mahayana Buddhism, a discourse on one mind, two aspects, three Greatnesses, Four Faiths, Five Practices. Recommended.
Bikkhsu: Monk, also priest, ordained disciples of Buddha, including novice trainees in a monastery, the master of a temple, but generally signifying one who has taken the Mahayana vows.
Bikkhsuni: The female counterpart to a Bikkhsu.
Bodhi:  enlightenment
Bodhi-mind:   intrinsic wisdom; enlightened heart/mind
Bodhisattva: "Enlightened being", a Mahayanist seeking enlightenment to enlighten others, an enlightened one who devoid of egoism and is dedicated to helping others attain liberation; a high stage of Buddhahood through self-mastery, wisdom and compassion, but not yet supremely enlightened or fully perfected; persons and/or personifications of abstract principles realized in humanity; an enlightened being who renounces entry into nirvana until all other beings are saved.
Bodhisattva of Compassion:   Avalokiteshvara, Kanzeon, Kwannon, Kuan Yin, Kannon; all embracing love and benevolence
Buddha: Sanskrit, 1) ultimate truth or absolute Mind, and 2) awakened one or enlightened one to the true nature of existence.  The Buddha refers to a historical person, Siddhartha Gautama of the Shakyas or Shakyamuni, a tireless teacher, who suited the teaching to his audience.  Eventually his sermons and dialogues were recorded as sutras or scriptures which now comprise the doctrines. 
Buddha-Karita Sutra:  Sutra detailing the life and teachings of the Buddha to his entrance into Nirvana
Buddha-nature: our true, perfect, complete,  underlying nature; intrinsic to sentient and insentient beings. Translated from the Sanskrit "Tathagatagarbha."
Buddhism:  the Buddha's Dharma; 1) southern tradition, Theravada or Hinayana or "Small Vehicle" and 2) northern tradition, Mahayana, or "Great Vehicle."
Bhutatathata: The Absolute. The ultimate state of reality, where even the state of absoluteness disappears.
Dana:  the first paramita; charity, almsgiving, generosity of money, goods, or doctrine.
Delusion:   deception, contrary to true reality and the real meaning of existence; ignorance, unawareness, due to sense consciousness that accepts the phenomenal world as the whole of reality.
Dharma:  universal Law, phenomena or things when without a capital, Truth, religion, Buddhist doctrine, teachings of the Buddha, anything Buddhist, the second of the 3 Treasures or the Triple Jewel..
Dharmadhatu:   Dharma realm, the unifying underlying spiritual reality, regarded as the ground or cause of all things, the absolute from which all proceeds.
Dharma door:   any doctrine, method, school, etc. of the Buddha or of Buddhism regarded as a door to one's enlightenment.
Dharma-Master:  A master of the Law who is qualified to explain and comment on the sutras in the Dharma hall.
Dhyana:  Sanskrit, meditation, abstract contemplation; method of attaining enlightenment by means of correct meditation or contemplation, the fifth of the six paramitas.
Dhyana-samadhi:  a fourfold advanced state of meditation. The equivalent of the Pali 'Jhana'.
Diamond Sutra:  Vajracchedika Prajna Paramita, Mahayana sutra,  One of the most profound of all sutras, and widely regarded as the most sacred.
Diamond prajna:   diamond wisdomm, the wisdom inherent in man's nature which is indestructable, like a diamond.
Dukkha:   Sanskrit, suffering, misery, being a nessary attribute of sentient existence; the first of the Four Noble Truths.
Ego:  awareness of oneself as a discrete individuality; delusion; resulting from dualistic conception of myself (subjective) and not-myself or other (objective) that culminates in endless rounds of suffering or samsara.
Ego and Dharma:   ego and things, the most subtle dualism which must be wiped out before enlightenment can be obtained.
Enlightenment:   self-realization; The Avatamsaka Sutra identifies ten stages of awakening, before one finally come to full enlightenment.
Four Vows:  1) "Sentient beings are countless, I vow to save them all.  2)  Tormenting passions are innumerable, I vow to uproot them all.  3) The gates (i.e., levels of truth) of the Dharma are manifold, I vow to pass through them all.  4) The Buddha's Way is peerless, I vow to realize it." 
Gassho:   the hands are placed palm to palm about a fist away from the face with elbows out horizontally in a bow that indicates respect, gratitude, humility. As recognition of the oneness of all things, it is a bow to oneself, or in recognition of Buddha in all things.
Great mirror wisdom:  perfect, all-reflecting Buddha-wisdom. The final of the four wisdoms, this manifests as the transformation of the Alaya Consciousness.
guest and host:   the phenomenal and the fundamental (subjective, objective).
Hara:  a center or source of energy and stability one to two inches below the navel; a person's spiritual center.
Heart Sutra:   (Prajnaparamitahridaya or Shingyo), Mahayana sutra, short, important, and central to Zen, and chanted; explains the meaning of Prajna-paramita, the perfection of wisdom that is able to clearly perceive the emptiness of all phenomena
Hinayana:  "Small Vehicle." Only existing school is Theravada, a school dedicated to preserving the Buddha's original teachings.
Karma:   moral action and reaction causing future retribution, and either good or evil transmigration; rounds of cause and effect; the present is a product of past thoughts and actions, and the future is preconditioned by our present thoughts and actions.
Lankavatara Sutra:   Mahayana sutra; an encyclopedia of Mahayanist thought and practice, including the bodhisattva vows, discipline, and compassion.
Lord of the House:   Buddha in each being, Buddha Nature, Cosmic Buddha, Who is not explicable in terms of existence and non-existence or self and other.
Lotus Sutra:   (Saddharma-Pundarika) Mahayana sutras (three in one), the core and culmination of the Buddha's teaching toward the end of his forty-year teaching ministry.  At the heart: 1) All sentient beings can attain Perfect Enlightenment -- that is, buddhahood -- and nothing less is the appropriate final goal of believers; 2) The Buddha is eternal; and 3) The noblest form of Buddhist practice is the way of the bodhisattva, one who devotes himself to attaining enlightenment not only for himself but for all sentient beings.  Usually includes the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and The Sutra of Meditation on the Bodhisattva Universal Virtue.
Mahaparinirvana Sutra:   (sometimes called the Nirvana Sutra), a sutra expounded by the Buddha after the Lotus Sutra but before his Final Nirvana.
Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra:   a Sutra, said to have been expounded by the Buddha over several times, consisting of 600 rolls of text in 120 volumes, and considered to be the fundamental work on Wisdom.
Mahayana:   the "Great Vehicle" which indicates Universalism, or Salvation for all, for all are Buddhas and will attain enlightenment.
Maitreya:  the next Buddha, to come 5000 years after the historical Buddha.  It is not recommended that you wait for this one.
Manjusri:   Bodhisattva of Wisdom (prajna) and meditation, sometimes referred to as the crown prince, often depicted sitting in meditation on a lion, which represents the wild self which meditation transforms, often shown holding the sword of Buddha's Wisdom which cuts through all delusion; placed on the Buddha's left with Samantabahdra on the right.
Mara: The symbolic ruler of Samsara. Someone who is heavily bound in Samasara, or is misleading others, is often said to be "possesed by Mara."
Marga:   the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the extinction of suffering;  the last of the Four Noble Truths.
Maya:  illusion
Mind:   mind, heart, spirit, psyche, soul.  Mind with a capital "M" is used for absolute Reality, total awareness, just hearing when listening, only seeing when looking, the experience of satori or self realization, often referred to as Big Mind, Unborn Mind, No-Mind, etc.
Mind lamp:  the lamp of the mind, inner light, wisdom. 
Mudra:  manual gesture or form in yoga.
Nirvana:  complete extinction of individual existence; cessation of rebirth and entry into bliss;satori, pari-nirvana, nibbana, realization of the selfless "I"; the experience of Changelessness, of inner Peace and Freedom, a return to the original purity of Buddha-nature after dissolution of the physical body, i.e., to the Perfect Freedom of the unconditioned state.
Oneness:  with a small "o" this  word means absorption to the point of self-forgetfulness.  With a capital "O" it refers to the experience of the Void or Emptiness.
Paramitas:   The six methods of attaining enlightenment: dana (charity), sila (discipline), ksanti (patience or endurance), virya (zeal and progress), dhyana (meditation), and prajna (wisdom).
Pratyeka-Buddha:  one who lives apart from others and attains enlightenment alone, or for himself, in contrast to the altruism of the Bodhisattva principal.
Prajna:  insight, intuitive wisdom into the emptiness or the true nature of reality. First link of the three-fold practise of Prajna, Samadhi and Sila.
Samadhi:   Sanskrit, equilibrium, tranquility, one-pointedness, a state of intense yet effortless concentration, of complete absorption of the mind in itself, of heightened and expanded awareness.  Samadhi and Prajna are indentical from the view of the enlightened Bodhi-mind.  Seen from the developing stages leading to awakening, however, samadhi and enlightenment are different; collected concentration in which subject is no different from object. Second link of the three-fold practise of Prajna, Samadhi and Sila
Samantabhadra:   Bodhisattva of the fundamental Law, dhyana, and practices of all Buddhas, seated at the right hand of the Buddha with Manjusri at the left hand.
Samsara:   successions of birth and death, the world of relativity, the transformation which all phenomena, including our thoughts and feelings, are ceaselessly undergoing in accordance witht the law of causation. Birth and death have been compared to the repeated rising and falling of waves on the ocean where each wave preconditions the subsequent ones.
Self-realization:  the realization of Mind.
Shastra:  Literally "essay", these are commentaries and essays that have been accepted as canonical works.
Shunyata:  emptiness or void, without essence; a key notion of Buddhism.
Sila:   "Virtue". Precept, prohibition, command, discipline, rule, morality; the second paramita.  To the extent that is possible within the laymen's life, one should adopt the precepts (some have been laid down for monks, others for laypeople, etc.)  Any sincere home practice should include precepts. Third link of the three-fold practise of Prajna, Samadhi and Sila
Skandhas:  five aggregates of existence: form, feeling, ideation, reaction, consciousness, often called heaps. Zen practice is designed to help you beyond the hangups that develop from our attachments to these.  The teachings of Mahayana doctrines is that these are all empty, null, and void. 
Sutras:   Sanskrit for "a string of jewels," Buddhist scriptures, dialogues and sermons of the Buddha, one of the twelve divisions of the Mahayana canon.  The Pali Canon were originally recorded in Pali (the scriptures employed in Theravada Buddhism, called "suttas"), and the Mahayana in Sanskrit. 
Sukhavati-Vyuha Sutra:   Mahayana Sutra, late teachings of the Buddha on how to be born in the Pure Land and three kinds of good actions: world goodness, morality (sila), and practice.
Surangama Sutra:   Mahayana sutra dealing at length with successive steps for the attainment of supreme enlightenment.  The Buddha revealed the causes of illusion causes of illusion leading to the creation of all worlds of existence and the methods of getting out of them. The most detailed explanation of the Buddha's teachings concerning the mind. It includes an analysis of where the mind is located, an explanation of the origin of the cosmos, a discussion of the specific workings of karma, a description of all the realms of existence, and an exposition on the fifty kinds of deviant samadhi-concentrations, which can delude us in our search for awakening.
Tathagata:  "thus come one," he who came as did all Buddhas; who took the absolute way of cause and effect, and attained to perfect wisdom; one of the highest titles of the Buddha.
Tathagatagarbha: "The Tathagatha embryo", seed of Buddhahood, or more commonly, Buddha-nature. See Buddha-nature for more.
Three Treasures or Jewels:  In reality they are one: (1)  the Buddha, representing the realization of the world of Emptiness, of Buddha-nature, of unconditioned Equality; the Historic Buddha, Shakyamuni; includes iconography; (2) the Dharma, the Law of beginningless and endless becoming to which all phenomena are subject according to causes and conditions; the spoken words, discourses, and sermons of Shakyamuni Buddha;  and (3) the Sangha, which is the interfusion and reciprocal interaction of the preceding two, which constitutes total reality as experienced by the enlightened; the immediate disciples of the Buddha Shakyamuni and his followers, who heard, believed, and made real in their bodies the teachings; the contemporary disciples.  Ultimately the Three Treasures in none other than one's own self.
Tripitaka: Literally "The three Baskets", the Tripitaka comprises the Sutras, Vinaya and Shastras.
Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra:  a Mahayana sutra, that reveals the importance of inner commitment to the spiritual life; of special interest to those practicing at home alone as it expounds the practice that a layman may follow. Vimalakirti, the Bodhisattva of "spotless reputation" represents the ideal layman in Buddhism because he was able to train successfully in everyday life.
Vinaya: The disciplinary code of the Sangha.
Wisdom of equality:  the wisdom rising above such distinctions as I and Thou, thus being rid of the ego idea, and wisdom in regard to all things equally and universally. 
Yoga:  used in the widest sense, embracing spiritual disciplines for achieving unity and universal Consciousness, emphasizes breathing exercises and postures, for  physical and mental health.  Several methods are employed and recommended for readiness and conditioning for zazen, especially for the full lotus position (most difficult).