Glossary | There Is No Suffering

Abhidharma: Literally, the’ special teaching,’ the abhidharma is the earliest compilation of Buddhist philosophy and psychology. It constitutes the philosophyical basis of the Hinayana and Mahayana, and its primary use is in the study of the teaching. The abhidharma is the third part of the tripitaka.Agamas: Literally the ‘source of the teaching.’ the collections of writings of the Sanskrit canon. The contents of the agamas encompass the basic teachings of the Hinayana.Avalokitesvara: The great bodhisattva of unconditional compassion.Bodhisattva: Literally’ awakened being,’ a practitioner of the Mahayana tradition who has vowed to postpone the attainment of nirvana for the sake of helping sentient beings.

Bhumi: Literally ground,’ ‘ land,’ or’ stage.’ There are ten bhumis that bodhisattvas must pass through in order to attain complete enlightenment, or buddhahood.Buddhadharma: The truths, laws, or teachings of Buddhism: See Dharma.Chan: (Wade-Giles: Ch’ an; Japanese: Zen). The practice of meditative absorption, transliterated from the Sanskrit ‘dhyana.’ Over centuries of gradual adaptation in China, the doctrines and practices of Indian Buddhism evolved into the Chan tradition. By the time of the Tang dynasty (618-907). Chan was a separate school claiming to be ‘outside the scriptures.’ During the Song dynasty (960-1279) Chan transmitted to Japan, where it is called Zen. Chan emphasizes the direct experience of prajna, or insight into the nature of reality as empty—devoid of self-nature. In the Mahayana tradition, Chan emphasizes meditation while embracing bodhisattva conduct as the ideal of Buddhist practice. Experientially, Chan (sometimes rendered as chan (lower case) to distinguish from the ‘school’ ) is the realization of wisdom, where one leaves discrimination behind and experiences the ineffable true emptiness of everything (emptiness as form, form as emptiness).Consciousness-Only school: See Yogachara.Dharma/dharma: Upper case “Dharma” (also Buddhadharma) refers to the Buddhist ‘law,’ or teaching, lower case ‘dharma’ refers to any physical or mental phenomenon:

Dhyana: State of deep meditative absorption, serving to help one relinquish attachment and leave behind afflictions. The different levels of dhyana serve as preparatory experiences for enlightenment: See Chan.Early Buddhist Traditions: The early schools of Buddhism in India between 100 to 500 years after the Buddha’ s nirvana, having in common their doctrinal basis in the agamas and the abhidharma literatures.Eighteen realms: The realms of consciousness, consisting of the six sense organs (eyes, ear, nose, tongue, body, and discriminating mind), plus the six sense objects (shape and color; sound; smells; tastes; form; thoughts, feelings, and symbols), plus the six sense consciousnesses (seeing, hearing, smelling; tasting, feeling, thinking).Five Methods of Stilling the Mind: (Chin: wu tingxin). The five methods designed to purify the mind of emotional turbulence and foster meditative calm (Sanskrit: samatha), eventually leading to the experience of samadhi, or meditative concentration. Different Buddhist texts sometimes give different versions of the five methods for stilling the mind. In the abhidharma, two techniques most frequently mentioned are mindful recollection of the breath, and meditation on impurity or decay. To these, meditation on the four boundless mentalities, meditation on causes and condition, and the contemplation of dharma categories are usually added, bringing the number of methods to five.

Many Buddhist sources, especially those of the Mahayana, describe a variation of the five methods, giving special importance to mindful recollection of the Buddha as a method for purifying the mind and developing samadhi. Thus, it is not unusual to find versions of the five methods that replace the contemplation of dharma categories with buddha-mindfulness.Klesa: Literally’ trouble,’ ‘affliction,’ or ‘passion.’ It refers to anything that clouds the mind and is the basis for all afflictions, unwholesome thoughts, speech, and actions, and hence, sentient beings’ suffering in samsara. Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra: The Great Sutra of Perfect Wisdom, comprising forty or so sutras of the Mahayana having as a unifying theme the realization of prajna, or wisdom.Nidana: Literally, ‘link,’ one of the twelve that constitute the twelve links of conditioned arising, a paradigm of samsara, the cycle of birth and death.Paramitas: Generally translated as’ perfections,’ the six paramitas are the virtues cultivated and exercised by bodhisattvas: generosity, discipline, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom (prajna).Platform Sutra: The writings containing the biography and discourses of Huineng, the sixth patriarch of Chan. It is the only Mahayana sutra attributed to someone other than Shakyamuni Buddha.

Samsara: the beginningless and continuing cycle of birth and death caused by afflictions, attachment, ignorance, and karma. It is also the world of suffering, in which ordinary sentient beings are inexorably entangled: See Nidana, Nirvana.Sangha: In a narrow sense, the sangha is the community of Buddhist monks and nuns; in a broad sense, the sangha is the Buddhist community as a whole, including laypersons.Shakyamuni Buddha: Literally ‘sage of the Shaky clan,’ Shakyamuni was the historical Buddha, who lived in northern India during the sixth century BCE. A son of a provincial king, he renounced royal life, practiced austerities in the forest for six years, and finally attained enlightenment. The rest of his life was spent traveling and teaching, thereby laying the foundation of Buddhism. He entered nirvana in his eighth decade, and attained unexcelled complete enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-sambodhi).Sariputra: One of Shakyamuni Buddha’ s closest and foremost disciples. Renowned for his wisdom, Sariputra is the person to whom the Buddha directs his discourse in the Heart Sutra.Sixth patriarch Huineng: (638-713) The sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China. He is attributed with giving Chan its distinctive flavor, thus he is sometimes regarded as the father of the tradition. The Platform Sutra is attributed to Huineng.

Three Refuges: Taking the three refuges signifies as commitment to the path of Buddhism by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Taken in a special ceremony with a preceptor, the refuge taker will recite words such as the following. “I take refuge in the enlightenment of the Buddha, wishing that all sentient beings will awaken to the great path, and make the supreme resolution. I take refuge in the Dharma, wishing that all sentient beings will penetrate the sutras, their wisdom as deep as the ocean. I take refuge in the Sangha, wishing that all sentient beings will be brought together in great harmony, without any obstructions at all.”Tathagatha: Literally, ‘thus-come, thus-gone,’ one of the ten epithets of the Buddha.Tripitaka: Collectively, the three collections, or canons, of early Buddhist teaching (also known as the Pali Canon). The three canons are: the sutra-pitaka, the collections of the Buddha’s teachings; the sastra-pitaka, the collections of treatises and discourses ( including the abhidharma) by the Buddha’ s disciples and bodhisattvas; and the vinaya-pitaka, the collections of rules and regulations set by the Buddha for the communal life of monks, nuns, novices, and laity.Vipassana: A form of meditative practice to gain insight into the three distinguishing marks (seals) of all dharmas (phenomena); i.e. impermanence, suffering, and no-self (emptiness).Yogacara (Consciousness-Only school): an important school of Mahayana thought that emphasizes that all experience is’ mind only,’ i.e. a creation of the mind. Outside of the knowing process, objects have no reality, and thus the universe is purely mind.

1 See glossary: Abhidharma.
2 Literally’ awakened one,’ a bodhisattva is practitioner who has vowed to defer personal liberation in order to help sentient beings.
3 The Chan School had five major sects: Caodong, Fayan, Linji, Weiyang, and Yunmen.
4 Attributed to the great scholar/translator Nagarjuna, the Mahaprajnaparamita-sastra, was translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva. These lines appear in T. Vol. 25, Fascicle 1, No. 1509.
5 These two lines appear in the chapter, Samadhi and Prajna. For a full English translation of this sutra, see The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, by Philip B. Yampolsky (NY: Columbia University Press, 1967.
6 This statement appears in the chapter, Formless precepts, of The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.
7 Propensities (vasanas) are overt, as well as subtler and deeply ingrained habits (behavioral patterns), which mold and condition our lives, compelling us to perpetuate vexations and continuation in cyclic existence (samsara).
8 Perfect or transcendent wisdom from: prajna (wisdom)+ paramita (perfection).
9 The skandhas are the five aggregates (heaps) of experience. They consist of form, sensation, perception, volition, and consciousness. The five skandhas operating together make up our conscious life.
10 The four great vows of the bodhisattva: I vow to deliver all sentient beings. I vow to cut off all vexations. I vow to master limitless approaches to Dharma. I vow to attain supreme buddhahood.
11 Bodhi-mind (bodhicitta) is the aspiration to enlightenment on the Mahayana path, which stresses the practice of compassion simultaneously with the cultivation of wisdom.
12 The sixth consciousness integrates the perceptions of the five sense consciousnesses, i.e., the consciousnesses of sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch; as such, it is the fundamental faculty of discrimination and cognition.
13 ‘Retribution’ refers to the ripening, or working out, of karma, whether good, bad, or neutral.
14 The ten vows of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva are: To worship and respect all buddhas, to praise the tathagatas, to cultivate generosity (dana), to repent all karmic obstructions, to rejoice in the merits of others, to request the turning of the Dharma Wheel , to request that the buddhas dwell in the world, to follow the buddhas in study, to always harmonize with sentient beings, and to transfer all merits to all others.
15 The bhumis are the ten stages of the bodhisattva path, resulting in Buddhahood at the tenth stage. See glossary.
16 The Huayan doctrine, based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, describes fifty-two levels of bodhisattvahood, beginning with an ordinary being who generates bodhi-mind and who has the intention to become a fully liberated being. The last ten stages of this fifty-two level system are called the bhumis.
17 Early Buddhist traditions refer to approximately 20 different schools that arose in different parts of India, between some 100 to 500 years after the Buddha’s death. They fall into two major schools: the Sarvastivadins and the Mahasangikas. The schools have their own interpretation of Dharma and sila-vinaya (precepts and rules of discipline), but have a common philosophical basis in the agamas and the abhidharma.
18 Wisdom of all things (sarvajnata) is the wisdom that arises with the realization of the emptiness of all things and events.
19 Wisdom of the Path (argajnata) refers to all there is to know about the conventional realm, especially in regard to helping to liberate sentient beings.
20 Wisdom of all Aspects (sarvakarajnata) is the perfect knowledge of everything—all dimensions of reality as it is. This is one of the wisdoms exclusive to a buddha.
21 Analytical emptiness, or emptiness derived from meditative, philosophical analysis of Buddhist principles, is an aspect of the abhidharma tradition of Buddhism.
22 An arhat is a Buddhist saint who has been liberated from the samsaric cycle of birth and death.
23 From German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (Sein und Zeit).
24 The Jatakas are the birth stories of the Buddha, recounting his previous
lives and illustrating the workings of karma in his many rebirths before becoming a buddha.
21 See glossary.
25 Each of the six consciousnesses arises from the interaction between a sense faculty and its sense object.
26 In this context, any object or element arising in any of the eighteen reallms is a dhatu.
27 The following psychological model of mind is from Asangha’s Abhidharmasamuccaya-sastra, or Treatise on Synthesis of Phenomenonogy. Consciousness has eight aspects: the first five refer to our five sensory cognitions; the sixth refers to our mental cognition; the seventh refers to self-clinging that underlies all of our experiences; the eighth refers to the source of our continuation in samsara. The purpose in understanding the relationships of these mental factors is to recognize the psychological processes at work within us. Through examination, we recognize that suffering is caused by our own insistence on self-grasping, our attachment to a permanent self-identity. In turn, we will understand the need to realize impermanence and selflessness, which are the sole means to overcome our suffering.
28 In the Abhidharmasamuccaya-sastra (Treatise on Synthesis of phenomenology), Asanga delineates in detail the function of each of these dharmas. These 51 mental dharmas, or mental factors, are divided into six groups: the five all-accompanying mental factors, the five object-ascertaining mental factors, the eleven virtuous mental factors, the six root delusions, the twenty secondary delusions, and the four changeable mental factors.
29 Generally, ‘causes and conditions’ are the existential prerequisites for something to happen. As an analogy, sunlight, soil, and water are necessary causes and conditions for a plant to grow. ‘Causes and consequences’ are the karmic forces that bring causes and conditions together to bring about retribution. In the plant analogy, the planting of a seed (cause), along with the proper conditions (sunlight, soil, and water) results in a plant taking root (consequence).
30 The agamas are the earliest collections of Shakyamuni Buddha’s teaching on the four noble truths, the eightfold path, the twelve links of conditioned arsing, the eighteen realms of existence, etc.
31 The ten negative acts are killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false statements, frivolous chatter, divisive words, harsh language, craving, aversion, and erroneous views.
32 The eightfold noble path prescribes the concepts, behaviors, and activities most conclucive to attaining liberation: right view; right resolve; right speech; right conduct; right livelihood; right effort; right mindfulness; and right concentration.
33 The four formless samadhis are the four highest states of concentration in samsara, which lead to rebirth in the corresponding four formless heavenly realms. These samadhis are the samadhi of infinite space, the samadhi of infinite consciousness, the samadhi of nothingness, and the samadhi of neither perception nor non-perception. The three realms of existence are the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm. The last is the subtlest dimension of existence; in a sense, it is pure consciousness, transcending materiality.
34 Buddhism speaks of the ‘five eyes’ (panca caksumsi). The physical-eye (mamsa-caksu) is the eye of ordinary human beings, able to distinguish forms. The heavenly-eye (divys-caksus) is the eye of heavenly beings, or those who practice samadhi; it is able to perceive things far, wide, and subtle. The wisdom-eye (prajna-caksus) is the eye that sees into the empty nature of all dharmas. Dharma-eye (dharma-caksus) is the eye that discerns the different qualities of dharmas, and observes the workings of their illusory and conditioned existence. Finally, the Buddha-eye (Buddha-caksus) is the eye of a Buddha, which sees the ultimate mode of existence—true suchness.
35 Early Buddhism speaks of the four fruition levels of the arhat. The Mahayana speaks of the ten bhumis of the bodhisattva; and of course there is buddhahood itself. These are all of designations of Buddhist sainthood.
36 These lines appear in the Mahaprajnaparamita-sastra, T. vol.25, fascicle 83, no.1509.

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