Glossary
Ajaan (Thai): Teacher; mentor.
Arahant: A “worthy one” or “pure one”; a person whose mind is free of defilement and thus not destined for further rebirth. A title for the Buddha and the highest level of his noble disciples.
Bhava: Becoming. A sense of identity within a particular world of experience. The three levels of becoming are on the level of sensuality, form, and formlessness.
Brahmā: An inhabitant of the higher heavenly realms of form or formlessness.
Brahman: A member of the priestly caste, which claimed to be the highest caste in India, based on birth. In a specifically Buddhist usage, “brahman” can also mean an arahant, conveying the point that excellence is based not on birth or race, but on the qualities attained in the mind.
Brahma-vihāra: A mental attitude that, when developed to a level where it can extend without limit to all beings, is conducive to rebirth in one of the Brahmā worlds. There are four altogether: unlimited goodwill (mettā), unlimited compassion (karuṇā), unlimited empathetic joy (muditā), and unlimited equanimity (upekkhā).
Deva (devatā): Literally, “shining one.” A being on the subtle levels of sensuality, form, or formlessness, living either in terrestrial or heavenly realms.
Dhamma: (1) Event; action; (2) a phenomenon in and of itself; (3) mental quality; (4) doctrine, teaching; (5) nibbāna (although there are passages describing nibbāna as the abandoning of all dhammas). Sanskrit form: Dharma.
Gotama: The Buddha’s clan name.
Jhāna: Mental absorption. A state of strong concentration focused on a single sensation or mental notion.
Kamma: (1) Intentional action; (2) the results of intentional actions. Sanskrit form: Karma.
Khandha: Aggregate; physical and mental phenomena as they are directly experienced; the raw material for a sense of self: rūpa—physical form; vedanā—feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain; saññā—perception, mental label; saṅkhāra—fabrication, thought construct; and viññāṇa—sensory consciousness, the act of taking note of sense data and ideas as they occur. Sanskrit form: Skandha.
Māra: The personification of temptation and all forces, within and without, that create obstacles to release from saṁsāra
Nibbāna: Literally, the “unbinding” of the mind from passion, aversion, and delusion, and from the entire round of death and rebirth. As this term also denotes the extinguishing of a fire, it carries connotations of stilling, cooling, and peace. Sanskrit form: Nirvāṇa.
Pāli: The language of the oldest extant Canon of the Buddha’s teachings.
Samatha: Tranquility, steadiness of mind.
Saṁsāra: Transmigration; the process of wandering through repeated states of becoming, with their attendant death and rebirth.
Saṁvega: A sense of dismay over the meaninglessness and futility of life as it is ordinarily lived, combined with a strong sense of urgency in looking for a way out.
Saṅgha: 1) On the conventional (sammati) level, this term denotes the communities of Buddhist monks and nuns; 2) on the ideal (ariya) level, it denotes those followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, who have attained at least stream-entry, the first stage of awakening.
Sutta: Discourse.
Tathāgata: Literally, one who has “become authentic (tatha-āgata)” or who is “truly gone (tathā-gata)”: an epithet used in ancient India for a person who has attained the highest religious goal. In Buddhism, it usually denotes the Buddha, although occasionally it also denotes any of his arahant disciples.
Vinaya: The monastic discipline, whose rules and traditions comprise six volumes in printed text. The Buddha’s own term for the religion he taught was, “This Dhamma-Vinaya.”
Vipassanā: Clear-seeing insight into the processes of fabrication in the mind, with the purpose of developing dispassion for those processes.
