Glossary

Ajaan (Thai): Teacher; mentor.

Arahant: A “worthy one” or “pure one;” a person whose mind is free of defilement and thus is not destined for further rebirth. A title for the Buddha and the highest level of his noble disciples. Sanskrit form: Arhat.

Brahma-vihāra: Sublime attitude of unlimited goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, or equanimity.

Deva: Literally, “shining one.” An inhabitant of the terrestrial or heavenly realms higher than the human.

Dhamma: (1) Event; action. (2) A phenomenon in and of itself. (3) Mental quality. (4) Doctrine, teaching. (5) Nibbāna (although there are passages in the Pali Canon describing nibbāna as the abandoning of all dhammas). Sanskrit form: dharma.

Jhāna: Mental absorption. A state of strong concentration focused on a single sensation or mental notion. Sanskrit form: dhyāna.

Kamma: Intentional act. Sanskrit form: karma.

Mettā: Goodwill; benevolence. See brahma-vihāra.

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.

Pali: The name of the earliest extant canon of the Buddha’s teachings and, by extension, of the language in which it was composed.

Saṁsāra: The wandering-on through rebirth and redeath.

Saṅkhāra: Fabrication.

Sutta: Discourse. Sanskrit form: sūtra.

Tathāgata: Literally, “one who has become authentic (tatha-āgata),” or “one who is really gone (tatha-gata),” an epithet used in ancient India for a person who has attained the highest religious goal. In the Pali Canon, this 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.

Vipassanā: Insight. Originally, this term meant insight as a quality of the mind, but over time it has come to mean a type of meditation aiming at insight into inconstancy, stress, and not-self.