ChandrakirtiChandrakirti (; ; 600-650, meaning "glory of the moon" in Sanskrit) or "Chandra" was a Buddhist scholar of the Madhyamaka school and a noted commentator on the works of Nagarjuna (150-250 CE) and those of his main disciple, Aryadeva. He wrote two influential works on madhyamaka, the Prasannapadā and the Madhyamakāvatāra. Chandrakirti does not seem to have been very influential during the 7th to 10 centuries, and his works were never translated into Chinese.
Samatha-vipassanaSamatha (Pāli; සමථ; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and vipassanā (Pāli; Sinhala විදර්ශනා (Vidarshana); Sanskrit vipaśyanā), literally "special, super (vi-), seeing (-passanā)", are two qualities of the mind developed in tandem in Buddhist practice. In the Pāli Canon and the Āgama these qualities are not specific practices, but elements of "a single path," and are "fulfilled" with the development (bhāvanā) of mindfulness (sati) and meditation (jhāna/dhyāna) and other path-factors.
AbhidharmaThe Abhidharma are ancient (third century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras. It also refers to the scholastic method itself as well as the field of knowledge that this method is said to study. Bhikkhu Bodhi calls it "an abstract and highly technical systemization of the [Buddhist] doctrine," which is "simultaneously a philosophy, a psychology and an ethics, all integrated into the framework of a program for liberation.
SamadhiSamādhi (Pali and समाधि), in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools, is a state of meditative consciousness. In Buddhism, it is the last of the eight elements of the Noble Eightfold Path. In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. In the oldest Buddhist sutras, on which several contemporary western Theravada teachers rely, it refers to the development of an investigative and luminous mind which is equanimous and mindful.
Four Noble TruthsIn Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths (चतुरार्यसत्यानि; caturāriyasaccāni; "The Four Arya Satya") are "the truths of the Noble Ones", the truths or realities for the "spiritually worthy ones". The truths are: dukkha ('not being at ease', "suffering," from dush-stha, "standing unstable,") is an innate characteristic of the perpetual cycle (samsara, wandering) of grasping at things, ideas and habits; samudaya (origin, arising, combination; "cause"): dukkha (unease) arises simultaneously with taṇhā ("craving, desire or attachment, thirst).
Buddha-natureIn Buddhist philosophy, Buddha-nature is the potential for any sentient beings to become a Buddha. It is a common English translation for several related Mahayana Buddhist terms, including tathata ("suchness") but most notably tathāgatagarbha and buddhadhātu. Tathāgatagarbha means "the womb" or "embryo" (garbha) of the "thus-gone" (tathāgata), or "containing a tathāgata", while buddhadhātu literally means "Buddha-realm" or "Buddha-substrate". Buddha-nature has a wide range of (sometimes conflicting) meanings in Indian and later East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist literature.
Two truths doctrineThe Buddhist doctrine of the two truths (Sanskrit: dvasatya, ) differentiates between two levels of satya (Sanskrit; Pali: sacca; word meaning "truth" or "reality") in the teaching of the Śākyamuni Buddha: the "conventional" or "provisional" (saṁvṛti) truth, and the "ultimate" (paramārtha) truth. The exact meaning varies between the various Buddhist schools and traditions. The best known interpretation is from the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism, whose founder was the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna.
Noble Eightfold PathThe Noble Eightfold Path (आर्याष्टाङ्गमार्ग) or Eight Right Paths (अष्टसम्यङ्मार्ग) 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. The Eightfold Path consists of eight practices: right view, right resolve, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi ('meditative absorption or union'; alternatively, equanimous meditative awareness).
Apophatic theologyApophatic theology, also known as negative theology, is a form of theological thinking and religious practice which attempts to approach God, the Divine, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God. It forms a pair together with cataphatic theology, which approaches God or the Divine by affirmations or positive statements about what God is. The apophatic tradition is often, though not always, allied with the approach of mysticism, which aims at the vision of God, the perception of the divine reality beyond the realm of ordinary perception.
PrajnaparamitaPrajñāpāramitā (प्रज्ञापारमिता) means "the Perfection of Wisdom" or "Transcendental Knowledge" in Mahāyāna and Theravāda Buddhism. Prajñāpāramitā refers to a perfected way of seeing the nature of reality, as well as to a particular body of Mahāyāna scriptures (sūtras) which discusses this wisdom. It also refers to the female deity Prajñāpāramitā Devi, a personification of wisdom also known as the "Great Mother" (Tibetan: Yum Chenmo). The word Prajñāpāramitā combines the Sanskrit words prajñā "wisdom" (or "knowledge") with pāramitā "perfection" or "transcendent".
