Filed under: Dharma
In Ending
In ending, I hope that you will continue your journeys and practice with much wisdom. Use the understanding that you have already developed to persevere in practice. This can become the ground for your growth, for the deepening of yet greater understanding and love. You can deepen your practice in many ways. If you are timid in practice, then work with your mind so that you can overcome that. With the proper effort and with time, understanding will unfold by itself. But in all cases , use your own natural wisdom. What we have spoken of is what I feel is helpful to you. If you really do it, you can come to the end of all doubt. You come to where you have no more questions, to that place of silence, to the place in which there is oneness with the Buddha, with the Dharma, with the universe. And only you can do that.
From now on it’s up to you.
Glossary
Abhidharma. – Buddhist psychology, which teaches a detail analysis of the components and processes of mind and body.
Bhikkhu. – A fully ordained Buddhist monk who has taken 227 training vows of renunciation and simplicity.
Body, speech, and mind. – The three spheres of action that can be observed and trained in Buddhist practice.
Concentration. – The mental factor of one-pointedness of mind, steadiness of mind on an object. Also those meditation practices which develop strong concentration and tranquillity by focusing on a steady object.
Consciousness. - The knowing faculty of mind, that aspect of mind which knows the sense objects arising and passing away at the six sense doors.
Defilements. - The mental factors of greed, hatred, and delusion, and mental states which arise with these as their root.
Delusion. – The mental factor of cloudiness of mind which does not allow objects to be seen clearly in the light of impermanence, suffering, and emptiness.
Dependent Origination. - The twelve-link chain of becoming which causes the cycling of birth and death. Each link provides the condition for the arising of the next. Thus ignorance conditions the arising of formative tendencies, which conditions the arising of consciousness, which is followed by the links of mind and matter, the six sense bases, contact, sense impression, feeling, craving, clinging, the process of becoming , rebirth, and finally the last link of old age, sorrow, suffering and death.
Dharma. – The universal law or truth, the teachings of the Buddha about this law, and the elements which make up the process of experience.
Eightfold Path. - The Buddhist path to purification and liberation – right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
Elements. – Usually refers to the four great elements of solidity (earth), cohesion (water), temperature (fire), and movement or vibration (air). Also used to refer to the secondary physical elements and at times to elements of mind.
Elements of the Mind. – Includes the four mental processes of consciousness, feelings, perception, and volition or reaction to experience. May be further described as 52 basis mental qualities such as joy, greed, fear, calm, and so forth, which arise with consciousness and the object of experience.
Emptiness. – Emptiness of self or soul; refers to the basic understanding that there is no one, no self to whom all experience is happening, and that what we are is simply a changing process.
Feeling. - The mental factor of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling that arises in relation to an object.
Five Aggregates. – The five interlinked processes which make up a human being. They are the physical body, feelings, perceptions, volitions, consciousness.
Four foundations of mindfulness. – The four fields for awareness that are our whole experience and where we must pay attention to develop insight. They are: (1) the body and material elements, (2) feelings – pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, (3) consciousness, and (4) all mental factors, all objects of mind, such as thoughts, emotions, greed, and love.
Four Noble Truths. – The most basic teaching of the Buddha: (1) the truth of suffering, (2) the truth of the cause of suffering – clinging and desire, (3) the truth of the end of suffering, and (4) the path to the end of suffering – the Eightfold Path.
Greed. – The mental factor which causes the mind to grasp or stick to an object or experience.
Hatred. - The mental factor of aversion, which causes the mind to dislike or strike against an object or experience.
Ignorance. – That basic force which does not see clearly the nature of the world and is the root cause of grasping and of our desire system.
Impermanence. – The basis truth that all phenomena which have the nature to arise must pass away.
Insight Meditation (vipassana). - Seeing clearly; meditation that focuses on the basic nature of the mind-body process to understand its true characteristics.
Karma. - The law of cause and effect which describes the relationship between events in the realm of mind and of matter.
Matter. – The physical world make of the four basic elements.
Mental factors. – In the five aggregates, this refers to volition and the various other mental factors which arise in relation to consciousness and an object.
Mental Formations or thought constructions. – The conditioned process of volition, categorization, and reaction which determines our relationship to experience.
Mind. – Includes consciousness plus the various mental factors which color consciousness.
Mindfulness. – That quality of mind which notices what is happening in the present moment with no clinging, aversion, or delusion.
Nirvana. – That state of total coolness beyond the movement of the mind-body process. Also refers to liberation from all greed, hatred, and delusion in the mind of an enlightened being.
Noble Ones. - Those who have attained at least the first stage or glimpse of enlightenment and whose understanding and faith is unshakable.
Perception. - The mental factor which perceives or recognizes objects.
Practice. – The ongoing training of the heart and mind in generosity, virtue, calm, and wisdom.
Precepts. – The Buddhist training rules for developing virtue. Laypersons keep five (refraining from killing, stealing, lying,sexual misconduct, and intoxicants which cause heedlessness); nuns and novices keep ten; and monks keep 227.
Samsara. – The world of conditioned phenomena, of the elements of mind and matter, all of which are subject to constant change.
Sense bases. – The six subjective-objective sense bases are: (1) the eye and visible objects, (2) the ear and sounds, (3) the nose and odors, (4) the tongue and tastes, (5) the body and bodily impressions, and (6) the mind and mind-objects.
Sitting. - To sit in meditation, focusing the attention on some aspect of one’s physical or mental states.
Suffering. - The basic unsatisfactory, insecure nature of all transient phenomena.
Three Gems (the Three Jewels or Refuges). – The Buddha, the Dharma (the law and his teachings of it), and the Sangha (the community of monks and practitioners).
Virtue. - Initially refers to following certain moral precepts; more deeply refers to acting in the world without greed, hatred, or delusion.
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