Buddhist Beliefs and Teachings - keywords Flashcards
Buddhism
A religion founded 2500 years ago, by Siddhartha Gautama
Buddha
A title given to someone who has reached enlightenment, or commonly referred to as Siddhartha Gautama
The four sights
- Old age
- Illness
- Death
- A holy man
These 4 sights led the Buddha to leave his life of luxury at the palace.
Jataka
Popular stories about the lives of the Buddha
Ascetic
Living a simple life, with few possessions or pleasures
Meditation
A practice of calming and focusing the mind, reflecting deeply on specific teachings to penetrate their true meaning
Enlightenment
The gaining of true knowledge about God, self or the nature of reality, usually thought meditation and self-discipline; in Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh traditions, gaining the freedom from the cycle of rebirth
Mara
A demon that represents spiritual obstacles, especially temptation
The three watches of the night
The three realisation the Jeddah made in order to reach enlightenment
The five ascetics
The Buddhas 5 first students; 5 monks who followed the ascetic practices
Dhamma (Dharma)
Buddhist teachings
Pali
Language of the earliest Buddhist scriptures
Sanskrit
Language used in later Indian Buddhist texts
Dependent arising
The idea that everything arises in dependence of the conditions
Tibetan wheel of life
An image that symbolises samsara, often found in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and temples
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Nidanas
12 factors that illustrate the prices of birth, death and rebirth
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Samsara
The repeating cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth
Kamma (karma)
A persons actions; the idea that skilful actions result in happiness and unskillful ones in suffering
Nibbana (nirvana)
A state of complete enlightenment, happiness and peace
Dukkha
The first noble truth: there is suffering
Anicca
Impermanence; the idea that everything changes
Anatta
The idea that people do not have a permanent fixed soul or self
The 5 aggregates
The 5 aspects that make up a person
The 4 noble truths
The four truth that the Buddha taught about suffering
Samudaya
The second noble truth: there are causes of suffering
Nirodha
The third noble truth: suffering can be stopped
Magga
The fourth noble truth: the way to stop suffering; the Eightfold Path
Theravada Buddhism
“The school of elders”; an ancient Buddhist tradition found in south east Asia
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Mahayana Buddhism
An umbrella term to describe some later Buddhist traditions including Pure Land Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism
Tanha
Craving
The 3 poisons
Greed, hatred and ignorance; the main causes of suffering
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The eightfold path
8 aspects that a Buddhist practices and lives by in order to reach enlightenment
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The threefold way
The eightfold path grouped into 3 sections; ethics, wisdom and meditation
Ethics (sila)
A section of the threefold way that empathises the importance of skilful actions as the basis of spiritually progression
Meditation (samadhi)
A section of the threefold way that empathises the role of meditation in the process of spiritually development
Wisdom (panna)
A section of the threefold way that deals with the nature of reality
Sunyata
Emptiness; the concept that nothing has a separate or independent “self” or “soul”
Buddha-nature
The idea that everyone has the essence of a Buddha inside them
Buddhahood
When someone achieve enlightenment and becomes a Buddha
Arhat
For Theravada Buddhists, someone who has become enlightened
Bodhisattva
For Mahayana Buddhists, someone who has become enlightened but chooses to remain in the cycle of samsara to help others achieve enlightenment as well
Pure land Buddhism
A Mahayana form of Buddhism based on the beliefs of Amitabha Buddha
Amitabha Buddhism
The Buddha worshiped by pure land Buddhists
Sukhavati
The paradise where the Amitabha Buddha lives, and where pure land Buddhists are to be reborn (but they aren’t enlightened when they arrive, they are just more likely to reach enlightenment here be cause less distraction, suffering etc.)
