Final Exam Flashcards
Three Marks of Experience/Existence
Impermanence, non-self, and suffering
Annica, anatta, and dukkha
Three Jewels/Gems/Refuges
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
Threefold Path
Ethics, Meditation, and Wisdom
Four Noble Truths
Suffering, the cause (thirsting/craving), cessation, and the path to cessation
Dukkha, Trishna, Cessation, and Path
Five Precepts
Against killing, theft, sexual misconduct, lying, and intoxication
Shakyamuni Buddha
“The Founder of Buddhism”
6th century BCE
Samsara
The recurring cycle of death and rebirth under the control of ignorance and fraught with suffering
Nirvana
The state of complete liberation from samsara
Bodhi
Awakening
The understanding possessed by a Buddha regarding the true nature of things
Dukkha
Suffering
Buddha
Awakened one
Dharma
Spiritual teachings
The Truth taught by the Buddha
Sangha
Spiritual community
Vajrayana/Tantra Buddhism
The Tantric Buddhist tradition of India and Tibet
Began around 6th century CE
Dhyana
The practice of mind control by which we stop all thinking and seek to realize Truth in its essence
Chan
“Meditation”
A school of Mahayana Buddhism developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards
Zen
A school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty as Chan
Mappo
The age that is supposed to begin 2,000 years after Sakyamuni Buddha’s passing and last for “10,000 years”
Era of Decline
Dao
“Way”, “path”, or “principle”
Dharma
Wei Wu-Wei
Nirvana
“The action of non-action”
Confucianism
A system of philosophical and ethical teachings founded by Confucius
Daoism
A philosophical, ethical or religious tradition of Chinese origin that emphasizes living in harmony with the Dao
China before Chan
Dogen
A Japanese Buddhist priest who founded the Soto school of Zen in Japan
1200-1253 CE
Bodhidharma
A Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century who brought Chan to China
Mandala
A circular diagram symbolic of the entire universe
Deity yoga
The tantric practice of generating oneself in the form of a meditational deity with purified surroundings
Yogacara
Final, definitive understanding
Vajra
A Sanskrit word meaning both thunderbolt and diamond; a weapon which is used as a ritual object to symbolize both the properties of a diamond (indestructibility) and a thunderbolt (irresistible force)
Bodhicitta
A spontaneous wish to attain enlightenment motivated by great compassion for all sentient beings
“Heart-mind of awakening”
Mantra
Protection of the mind; Sanskrit syllables recited in conjunction with the practice of a particular meditational deity and embodying the qualities of that deity
Lotus Sutra
One of the most important texts in Mahayana Buddhism, significant particularly in China and Japan and given special veneration by the Nichiren sect.
Earliest part dates to between 1st century BCE and 1st century CE
Buddha’s last teaching
Evil people and women can gain enlightenment
Nalanda
North Indian monastic university
Arhat
Guardians of Buddhism
16, 18, or 500 in number
Bodhisattva
One whose spiritual practice is directed toward the achievement of enlightenment; one who possesses the compassionate motive of bodhichitta
A buddha’s past lives
Upaya
A term used in Mahayana Buddhism to refer to an aspect of guidance along the path to nirvana where a conscious, voluntary action is driven by an incomplete reasoning about its direction
“Skill in means”
Tathagata
“One who has thus gone”
Tathagata-garbha
A buddha within
The in-dwelling buddha
Cosmology
Universe is infinite
Buddhas are everywhere
The opportunity for buddhas is everywhere
Soteriology
Theory of liberation/salvation
Conception of the goal (nirvana)
Buddhology
At first to be emulated; later an object of devotion
Arhats and solitary buddhas, once thought of as awakened now seen as provisional steps en route to Buddhahood
Buddha-anusmrti
Recollection of the Buddha
Three Turnings of the Wheel
Thesis (dharmas)
Antithesis (emptiness)
Synthesis
Abhidharma
Ancient (3rd century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras
Shunyata
Emptiness
The absence of independent self-existence among phenomena
Vipassana
“Insight”
Mindful awareness of impermanence
Contemplation of the Buddha
Puja
The act of worship
Bodhgaya
Location of the Buddha’s awakening
Jataka
Births
The Wheel of Life
The “Three Poisons”
Two orders of conditionality
Six realms of existence
Twelve-fold chain of cause and condition
The “Three Poisons”
Greed (the rooster)
Hatred (the snake)
Delusion (the pig)
Two Orders of Conditionality
Ascending and descending
Six Realms of Existence
Gods Titans Humans Animals Hungry ghosts Denizens of hell realms
Twelve-fold Chain of Cause and Condition
Ignorance Predispositions Consciousness "Name-and-form" Six sensory faculties Contact Feeling Craving Grasping Becoming Rebirth Old age and death
Key Characteristics of Mahayana
Expansiveness Universality Literature Cosmology Buddhology Soteriology Doctrines Methodology
Tantra
Interwoven nature of all experience/reality
Pure Land Buddhism
The East Asian school centered on devotional practice directed toward in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha
Chan or Zen Buddhism
The East Asian school centered on meditative practice
Began in 4th-5th century CE
Nichiren
Japanese school emphasizing Mappo and importance of the Lotus Sutra
Phase Three Diversity
Focusing on the Technical Dimension
Nichren, Pure Land, Zen, and Vajrayana
Early Conservative Buddhism
400 BCE-100 CE
Focusing on the Developmental Dimension
The Mahayana Revitalization
0 BCE-500 CE
Focusing on the Relational Dimension
