Buddhism Final

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Upaya

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Skillful means in teaching and practicing the dharma

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Prajna

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Wisdom; a primary aim of the Eightfold Path

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Nembutsu

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Mantra chanted by practitioners of Pure Land Buddhism

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Maitreya

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Final form of the Buddha who will come in the future to save all beings

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Kuan-yin

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East Asian Goddess of compassion (female form of Avalokiteśvara)

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Tanha

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Thirst, craving; the origin of suffering

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Vinaya

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Theravadan body of analysis of the basic factors of existence; first of the three “baskets”

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Samsara

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Cycle of birth-and-death created by ignorance and clinging

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Abhidharma

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Monastic code or discipline; one of the three Theravadan “baskets”

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Sila

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Morality; one of the three main categories of the Eightfold Path

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Arhat

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Theravada sage who has attained nirvana and extinguished rebirth

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Tathagata

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“Thus Come” or “Thus Gone”; name for realized Buddha

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Jataka

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Tales of the life of the Buddha used for teaching and entertainment

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Trikaya

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The three bodies of the Buddha: historical (form), imaginal (formless form), and ultimate truth (beyond physical and mental forms)

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Mudra

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“Sign”; sacred gesture of fingers and hands in Buddhist iconography & ritual

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Sunyata

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Emptiness; doctrine that existing things lack enduring essence

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Stupa

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Sacred structure typically housing relics of the Buddha or bodhisattvas

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Samadhi

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State of deep meditation when “body and mind fall away”

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Skandhas

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Five aggregates that make up the self: form, feeling, perceptions, impulses, consciousness

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Tantras

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Ritual manuals, or ritual performances that use imagination and enactment to transform energies and appearances

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Four Noble Truths

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The Four Noble Truths are one of the most fundamental Buddhist teachings. They appear many times throughout the most ancient Buddhist texts, the Pali Canon. They are among the truths Gautama Buddha is said to have realized during his experience of enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhism regards these as a preliminary teaching for people not ready for its own teachings.

The Nature of Suffering, Suffering's Origin, Suffering's Cessation, The Way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering.

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Three Marks of Existence

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According to the Buddhist tradition, all phenomena other than Nirvana, are marked by three characteristics, sometimes referred to as the Dharma seals. After much meditation, the Buddha concluded that everything in the physical world is marked by these three characteristics.

Dukkha (Suffering)
Anicca (Impermanence)
Anatta (Non-self)

By bringing the three (or four) seals into moment-to-moment experience through concentrated awareness, we are said to achieve Wisdom - the third of the three higher trainings - the way out of Samsara.

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The Six Realms

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They represent all the possibilities, good and bad, of life in saṃsāra. They include rebirth as a deva, an asura, a human being, an animal, a hungry ghost, or a being in Naraka (hell) according to the individual's karma.
The Six realms are also called the "six paths of rebirth", the "six paths of suffering", the "six planes", and the "six lower realms" (by contrast with the higher attainments of the Ten spiritual realms).
This division is most commonly seen in Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Theravada Buddhism there are only five realms, the asuras not being regarded as a separate one.

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The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

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Theravadan.

Bases for maintaining moment-by-moment mindfulness and for developing mindfulness through meditation. These four foundations are the body, feelings (or sensations), mind (or consciousness) and mental objects (or qualities).

Satipaṭṭhāna is a way of implementing the right mindfulness (sammā-sati) and, less directly, the right concentration (sammā-samādhi) parts of the Noble Eightfold Path. Satipaṭṭhāna meditation develops the mental factors of vipassana (insight) and samatha (calm). Satipaṭṭhāna is practiced most often in the context of Theravada Buddhism although the principles are also practiced in most traditions of Buddhism which emphasize meditation such as the Soto Zen tradition.

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Bodhisattva

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Those who call themselves bodhisattvas are motivated by the wish to benefit other "existences" and to lead them to enlightenment[citation needed]. The Mahayana encourages everyone to become bodhisattvas and to take the bodhisattva vows. With these vows, one makes the promise to work for the complete enlightenment of all sentient beings.

The term Bodhisatta (Pali language) was used by the Buddha in the Pali Canon to refer to himself both in his previous lives and as a young man in his current life, prior to his enlightenment, in the period during which he was working towards his own liberation. When, during his discourses, he recounts his experiences as a young aspirant, he regularly uses the phrase "When I was an unenlightened Bodhisatta...". The term therefore connotes a being who is 'bound for enlightenment', in other words, a person whose aim it is to become fully enlightened.

In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva is, at least in a sense, one who aspires to become Buddha for the benefit of all sentient beings. In Mahayana Buddhism this world is compared with a burning home where all sentient beings are resided without the knowledge of house being burnt. A Bodhisattva is the one who has determination to free sentient beings from samsara with the cycle of death, rebirth and suffering.

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Zen

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Zen (禪 or 禅) is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism notable for its emphasis on practice and experiential wisdom—particularly as realized in the form of meditation known as zazen—in the attainment of awakening. As such, it de-emphasizes both theoretical knowledge and the study of religious texts in favor of direct individual experience of one's own true nature.

The emergence of Zen as a distinct school of Buddhism was first documented in China in the 7th century CE. It is thought to have developed as an amalgam of various currents in Mahāyāna Buddhist thought—among them the Yogācāra and Madhyamaka philosophies and of local traditions in China, particularly Taoism and Huáyán Buddhism. From China, Zen subsequently spread southwards to Vietnam and eastwards to Korea and Japan. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Zen also began to establish a notable presence in North America and Europe.

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Pure Land

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a broad branch of Mahayana Buddhism and currently one of the most popular schools of Buddhism in East Asia, along with Zen. It is a devotional or "faith"-oriented branch of Buddhism focused on Amitabha Buddha.
Pure Land Buddhism is often found within Mahayana Buddhist practices such as the Chinese Tiantai school, or Japanese Shingon Buddhism. However, Pure Land Buddhism is also an independent school as seen in the Japanese Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu schools. There is not one "school" of Pure Land Buddhism per se, but rather it is a large subset of the Mahayana branch of Buddhism.
The main idea behind Pure Land Buddhism is the East Asian world view that the Buddhist world was in decline and that Nirvana had become increasingly difficult to obtain for the common people. Instead of meditative work toward enlightenment, Pure Land Buddhism teaches that through devotion to just Amitabha one will be reborn in the Pure Land in which enlightenment is guaranteed. Pure Land Buddhism was popular among commoners and monastics as it provided a straightforward way of expressing faith as a Buddhist. In medieval Japan it was also popular among those on the outskirts of society, such as prostitutes and social outcastes, who were often denied spiritual services by society but could still find some form of religious practice through worshipping Buddha Amitabha.

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Tantra (Vajrayana)

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Tantra techniques in Vajrayana Buddhism are techniques used to attain Buddhahood. Vajrayana partially relies on various tantric techniques rooted in scriptures such as tantras and various tantric commentaries and treatises. The most important aspect of the tantric path is to 'use the result as the Path'; which means that rather than placing full enlightenment as a goal far away in the future, one identifies with the indivisible three vajra that is, the enlightened body, speech and mind of a Buddha iconographically represented as the gankyil. The buddha-form which one can best relate to is called the yidam (Tibetan) or (Sanskrit: ishtadevata) or 'personal buddha-form'. In order to achieve this self-identification with a buddha-form, much symbolism and visualization is used in Buddhist tantric techniques.

Secrecy is a cornerstone of tantric Buddhism, simply to avoid the practices from harming oneself and others without proper guidance. It is not even allowed to explain the full symbolism and psychology of the practice to the uninitiated, which leads to misunderstanding and dismissal. Tantric techniques may initially appear to consist of ritualistic nonsense; however, it should only be practiced on the basis of a thorough understanding of Buddhist philosophy and strictly following the traditions