Curated category
Buddhist philosophical concepts
- MahayanaMahayana is the largest branch of Buddhism, and yet for centuries it left almost no trace in the archaeological record. The earliest stone inscription that…
- SassatavadaSassatavada is an ancient view the Buddha singled out for rejection, and understanding why tells us something essential about how early Buddhist thought…
- BodhipakkhiyādhammāBodhipakkhiyādhammā is a Pali term meaning qualities conducive to awakening, and it sits at the heart of Buddhist practice across traditions.
- Impermanence (Buddhism)The Pali Canon contains the phrase sabbe sankhara anicca, which translates to all conditioned things are impermanent. This statement appears alongside two…
- Arya (Buddhism)The Sanskrit word ārya and the Pali term ariya appear in ancient Buddhist texts to describe spiritual warriors or heroes.
- Saṃsāra (Buddhism)A thangka painting from Tibet shows the bhavacakra, a wheel depicting the ancient five cyclic realms of sañsāra in Buddhist cosmology.
- ReincarnationReincarnation is the belief that something essential in a living being survives death and begins again in a new body. This belief is not the property of one…
- AnattāAnattā is one of the most challenging ideas Buddhism asks of its followers: that there is no unchanging, permanent self.
- DuḥkhaDukkha is a Sanskrit and Pali word that sits at the center of three of Asia's oldest living religions, and its most common English translation, "suffering"…
- Nirvana (Buddhism)Nirvana sits at the center of Buddhist thought as the highest religious goal across all its forms. The word itself comes from a Sanskrit term meaning…
- Three marks of existenceThe three marks of existence sit at the heart of Buddhist teaching, and they begin with a claim so simple it can feel like a shrug: nothing lasts.
- Four Noble TruthsThe Four Noble Truths sit at the heart of how Buddhism describes the way things really are when seen correctly. In Pali they are the cattāri ariyasaccāni…
- BodhisattvaA bodhisattva is a being who has the wisdom to reach full enlightenment but chooses, instead, to remain engaged with the suffering world.
- Five hindrancesIn the Buddhist tradition, mental factors known as hindrances block progress in meditation and daily life. Theravada teachers identify these five specific…
- SatipatthanaThe word satipatthana appears in the Pali Canon as a compound term that scholars have parsed in two distinct ways. One parsing reads it as presence of…
- Sentient beings (Buddhism)Sentient beings is a term at the very heart of Buddhist teaching, naming the vast company of living, conscious creatures that Buddhism addresses.
- BuddhahoodBuddhahood is a title, a state, and a cosmic condition all at once. The word "Buddha" comes from classic Indic languages and means simply "awakened one." But…
- Samatha-vipassanāSamatha-vipassanā names two qualities of the Buddhist mind that have, for over two millennia, been at the center of a quietly fierce debate.
- Kleshas (Buddhism)Kleshas are the mental states that, according to Buddhist teaching, cloud the mind and push a person toward unwholesome action.
- ParinirvanaThe state of parinirvana marks the end of all karmic cycles for a being who has already achieved nirvana during their lifetime.
- SatyaSatya is a Sanskrit word most often rendered in English as "truth" or "essence," and it carries a weight that simple translation barely captures.
- NirvanaNirvana names something that has drawn seekers across four of India's great religious traditions for millennia: the complete extinguishing of passion, and…
- Merit (Buddhism)The Pāli word puñña translates literally as merit, meritorious action, or virtue. Theravāda commentator Dhammapāla defined it as that which cleanses the…
- DharmaDharma is one of the most consequential concepts in human thought, and yet it resists every attempt at a clean definition.
- Middle WayThe Middle Way is one of the most fundamental teachings of Buddhism, a doctrine built not on compromise but on a precise kind of refusal.
- Noble Eightfold PathThe Noble Eightfold Path is the central practical teaching of Buddhism, described in its earliest texts as the road out of samsara, the painful cycle of…
- PrajnaparamitaPrajnaparamita is a word that carries two ideas at once: wisdom so complete it has crossed to the other shore of understanding, and a vast collection of…
- Rebirth (Buddhism)Rebirth in Buddhism poses a question that has occupied philosophers, monks, and ordinary people for more than two millennia: if there is no soul, what…
- Refuge in BuddhismRefuge in Buddhism begins with a carved stone panel from Chorasan in Gandhara, dated to the 2nd century AD and now kept in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin…
- AsavaThe Pali word āsava appears in ancient Buddhist scriptures to describe mental defilements. Sanskrit texts render the same concept as āsrava.
- BhavacakraThe word bhavachakra combines two Sanskrit terms: bhava meaning being or worldly existence, and chakra meaning wheel. Monier Monier-Williams published his…