We

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a temp page to offload Being


We

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_science - the study and interpretation of the experiences, activities, constructs, and artifacts associated with human beings. The study of the human sciences attempts to expand and enlighten the human being's knowledge of their existence, its interrelationship with other species and systems, and the development of artifacts to perpetuate the human expression and thought. It is the study of human phenomena. The study of the human experience is historical and current in nature. It requires the evaluation and interpretation of the historic human experience and the analysis of current human activity to gain an understanding of human phenomena and to project the outlines of human evolution. Human science is the objective, informed critique of human existence and how it relates to reality. Human science (also, humanistic social science, moral science and human sciences) refers to the investigation of human life and activities via a phenomenological methodology that acknowledges the validity of both sensory and psychological experience. It includes but is not necessarily limited to humanistic modes of inquiry within fields of the social sciences and humanities, including history, sociology, anthropology, and economics. Its use of an empirical methodology that encompasses psychological experience contrasts to the purely positivistic approach typical of the natural sciences which exclude all methods not based solely on sensory observations. Thus the term is often used to distinguish not only the content of a field of study from those of the natural sciences, but also its methodology.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities - academic disciplines that study human culture. In Middle Ages, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more frequently contrasted with natural, physical and sometimes social sciences as well as professional training.

The humanities use methods that are primarily critical, or speculative, and have a significant historical element—as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences. The humanities include ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, international relations and musicology. Areas that are sometimes regarded[by whom?] as social sciences and sometimes as humanities include history, archaeology, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, classical studies, law, politics, semiotics and linguistics.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisteswissenschaft - a set of human sciences such as philosophy, history, philology, social sciences, and sometimes even theology and jurisprudence, that are traditional in German universities. Most of its subject matter would come under the much larger humanities faculty in the typical English-speaking university, but it does not contain the arts.

Society


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_studies - the integrated study of the Social Sciences and Humanities to promote civic competence. Within the school program, social studies provides coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such disciplines as Anthropology, Archaeology, Economics, Geography, History, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, and Sociology, as well as appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.

Normally, Social Studies is divided into History and Geography when the student has reached sixth grade or near. Some American schools do not have separate classes on geography at the secondary level.








Anthropology









  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronisław_Malinowski - was a Polish anthropologist, one of the most important 20th-century anthropologists. He has been also referred to as a sociologist and ethnographer. Apart from fieldwork, Malinowski also challenged the claim to universality of Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex. He initiated a cross-cultural approach in Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927) where he demonstrated that specific psychological complexes are not universal.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_functionalism - or simply functionalism, is a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. This approach looks at society through a macro-level orientation, which is a broad focus on the social structures that shape society as a whole, and believes that society has evolved like organisms. This approach looks at both social structure and social functions. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions, and institutions. A common analogy, popularized by Herbert Spencer, presents these parts of society as "organs" that work toward the proper functioning of the "body" as a whole. In the most basic terms, it simply emphasizes "the effort to impute, as rigorously as possible, to each feature, custom, or practice, its effect on the functioning of a supposedly stable, cohesive system". For Talcott Parsons, "structural-functionalism" came to describe a particular stage in the methodological development of social science, rather than a specific school of thought. The structural functionalism approach is a macrosociological analysis, with a broad focus on social structures that shape society as a whole.




Sociology

er




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_representation - a stock of values, ideas, metaphors, beliefs, and practices that are shared among the members of groups and communities. Social Representations Theory is a body of theory within Social Psychology and Sociological social psychology. It has parallels in sociological theorizing such as Social Constructionism and Symbolic Interactionism, and is similar in some ways to mass consensus and Discursive Psychology.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociological_social_psychology - psychological sociology, is an area of sociology that focuses on social actions and on interrelations of personality, values, and mind with social structure and culture. Some of the major topics in this field are sociocultural change, social inequality and prejudice, leadership and intra-group behavior, social exchange, group conflict, impression formation and management, conversation structures, socialization, social constructionism, social norms and deviance, identity and roles, and emotional labor. The primary methods of data collection are sample surveys, field observations, vignette studies, field experiments, and controlled experiments.




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_frame - a detailed sketch or outline of some social phenomenon, representing initial idea of a scientist analyzing this phenomenon. Charles C. Ragin defines it as one of the four building blocks of social research (the other three being ideas (social theories), evidence (data) and images (new ideas synthetised from existing data). Thus, analytic frames are used to elaborate on starting ideas and usually consist of a list of some key elements found in most of the analysed phenomena (for example, social movements).

Two specific types of analytic frames are case and aspect based frames. Framing by case refers to researchers using concepts to classify the phenomena they study, while framing by aspect refers to using concepts to characterize the phenomena. For example, a scientists describing a restaurant, a bus, a coffeehouse and a waiting room as a noninteraction places is assigning them into the same category, thus framing them by case. Framing by aspect is going further and differentiating between cases in a given category (how exactly is noninteraction achieved in those places, what forms of social interaction are permitted in those places, etc.).

Frames can be also divided into fixed, fluid, or flexible. Fixed frames don't change in later research states. They are common in quantitative research, and are used to test and prove or falsify a hypothesis. Flexible frames are common in comparative research, where they show which factors may be more relevant in specific research context, helping to explore the problem without making specific hypothesis. Fluid frames are used when researcher wants to limit the influence of the existing, more established theories; they are thus subject to much change and the researcher can use several frames switching between them depending on the gathered data. Fluid frames are most common in the qualitative research.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism - the philosophy of science that information derived from logical and mathematical treatments and reports of sensory experience is the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge, and that there is valid knowledge (truth) only in this derived knowledge. Verified data received from the senses are known as empirical evidence. Positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected. Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, the modern sense of the approach was developed by the philosopher and founding sociologist Auguste Comte in the early 19th century. Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so also does society.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-positivism - also known as interpretivism, is the belief in social science that the social realm may not be subject to the same methods of investigation as the natural world; that academics must reject empiricism and the scientific method in the conduct of social research. Antipositivists hold that researchers should focus on understanding the interpretations that social actions have for the people being studied.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-positivism - also called postempiricism) is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism. While positivists believe that the researcher and the researched person are independent of each other, postpositivists accept that theories, background, knowledge and values of the researcher can influence what is observed. However, like positivists, postpositivists pursue objectivity by recognizing the possible effects of biases. Postpositivists believe that human knowledge is based not on unchallengeable, rock-solid foundations, but rather upon human conjectures. As human knowledge is thus unavoidably conjectural, the assertion of these conjectures is warranted, or more specifically, justified by a set of warrants, which can be modified or withdrawn in the light of further investigation. However, postpositivism is not a form of relativism, and generally retains the idea of objective truth.

Postpositivists believe that a reality exists, like positivists do, though they hold that it can be known only imperfectly and probabilistically.




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnomethodology - approach to sociological inquiry on everyday methods that people use for the production of social order, documenting the methods and practices through which society's members make sense of their world.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_inequality - a condition where one category of people are attributed an unequal status in relation to other categories of people. This relationship is perpetuated and reinforced by a confluence of unequal relations in roles, functions, decisions, rights, and opportunities. As opposed to cultural inequality, which focuses on the individual decisions associated with these imbalances, structural inequality refers specifically to the inequalities that are systemically rooted in the normal operations of dominant social institutions, and can be divided into categories like residential segregation or healthcare, employment and educational discrimination.






Cultural Studies

Area studies

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_studies - interdisciplinary fields of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what are, in the practice of scholarship, many heterogeneous fields of research, encompassing both the social sciences and the humanities. Typical area studies programs involve history, political science, sociology, cultural studies, languages, geography, literature, and related disciplines. In contrast to cultural studies, area studies often include diaspora and emigration from the area.

Communication studies

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_studies - an academic field that deals with processes of human communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols to create meaning. The discipline encompasses a range of topics, from face-to-face conversation to mass media outlets such as television broadcasting. Communication studies also examines how messages are interpreted through the political, cultural, economic, semiotic, hermeneutic, and social dimensions of their contexts.

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History



Philosophy

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to sort;



"there's enough old wisdom to counter the other half of old wisdom" - approx. anon.?



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy - or analytical philosophy, can refer to: A broad philosophical tradition characterized by an emphasis on clarity and argument (often achieved via modern formal logic and analysis of language) and a respect for the natural sciences, or the more specific set of developments of early 20th-century philosophy that were the historical antecedents of the broad sense: e.g., the work of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. Moore, Gottlob Frege, and logical positivists.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologism - a generic type of position in philosophy according to which psychology plays a central role in grounding or explaining some other, non-psychological type of fact or law. The most common types of psychologism are logical psychologism and mathematical psychologism.



Plato





  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augoeides - an obscure term meaning "luminous body" and thought to refer to the planets. Aleister Crowley considered the term to refer to the Holy Guardian Angel of Abramelin; the Atman of Hinduism the Daemon of the ancient Greeks. Robert Lomas associates the term with the Higher Self or soul of the individual

Kant



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomothetic_and_idiographic - terms used by Kantian philosopher Wilhelm Windelband to describe two distinct approaches to knowledge, each one corresponding to a different intellectual tendency, and each one corresponding to a different branch of academe. Nomothetic is based on what Kant described as a tendency to generalize, and is typical for the natural sciences. It describes the effort to derive laws that explain objective phenomena in general. Idiographic is based on what Kant described as a tendency to specify, and is typical for the humanities. It describes the effort to understand the meaning of contingent, unique, and often subjective phenomena.


Kierkegaard

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Søren_Kierkegaard - Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology and the philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment. He was a fierce critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Swedenborg, Hegel, Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel and Hans Christian Andersen.


Karl Marx

See also Politics#Communism

Ludwig Wittgenstein

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractatus_Logico-Philosophicus - the only book-length philosophical work published by the German-Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his lifetime. It was an ambitious project – to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science



Merleau-Ponty

Literary criticism


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics - initially applied to the interpretation, or exegesis, of scripture. includes both verbal and nonverbal communication as well as semiotics, presuppositions, and preunderstandings. Hermeneutic consistency refers to the analysis of texts to achieve a coherent explanation of them. Philosophical hermeneutics refers primarily to the theory of knowledge initiated by Martin Heidegger and developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer in his work Truth and Method. It sometimes refers to the theories of Paul Ricoeur.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_scholarship - an umbrella term for disciplines that deal with describing, transcribing, editing or annotating texts and physical documents. Textual research is mainly historically oriented. Textual scholars study, for instance, how writing practices and printing technology has developed, how a certain writer has written and revised his or her texts, how literary documents have been edited, the history of reading culture, as well as censorship and the authenticity of texts. The subjects, methods and theoretical backgrounds of textual research vary widely, but what they have in common is an interest in the genesis and derivation of texts and textual variation in these practices.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_reading - the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the single particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philology - the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary criticism, history, and linguistics. It is more commonly defined as the study of literary texts and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning.

Because of its focus on historical development (diachronic analysis), philology came to be used as a term contrasting with linguistics. This is due to a 20th-century development triggered by Ferdinand de Saussure's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis, and the later emergence of structuralism and Chomskyan linguistics with its emphasis on syntax.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism - also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of literary criticism that investigates the origins of ancient text in order to understand "the world behind the text". The primary goal of historical criticism is to ascertain the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or sensus literalis historicus. The secondary goal seeks to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipients of the text. This may be accomplished by reconstructing the true nature of the events which the text describes. An ancient text may also serve as a document, record or source for reconstructing the ancient past which may also serve as a chief interest to the historical critic. In regard to Semitic biblical interpretation, the historical critic would be able to interpret the literature of Israel as well as the history of Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_criticism - In 18th century Biblical criticism, the term "higher criticism" was commonly used in mainstream scholarship in contrast with "lower criticism". In the 21st century, historical criticism is the more commonly used term for higher criticism, while textual criticism is more common than the loose expression "lower criticism".

Historical criticism began in the 17th century and gained popular recognition in the 19th and 20th centuries. The perspective of the early historical critic was rooted in Protestant reformation ideology, inasmuch as their approach to biblical studies was free from the influence of traditional interpretation. Where historical investigation was unavailable, historical criticism rested on philosophical and theological interpretation. With each passing century, historical criticism became refined into various methodologies used today: source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, tradition criticism, canonical criticism, and related methodologies.




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism - or lower criticism, a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of transcription errors in texts, both manuscripts and printed books. Ancient scribes made alterations when copying manuscripts by hand. Given a manuscript copy, several or many copies, but not the original document, the textual critic might seek to reconstruct the original text (the archetype or autograph) as closely as possible. The same processes can be used to attempt to reconstruct intermediate versions, or recensions, of a document's transcription history. The ultimate objective of the textual critic's work is the production of a "critical edition" containing a text most closely approximating the original.



Critical theory

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory - examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism. This has led to the very literal use of 'critical theory' as an umbrella term to describe any theory founded upon critique.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_educational_theory - focuses on the connections between the researcher and the other person or subject where the lives of action researchers are inextricable linked in a profound manner with the individuals and communities involved in the subject of study. LET is a critical theory and emancipatory action research approach which seeks the dialectic in its approach, not debate and battles of [discourse].

Walter Benjamin

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin - a German Jewish philosopher and cultural critic. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, historical materialism, and Jewish mysticism, Benjamin made enduring and influential contributions to aesthetic theory, literary criticism, and Western Marxism. He was associated with the Frankfurt School, and also maintained formative friendships with thinkers such as Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht and Kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem. He was also related by marriage to German political theorist Hannah Arendt through her first marriage to his cousin, Günther Anders. Benjamin's major work as a literary critic included essays on Baudelaire, Goethe, Kafka, Kraus, Leskov, Proust, Walser, and translation theory. He also made major translations into German of the Tableaux Parisiens section of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal and parts of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. Among Benjamin's best known works are the essays "The Task of the Translator" (1923) and "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936).

General semantics

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics - a program begun in the 1920s that seeks to regulate the evaluative operations performed in the human brain. After partial launches under the names "human engineering" and "humanology", Polish-American originator Alfred Korzybski[2] (1879–1950) fully launched the program as "general semantics" in 1933 with the publication of Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics.

Non-Aristotelianism: According to general semantics, the content of all knowledge is structure, so that language (in general) and science and mathematics (in particular) can provide people with a structural 'map' of empirical facts, but there can be no 'identity', only structural similarity, between the language (map) and the empirical facts as lived through and observed by people as humans-in-environments (including doctrinal and linguistic environments).

Time binding: The human ability to pass information and knowledge from one generation to the next. Korzybski claimed this to be a unique capacity, separating people from animals. This distinctly human ability for one generation to start where a previous generation left off, is a consequence of the uniquely human ability to move to higher and higher levels of abstraction without limit. Animals may have multiple levels of abstraction, but their abstractions must stop at some finite upper limit; this is not so for humans: humans can have 'knowledge about knowledge','knowledge about knowledge about knowledge', etc., without any upper limit.

Non-elementalism and non-additivity: The refusal to separate verbally what cannot be separated empirically, and the refusal to regard such verbal splits as evidence that the 'things' that are verbally split bear an additive relation to one another. For example, space-time cannot empirically be split into 'space' + 'time', a conscious organism (including humans) cannot be split into 'body' + 'mind', etc., therefore, people should never speak of 'space' and 'time' or 'mind' and 'body' in isolation, but always use the terms space-time or mind-body (or other organism-as-a-whole terms).

Infinite-valued determinism: General semantics regards the problem of 'indeterminism vs. determinism' as the failure of pre-modern epistemologies to formulate the issue properly as the failure to consider or include all factors relevant to a particular prediction, and failure to adjust our languages and linguistic structures to empirical facts. General semantics resolves the issue in favor of determinism of a special kind called 'infinite-valued' determinism which always allows for the possibility that relevant 'causal' factors may be 'left out' at any given date, resulting in, if the issue is not understood at that date, 'indeterminism', which simply indicates that our ability to predict events has broken down, not that the world is 'indeterministic'.

The influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, and of early operationalists and pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce, is particularly clear in the foundational ideas of general semantics. Korzybski himself acknowledged many of these influences. The concept of "silence on the objective level" attributed to Korzybski and his insistence on consciousness of abstracting are parallel to some central ideas in Zen Buddhism. L. Ron Hubbard is widely believed to have used the theory in his creation of Dianetics and later to have incorporated it into Scientology, and acknowledges this in several texts; the first of these two movements in turn introduced general semantics to a wider audience in the early 1950s, including popular science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, personal growth theorist Harvey Jackins and his movement Re-evaluation Counseling and movements like Gestalt therapy.

General semantics has survived most profoundly in the cognitive therapies that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Albert Ellis (1913–2007), who developed Rational emotive behavior therapy, acknowledged influence from general semantics and delivered the Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture in 1991. The Bruges (Belgium) center for Solution Focused Therapy operates under the name Korzybski Institute Training and Research Center.[42] George Kelly, founder of Personal Construct Psychology, was influenced by general semantics. Frederick Perls and Paul Goodman, founders of Gestalt therapy are said to have been influenced by Korzybski.


Game theory

Situationist



Jacques Lacan

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacanianism - is the study of, and development of, the ideas and theories of the dissident French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Beginning as a commentary on the writings of Freud, Lacanianism developed into a new psychoanalytic theory of humankind, and spawned a world-wide movement of its own. Fredric Jameson has argued that "Lacan's work must be read as presupposing the entire content of classical Freudianism, otherwise it would simply be another philosophy or intellectual system".
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacanian_movement
  • No Subject - an encylopedia of Lacanian psychoanalysis


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objet_petit_a - object little-a) stands for the unattainable object of desire. It is sometimes called the object cause of desire. Lacan always insisted that the term should remain untranslated, "thus acquiring the status of an algebraic sign." (Écrits). 'The "a" in question stands for "autre" (other), the concept having been developed out of the Freudian "object" and Lacan's own exploitation of "otherness."

As a body of thought, Lacanianism began to make its way into the English-speaking world from the sixties onwards, influencing film theory, feminist thought, and psychoanalytic criticism, as well as politics and social sciences, primarily through the concepts of the Imaginary and the Symbolic. As the role of the real and of jouissance in opposing structure became more widely recognised, however, so too Lacanianism developed as a tool for the exploration of the divided subject of postmodernity.

  • Lacan’s Reasoning of the Subject - At the time of the structuralist reduction of the subject to the mere effect of structure, Lacan tends to preserve the concept of the subject. Despite that fact, Lacan does not directly follow up on the modern thought of the subject. It is the Cartesian cogito that is for him the foundation and object of criticism. With regards to the Cartesian cogito, Lacan finds disputable the selffounding of “I” in the act of its thinking. He claims that, even if we allow for the possibility of self-certitude arising from the consciousness itself, the question of how “I” can be conceived in this act remains unanswered. The part of the Cartesian subject that Lacan does adopt is the formation of the subject in the act of doubting. When considered in this context, Freud’s procedure is Cartesian for Lacan, since Freud places special emphasis on doubting in the speech of the analysed in order to be able to conceive his unconscious. For Lacan, the subject is a split subject – a subject that is split by its Symbolic constitution into the imaginary ego and the subject of the unconscious. The discourse of the Symbolic has the constitution of a signifying chain, so the subject in the Symbolic is also reduced to the signifier. The meaning of the subject of the signifier does not encompass the subject of the unconscious, so the subject is alienated from its subject of the unconscious. The splitting that occurred within the subject by its subjection to the signifying constitution of the Other has repercussion on the subject’s perception as well. In the act of perception the subject is split, since the objects are perceived by the ego, the subject of the signifier, and desired by the subject of the unconscious.



Post-structuralism

Jean Baudrillard

Foucault

Deleuze

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizome_(philosophy) - a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972–1980) project. It is what Deleuze calls an "image of thought", based on the botanical rhizome, that apprehends multiplicities, using the terms "rhizome" and "rhizomatic" to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. In A Thousand Plateaus, they oppose it to an arborescent conception of knowledge, which works with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with planar and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections.

Guattari

Derrida

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Différance - a French term coined by Jacques Derrida, deliberately homophonous with the word "différence". Différance plays on the fact that the French word différer means both "to defer" and "to differ." The 〈a〉 of différance is a deliberate misspelling of différence, though the two are pronounced identically. This highlights the fact that its written form is not heard, and serves to further subvert the traditional privileging of speech over writing (see archi-writing), as well as the distinction between the sensible and the intelligible. Derrida developed the concept of différance deeper in the course of an argument against the phenomenology of Husserl, who sought a rigorous analysis of the role of memory and perception in our understanding of sequential items such as music or language. Derrida's approach argues that because the perceiver's mental state is constantly in a state of flux and differs from one re-reading to the next, a general theory describing this phenomenon is unachievable.
  • synchronic - context
  • diachronic - origin

Douglas Hofstadter


Media studies

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_awareness - a term used by social scientists to describe a new form of peripheral social awareness. This awareness is propagated from relatively constant contact with one's friends and colleagues via social networking platforms on the Internet. Some examples of social networking websites are Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Blogger, delicious.com, etc. The term essentially defines the sort of omnipresent knowledge one experiences by being a regular user of these media outlets that allow a constant connection with one's social circle.
  • Technological or Media Determinism
    • "Chandler’s web essay explores the concept and history of technological determinism, which he defines as ‘seek[ing] to explain social and historical phenomena in terms of one principal or determining factor’ - technology. Chandler calls this theory ‘reductive’, and points out that as a way of understanding social phenomena, reductionism is often criticised as being overly simplistic. This is especially the case when determinists become ‘technocentric’ - ‘trying to account for almost everything in terms of technology'. He introduces concepts such as ‘reification’; ‘autonomy’; and ‘universalism’, as elements of technological determinism. Importantly for our purposes, he also indicates how we can identify when a determinist position is being taken, even if an author or speaker doesn’t make it explicit: "The assumptions of technological determinism can usually be easily spotted in frequent references to the 'impact' of technological 'revolutions' which 'led to' or 'brought about', 'inevitable', 'far reaching', 'effects', or 'consequences' or assertions about what 'will be' happening 'sooner than we think' 'whether we like it or not'." The resources below contain some language like this, and you will probably start to notice it elsewhere. The relationship between technological determinism and utopian and dystopian accounts is one we’d like you to consider and discuss as you engage in the readings and films during the rest of this week and next week."
  • http://www.mediapolis.org.uk/
  • http://www.academia.edu/3425545/Media_Life
    • "The media life perspective offers a prediction and explanation of increasingly invisi- ble media; it sustains a theoretical argument as that proposed by Friedrich Kittler (2009),aiming to resolve ontology’s hostility to media. As Kittler argues, ‘philosophy … has been necessarily unable to conceive of media as media’, in that the relation betweenobserver and the observed as for example expressed in writing, audio or video recordingsis generally not considered to be of influence to the work of the philosopher. This blind-ness to the structuring role of media in lived experience not only considers but moves beyond technical media – while acknowledging how significant the medium may be tothe message – to address the essential nature of media as the invisible interlocutor of people’s lives. In today’s media culture, where people increasingly move through theworld (more or less deliberately) assembling a deeply individualized media system – in other words: living in their own personal information spaaaaaace – such a viewpoint can formthe basis of investigation and understanding of everyday life.

Žižek

Other modernity



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-industrial_society - the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy. The concept was popularized by Daniel Bell, and is closely related to similar sociological theoretical constructs such as post-fordism, information society, knowledge economy, post-industrial economy, liquid modernity, and network society. They all can be used in economics or other social science disciplines as a general theoretical backdrop in research design.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_modernization - launched by a joint effort of three of the leading European sociologists — Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Scott Lash. The introduction of this concept served a double purpose: to reassess sociology as a science of the present (moving beyond the early 20thC conceptual framework); and to provide a counterbalance to the postmodernist paradigm offering a re-constructive view alongside deconstruction. The concept built upon previous notions such as post-industrial society (Daniel Bell) and postmaterial society, but stresses how in reflexive modernization, modernity directs its attention to the process of modernization itself.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-postmodernism - Consensus on what makes up an epoch can hardly be achieved while that epoch is still in its early stages. However, a common positive theme of current attempts to define post-postmodernism is that faith, trust, dialogue, performance and sincerity can work to transcend postmodern irony. The following definitions, which vary widely in depth, focus and scope, are listed in the chronological order of their appearance.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamodernism - a set of developments in philosophy, aesthetics, and culture which are emerging from and reacting to postmodernism. One definition characterizes metamodernism as mediations between aspects of both modernism and postmodernism. Metamodernism is similar to post-postmodernism.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative - in critical theory and particularly in postmodernism is a narrative about narratives of historical meaning, experience or knowledge, which offers a society legitimation through the anticipated completion of a (as yet unrealized) master idea. The term was brought into prominence by Jean-François Lyotard in 1984, with his claim that the postmodern was characterised precisely by a mistrust of the grand narratives (Progress, Enlightenment emancipation, Marxism) that had formed an essential part of modernity. Lyotard is describing a global condition - skepticism towards metanarratives in postmodernity - or prescribing such skepticism - his critics pointing out the awkward fact for a descriptive viewpoint that clearly meta-narratives continue to play a major role in the current (postmodern) world. Critics have also argued that, in so far as one of Lyotard's targets was Science, he was mistaken in thinking science relies on a grand narrative for social and epistemic validation, rather than upon the accumulation of many lesser narrative successes.

Hubert Dreyfus

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus - an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His main interests include phenomenology, existentialism and the philosophy of both psychology and literature, as well as the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence. Dreyfus is known for his exegesis of Martin Heidegger, which critics labeled "Dreydegger".

Digital literacies

See Digital literacy


Training

Skills <-> Literacies

  • Attention
  • Participation
  • Cooperation
  • Critical consumption (crap detection)
  • Network awareness

Information architecture;

  • Profiles
  • Groups
  • Assets
  • Information
  • Links and tags
  • Information
  • Products, services


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6UKWozzVRM

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubehaiku/comments/33rs10/haiku_the_memer/

Politics

See Politics



Organisation

See also Organisation

Networks

See also Organising#Collaboration


Systems

See also Maths


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking - sometimes used as a broad catch-all heading for the process of understanding how systems behave, interact with their environment and influence each other. The term is also used more narrowly as a heading for thinking about social organisations, be they natural or designed, healthy or unhealthy. Often the focus is on a government or business organisation that is viewed as containing people, processes and technologies.

Systems thinking has been applied to problem solving, by viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific parts, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_science - an interdisciplinary field that studies the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science itself. It aims to develop interdisciplinary foundations that are applicable in a variety of areas, such as engineering, biology, medicine, and social sciences. Systems science covers formal sciences such as complex systems, cybernetics, dynamical systems theory, and systems theory, and applications in the field of the natural and social sciences and engineering, such as control theory, operations research, social systems theory, systems biology, systems dynamics, systems ecology, systems engineering and systems psychology.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopoiesis - (from Greek αὐτo- (auto-), meaning "self", and ποίησις (poiesis), meaning "creation, production") refers to a system capable of reproducing and maintaining itself. The term was introduced in 1972 by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_psychology - a branch of both theoretical psychology and applied psychology that studies human behaviour and experience in complex systems. It is inspired by systems theory and systems thinking, and based on the theoretical work of Roger Barker, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana and others. Groups and individuals are considered as systems in homeostasis. Alternative terms here are "systemic psychology", "systems behavior", and "systems-based psychology".
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeostasis - the property of a system in which variables are regulated so that internal conditions remain stable and relatively constant. Examples of homeostasis include the regulation of temperature and the balance between acidity and alkalinity (pH). It is a process that maintains the stability of the human body's internal environment in response to changes in external conditions. The concept was described by Claude Bernard in 1865 and the word was coined by Walter Bradford Cannon in 1926, 1929 and 1932. Although the term was originally used to refer to processes within living organisms, it is frequently applied to automatic control systems such as thermostats. Homeostasis requires a sensor to detect changes in the condition to be regulated, an effector mechanism that can vary that condition; and a negative feedback connection between the two.

















Integral theory

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_(spirituality) - Integral is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in philosophy, psychology, spirituality, and many other areas regarding a comprehensive synthesizing transdisciplinary framework or multidimensional perspective to a given field. The term is often combined with others such as approach, consciousness, culture, paradigm, philosophy, society, theory, and worldview. Major themes of this range of philosophies and teachings include a synthesis of science and religion, evolutionary spirituality, and holistic programs of development for the body, mind, soul, and spirit.

In some versions of integral spirituality, integration is seen to necessarily include the three domains of self, culture, and nature. Integral thinkers draw inspiration from the work of Sri Aurobindo, Don Beck, Jean Gebser, Robert Kegan, Ken Wilber, and others. Some individuals affiliated with integral spirituality have claimed that there exists a loosely-defined "Integral movement". Others, however, have disagreed. Whatever its status as a "movement", there are a variety of religious organizations, think tanks, conferences, workshops, and publications in the US and internationally that use the term integral.

Integral thought is claimed to provide "a new understanding of how evolution affects the development of consciousness and culture." It includes areas such as business, education, medicine, spirituality, sports, psychology and psychotherapy. The idea of the evolution of consciousness has also become a central theme in much of integral theory. According to the Integral Transformative Practice website, integral means "dealing with the body, mind, heart, and soul."

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_theory - a philosophy with origins in the work of Sri Aurobindo and Jean Gebser, and promoted by Ken Wilber, seeks a synthesis of the best of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern reality. It is portrayed as a "theory of everything," and offers an approach "to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of approaches that are mutually enriching." It has been applied by scholar-practitioners in 35 distinct academic and professional domains as varied as organizational management and art. It initially started as a theoretical transpersonal psychology that attempted to synthesize Western and non-Western understandings of consciousness with notions of biological, mental, and divine evolution. Wilber has since distanced himself from transpersonal psychology and Integral Theory has turned into an emerging field of academic discourse and research focused on the complex interactions of ontology, epistemology, and methodology. However, there is ongoing discussion surrounding its standing in academia. Integral Theory has been applied in a variety of different domains: integral art, integral ecology, integral economics, integral politics, integral psychology, integral spirituality, and many others. Researchers have also developed applications in areas such as leadership, coaching, and organization development.
Practices


"The Integral view leads to an entirely new approach to metaphysics that is actually post-metaphysics, in that it requires none of the traditional baggage of metaphysics (such as postulating the existence of pre-existing ontological structures of a Platonic, archetypal, Patanjali, or YogacharaBuddhist variety), and yet it can generate those structures if needed (as I will try to demonstrate later). This Integral Post-Metaphysics replaces perceptions with perspectives, and thus re-defines the manifest realm as the realm of perspectives, not things nor events nor structures nor processes nor systems nor vasanas nor archetypes nor dharmas, because all of those are perspectives before they are anything else, and cannot be adopted or even stated without first assuming a perspective."

"Integral Methodological Pluralism is one way of handling those difficult issues. It explicitly finds room for premodern truths, modern truths, and postmodern truths, all in an integral framework not of conclusions, but of perspectives and methodologies. Moreover, it doesn’t “cheat” by watering down the various truths in such a horrid way that they are hardly recognizable. It takes all of those truths more or less as it finds them. The only thing it alters is their claim to absoluteness, and any scaffolding (and metaphysics) meant to justify that unjustifiable claim. Moreover, in ways we will return to later (when this will make more sense to an introductory reader), Integral Methodological Pluralism can reconstruct the important truths ofthe contemplative traditions but without the metaphysical systems that would not survive modernist and postmodernist critiques, elements it turns out they don’t really need, anyway.

Newer metaphors;

  • Lines = streams
  • Levels = waves.
Quadrants


"The quadrants are the inside and the outside view (or perspective) of the individual and the collective. ... We often refer to any event as a holon — a 'whole/part', or a whole that is a part of other wholes ... If you imagine any of the phenomena (or holons) in the various quadrants, you can look at them from their own inside or outside. This gives you 8 primordial perspectives ... We inhabit these 8 spaces, these zones, these life worlds, as practical realities. Each of these zones is not just a perspective, but an action,an injunction,a concrete set of actions in a real world zone. Each injunction brings forth or discloses the phenomena that are apprehended through the various perspectives. The "address" of a holon in the AQAL matrix as address = altitude + perspective, where altitude means degree of development and perspective means the perspective or quadrant it is in."

  • UL - singular interior - i - subjective - introspection, phenomenology / structuralism, hetrophenomenology, psychology, etc.
  • UR - singular exterior - we - objective - autopoiesis (cognitive science) / empiricism, neurophysiology, etc.
  • LL - plural interior - it - intersubjective - hermenutics / anthropology, ethnomethodology, etc.
  • LR - plural exterior - its - interobjective - social autopoiesis / systems theory


to sort

Spiral Dynamics

to sort

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism - argued that human culture may be understood by means of a structure—modeled on language (i.e., structural linguistics)—that differs from concrete reality and from abstract ideas—a "third order" that mediates between the two







  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructionism - theory of knowledge of the fields of both Sociology and Communication that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world. It assumes that understanding, significance, and meaning are developed not separately within the individual, but in coordination with other human beings. The elements most important to the theory are (a) the assumption that human beings rationalize their experience by creating a model of the social world and how it functions and, (b) that language is the most essential system through which humans construct reality



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_theory - the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for analyzing literature. However, literary scholarship since the 19th century often includes—in addition to, or even instead of literary theory in the strict sense—considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social prophecy, and other interdisciplinary themes which are of relevance to the way humans interpret meaning. In humanities in modern academia, the latter style of scholarship is an outgrowth of critical theory and is often called simply "theory." As a consequence, the word "theory" has become an umbrella term for a variety of scholarly approaches to reading texts. Many of these approaches are informed by various strands of Continental philosophy and sociology.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narratology - refers to both the theory and the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect our perception. While in principle the word may refer to any systematic study of narrative, in practice its usage is rather more restricted.[citation needed] It is an anglicisation of French narratologie, coined by Tzvetan Todorov (Grammaire du Décaméron, 1969). Narratology is applied retrospectively as well to work predating its coinage. Its theoretical lineage is traceable to Aristotle (Poetics) but modern narratology is agreed to have begun with the Russian Formalists, particularly Vladimir Propp (Morphology of the Folktale, 1928).


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertextuality - the shaping of a text's meaning by another text. Intertextual figures include: allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. An example of intertextuality is an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As philosopher William Irwin wrote, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence.”





  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramaturgy_(sociology) - a sociological perspective starting from symbolic interactionism and commonly used in microsociological accounts of social interaction in everyday life, a theatrical metaphor in defining the method in which one human being presents itself to another based on cultural values, norms, and expectations


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_turn - predominantly describes a movement beginning in the early 1970s among scholars in the humanities and social sciences to make culture the focus of contemporary debates; it also describes a shift in emphasis toward meaning and away from a positivist epistemology. The cultural turn is described in 2005 by Lynette Spillman and Mark D. Jacobs as "one of the most influential trends in the humanities and social sciences in the last generation."[1] A prominent historiographer argues that the cultural turn involved a “wide array of new theoretical impulses coming from fields formerly peripheral to the social sciences,”[2] especially post-structuralism, cultural studies, literary criticism, and various forms of linguistic analysis, which emphasized “the causal and socially constitutive role of cultural processes and systems of signification.”



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standpoint_theory - a postmodern method for analyzing inter-subjective discourses. This body of work concerns the ways that authority is rooted in individuals' knowledge (their perspectives), and the power that such authority exerts.

Standpoint theory's most important concept is that an individual's own perspectives are shaped by his or her social and political experiences. Standpoints are multifaceted rather than essentializing: while Hispanic women may generally share some perspectives, particularly with regard to ethnicity or sex, they are not defined solely by their participation in these categories. The amalgamation of a person's many experienced dimensions form a standpoint--a point of view--through which that individual sees and understands the world.

Standpoint theorists emphasize the utility of a naturalistic, or everyday experiential, concept of knowing (i.e., epistemology). One's standpoint (whether reflexively considered or not) shapes which concepts are intelligible, which claims are heard and understood by whom, which features of the world are perceptually salient, which reasons are understood to be relevant and forceful, and which conclusions credible.

Standpoint theory supports what feminist theorist Sandra Harding calls strong objectivity, or the notion that the perspectives of marginalized and/or oppressed individuals can help to create more objective accounts of the world. Through the outsider-within phenomenon, these individuals are placed in a unique position to point to patterns of behavior that those immersed in the dominant group culture are unable to recognize. Standpoint theory gives voice to the marginalized groups by allowing them to challenge the status quo as the outsider within. The status quo representing the dominant white male position of privilege.

The predominant culture in which all groups exist is not experienced in the same way by all persons or groups. The views of those who belong to groups with more social power are validated more than those in marginalized groups. Those in marginalized groups must learn to be bicultural, or to "pass" in the dominant culture to survive, even though that perspective is not their own. For persons of color, in an effort to help organizations achieve their diversity initiatives, there is an expectation that they will check their color at the door in order to assimilate into the existing culture and discursive practices.

Movements

to merge into like everything

Scouts


Posthuman

futurist philosophy proper isn't properly relational, heh





The Hedonistic Imperative

The abolitionist project is hugely ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and morally urgent. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved because they served the fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture - a motivational system based on heritable gradients of bliss. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. It is predicted that the world's last unpleasant experience will be a precisely dateable event.

Two hundred years ago, powerful synthetic pain-killers and surgical anesthetics were unknown. The notion that physical pain could be banished from most people's lives would have seemed absurd. Today most of us in the developed world take its routine absence for granted. The prospect that what we describe as psychological pain, too, could be banished is equally counter-intuitive. The feasibility of its abolition turns its deliberate retention into an issue of social policy and ethical choice.

  • BLTC RESEARCH was founded in 1995 to promote paradise-engineering. We are dedicated to an ambitious global technology project. BLTC seek to abolish the biological substrates of suffering. Not just in humans, but in all sentient life.

to sort



cu


blergh

Seee also Organisation

Spirituality, mysticism and esoteric

to sort and integrate with above!!

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality - Traditionally spirituality has been defined as a process of personal transformation in accordance with religious ideals. Since the 19th century spirituality is often separated from religion, and has become more oriented on subjective experience and psychological growth. It may refer to almost any kind of meaningful activity or blissful experience, but without a single, widely-agreed definition.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_formation -the growth and development of the whole person by an intentional focus on one’s spiritual and interior life, interactions with others in ordinary life, and spiritual practices (prayer, the study of scripture, fasting, simplicity, solitude, confession, worship, etc.).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_evolution - the philosophical, theological, esoteric or spiritual idea that nature and human beings and/or human culture evolve, extending from the established cosmological pattern or ascent, or in accordance with certain pre-established potentials. It is synonymous with "higher evolution", a term used to differentiate psychological, mental, or spiritual evolution from the "lower" or biological evolution of physical form.

The concept of spiritual evolution is also complemented by the idea of a creative impulse in human beings, known as epigenesis.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_direction - the practice of being with people as they attempt to deepen their relationship with the divine, or to learn and grow in their own personal spirituality. The person seeking direction shares stories of his or her encounters of the divine, or how he or she is experiencing spiritual issues. The director listens and asks questions to assist the directee in his or her process of reflection and spiritual growth. Spiritual direction develops a deeper relationship with the spiritual aspect of being human. It is not psychotherapy, counseling, or financial planning.





  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_(philosophy) - the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine" especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to anthropomorphic presumptions. The concept of The Absolute may or may not (depending on one's specific doctrine) possess discrete will, intelligence, awareness, or a personal nature. It is sometimes conceived of as the source through which all being emanates.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism - the view that mind or soul (Greek: ψυχή) is a universal feature of all things, and the primordial feature from which all others are derived. The panpsychist sees him or herself as a mind in a world of minds.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_mundi - world soul (Greek: ψυχὴ κόσμου, Latin: anima mundi) is, according to several systems of thought, an intrinsic connection between all living things on the planet, which relates to our world in much the same way as the soul is connected to the human body. The idea originated with Plato and was an important component of most Neoplatonic systems:

Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related. The Stoics believed it to be the only vital force in the universe. Similar concepts also hold in systems of eastern philosophy in the Brahman-Atman of Hinduism, the Buddha-Nature in Mahayana Buddhism, and in the School of Yin-Yang, Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism as qi. Other resemblances can be found in the thoughts of hermetic philosophers like Paracelsus, and by Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, Friedrich Schelling and in Hegel's Geist ("Spirit"/"Mind"). There are also similarities with ideas developed since the 1960s by Gaia theorists such as James Lovelock.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheism - the belief that the universe (or nature as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God. Pantheists thus do not believe in a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god. Some Eastern religions are considered to be pantheistically inclined. Pantheism was popularized in the West as both a theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes' famous dualist theory that the body and spirit are separate.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_mind - the universal higher consciousness or source of being in some forms of esoteric or New Thought and spiritual philosophy. It may be considered synonymous with the subjective mind or it may be referred to in the context of creative visualization, usually with religious or spiritual themes. The word originally derived from Hegel.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_consciousness - book written by Richard Maurice Bucke, a Canadian psychiatrist. In this book, he explored the concept of Cosmic Consciousness, which he defined as "a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man.". "This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law; it shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive; it shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life; it shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it; a great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd; it is nevertheless undoubtedly true."
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheistic - coined by philosopher Paul Tillich or Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, referring to a system of thought or religious philosophy which is neither theistic, nor atheistic, but is beyond them. Zimmer applies the term to the theological system of Jainism, which is theistic in the limited sense that the gods exist, but become irrelevant as they are transcended by moksha (that is, a system which is not non-theistic, but in which the gods are not the highest spiritual instance). Zimmer (1953, p. 182) uses the term to describe the position of the Tirthankaras having passed "beyond the godly governors of the natural order".

The term has more recently also been applied to Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and the Bhakti movement.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy - also referred to as Perennialism, is a perspective within the philosophy of religion which views each of the world’s religious traditions as sharing a single, universal truth on which the foundation of all religious knowledge and doctrine has grown. The term philosophia perennis was first used by Agostino Steuco (1497–1548), drawing on the neo-Platonic philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94). In the early 19th century this idea was popularised by the Transcendentalists. By the end of the 19th century it was further popularized by the Theosophical Society, under the name of "Wisdom-Religion" or "Ancient Wisdom". In the 20th century it was popularized in the English speaking world through Aldous Huxley's book The Perennial Philosophy as well as the strands of thought which culminated in the New Age movement.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soteriology - is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance and importance in many religions. In the academic field of religious studies, soteriology is understood by scholars as representing a key theme in a number of different religions and is often studied in a comparative context; that is, comparing various ideas about what salvation is and how it is obtained. Broadly speaking, religious traditions have either fallen into the category of advocating universal salvation, in which believers hold a generally optimistic view that humanity as whole will eventually receive a positive afterlife free of suffering (this is commonly held by Buddhists and Jews, for example), or advocating special salvation, in which believers hold a generally pessimistic view that the vast majority of humanity will either be destroyed forever or will be condemned to eternal torment with only a small few finding eternal peace (this is traditionally held in Christianity).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism - is the combining of different, often seemingly contradictory beliefs, while melding practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merger and analogizing of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths. Syncretism also occurs commonly in expressions of arts and culture (known as eclecticism) as well as politics (syncretic politics).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism - a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s in the Eastern region of the United States as a protest against the general state of spirituality and, in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both people and nature. Transcendentalists believe that society and its institutions—particularly organized religion and political parties—ultimately corrupt the purity of the individual. They have faith that people are at their best when truly "self-reliant" and independent. It is only from such real individuals that true community could be formed.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritualism - a belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. Spiritism, a branch of Spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec and today found mostly in continental Europe and Latin America, especially Brazil, has emphasised reincarnation. Spiritualism developed and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English-speaking countries. By 1897, it was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes. The religion flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists were women, and like most Spiritualists, supported causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage. By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weakened due to accusations of fraud being perpetrated by mediums, and formal Spiritualist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is currently practiced primarily through various denominational Spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.


The contemporary interest in the empirical research of mysticism can be traced to Stace’s (Stace, 1960) demarcation of the phenomenological characteristics of mystical experiences (Hood, 1975). In Stace’s conceptualization, mystical experiences had five characteristics (Hood, 1985, p.176):

1. The mystical experience is noetic. The person having the experience perceives it as a valid source of knowledge and not just a subjective experience. 2. The mystical experience is ineffable, it cannot simply be described in words. 3. The mystical experience is holy. While this is the religious aspect of the experience it is not necessarily expressed in any particular theological terms. 4. The mystical experience is profound yet enjoyable and characterized by positive affect. 5. The mystical experience is paradoxical. It defies logic. Further analysis of reported mystical experiences suggests that the one essential feature of mysticism is an experience of unity (Hood, 1985). The experience of unity involves a process of ego loss and is generally expressed in one of three ways (Hood, 1 976a). The ego is absorbed into that which transcends it, or an inward process by which the ego gains pure awareness of self, or a combination of the two.









Myth






Animism

Totemism

Shamanism

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_shamanism - used to designate a particular version of shamanism practiced in Mongolia and Siberia which incorporates rituals and traditions from Buddhism. "Yellow" indicates Buddhism in Mongolia, since most Buddhists there belong to what is called the "Yellow sect" of Tibetan Buddhism, whose members wear yellow hats during services.[1] The term also serves to distinguish it from a form of shamanism not influenced by Buddhism (according to its adherents), called "black shamanism"



Early

to resort

Zoroastrianism

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism - also called Zarathustraism, Mazdaism and Magianism, or more natively Mazdayasna, is one of the world's oldest religions, "combining a cosmogonic dualism and eschatological monotheism in a manner unique […] among the major religions of the world." Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), he exalted their deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord), as its Supreme Being. Leading characteristics, such as messianism, heaven and hell, and free will are said to have influenced other religious systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Christianity, and Islam. With possible roots dating back to the second millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the 5th-century BCE, and including a Mithraic Median prototype and Zurvanist Sassanid successor it served as the state religion of the pre-Islamic Iranian empires from around 600 BCE to 650 CE. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia. Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst the Kurds.

The religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta. In Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu (Good Spirit, "Bounteous Immortals") is an all-good "father" of Asha (Truth, “order, justice,") in opposition to Druj (“falsehood, deceit”) and no evil originates from "him". "He" and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas and the host of other Yazatas, through whom worship of Mazda is ultimately directed. Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto "truth" oppose the Spirit's opposite, Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah (“evil thinking”).

Zoroastrianism has no major theological divisions, though it is not uniform; modern-era influences having a significant impact on individual and local beliefs, practices, values and vocabulary, sometimes merging with tradition and in other cases displacing it. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to "be among those who renew the world...to make the world progress towards perfection". Its basic maxims include:

  • Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean: Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.
  • There is only one path and that is the path of Truth.
  • Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and then all beneficial rewards will come to you also.

Greek mythology

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians - major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes and either Hestia, or Dionysus. Hades and Persephone were sometimes included as part of the twelve Olympians (primarily due to the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries), although in general Hades was excluded, because he resided permanently in the underworld and never visited Olympus. The Olympians mostly included members of the third generation of the Greeks gods, descending from the Titans.

Eastern


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sramana - a non-Vedic Indian religious movement parallel to but separate from the historical Vedic religion. The Śramaṇa tradition gave rise to Yoga, Jainism, Buddhism, and some nāstika schools of Hinduism such as Cārvāka and Ājīvika, and also popular concepts in all major Indian religions such as saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death) and moksha (liberation from that cycle).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana - used in Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. It leads to moksha, liberation from samsara, or release from a state of suffering, after an often lengthy period of bhāvanā or sādhanā.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āstika_and_nāstika - technical terms in Hinduism used to classify philosophical schools and persons, according to whether they accept the authority of the Vedas as supreme revealed scriptures, or not, respectively. Similar to the orthodox/heterodox distinction in the West.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sūtra - a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a text in Hinduism or Buddhism. The Pali form of the word, sutta is used exclusively to refer to the scriptures of the early Pali Canon, the only texts recognized by Theravada Buddhism as canonical.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtamangala - a sacred suite of Eight Auspicious Signs endemic to a number of Indian religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. The symbols or "symbolic attributes" are yidam and teaching tools. Not only do these attributes, these energetic signatures, point to qualities of enlightened mindstream, but they are the investiture that ornaments these enlightened "qualities"
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sādhanā - "a means of accomplishing something", an ego-transcending spiritual practice, found in Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and Muslim practices that are followed in order to achieve various spiritual or ritual objectives.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sādhu - a religious ascetic or holy person, dedicated to achieving mokṣa (liberation), the fourth and final aśrama (stage of life), through meditation and contemplation of brahman. the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa - meaning 'to not injure'. The word is derived from the Sanskrit root hiṃs – to strike; hiṃsā is injury or harm, a-hiṃsā is the opposite of this, i.e. cause no injury, do no harm. Ahimsa is also referred to as nonviolence, and it applies to all living beings including animals according to many Indian religions. Ahimsa is one of the cardinal virtues and an important tenet of major Indian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism). Ahimsa is a multidimensional concept, inspired by the premise that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy, to hurt another being is to hurt oneself. Ahimsa has also been related to the notion that any violence has karmic consequences. While ancient scholars of Hinduism pioneered and over time perfected the principles of Ahimsa, the concept reached an extraordinary status in the ethical philosophy of Jainism. Most popularly, Mahatma Gandhi strongly believed in the principle of ahimsa.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vāsanā - a behavioural tendency or karmic imprint which influences the present behaviour of a person. It is a technical term in Dharmic Traditions, particularly Buddhist philosophy and Advaita Vedanta.


Hindu

See also Activities#Yoga

Texts


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammasattha - the Pali name of a genre of literature found in the Indianized kingdoms of Western Indochina (modern Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and Yunnan). historically related to Hindu dharmaśāstra literature, although they are very significantly influenced by the Theravada Buddhist traditions and literature of Southeast Asia.

Denominations

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pramana - Ancient and medieval Indian texts identify six pramanas as correct means of accurate knowledge and to truths: Pratyakṣa (perception), Anumāṇa (inference), Upamāṇa (comparison and analogy), Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances), Anupalabdi (non-perception, negative/cognitive proof) and Śabda (word, testimony of past or present reliable experts). Each of these are further categorized in terms of conditionality, completeness, confidence and possibility of error, by each school of Indian philosophies.

The various schools of Indian philosophies vary on how many of these six are epistemically reliable and valid means to knowledge. For example, Carvaka school of Hinduism holds that only one (perception) is a reliable source of knowledge, Buddhism holds two (perception, inference) are valid means, Jainism holds three (perception, inference and testimony), while Mimamsa and Advaita Vedanta schools of Hinduism hold all six are useful and can be reliable means to knowledge. The various schools of Indian philosophy have debated whether one of the six forms of pramana can be derived from other, and the relative uniqueness of each. For example, Buddhism considers Buddha and other "valid persons", "valid scriptures" and "valid minds" as indisputable, but that such testimony is a form of perception and inference pramanas. The science and study of Pramanas is called Nyaya.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āstika_and_nāstika - Āstika (Sanskrit: आस्तिक āstika; "it exists") and Nāstika (नास्तिक, nāstika; "it doesn't exist") are technical terms in Hinduism used to classify philosophical schools and persons, according to whether they accept the authority of the Vedas as supreme revealed scriptures, or not, respectively. By this definition, Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta are classified as āstika schools; and some schools like Cārvāka, Ājīvika, Jainism and Buddhism are considered nāstika. The distinction is similar to the orthodox/heterodox distinction in the West.

Vedic

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhita - literally means "put together, joined, union" and "a methodically, rule-based combination of text or verses". Samhita also refer to the most ancient layer of text in the Vedas, consisting of mantras, hymns, prayers, litanies and benedictions.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda - a compound of "praise, verse" and veda "knowledge", is a sacred Indo-Aryan collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns still being used in India. It is counted among the four canonical sacred texts (śruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. It is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language. Philological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rigveda was composed in the north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between c. 1500–1200 BCE, though a wider approximation of c. 1700–1100 BCE has also been given.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaveda - consists of a collection (samhita) of hymns, portions of hymns, and detached verses, all but 75 taken from the Sakala Sakha of the Rigveda, the other 75 belong to the Bashkala Sakha, to be sung, using specifically indicated melodies called Samagana, by Udgatar priests at sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant, clarified and mixed with milk and other ingredients, is offered in libation to various deities.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yajurveda - a tatpurusa compound of yajus "sacrificial formula" and veda "knowledge") is one of the four canonical texts of Hinduism, the Vedas. Estimated to have been mostly composed c. 1200 or 1000 BC, the Yajurveda Samhita, or "compilation", contains the liturgy (mantras) needed to perform the sacrifices of the historical Vedic religion, and the added Brahmana and Śrautasutra add information on the interpretation and on the details of their performance.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atharvaveda - The Atharvaveda, while undoubtedly belonging to the core Vedic corpus, in some ways represents an independent parallel tradition to that of the Rigveda and Yajurveda. The Atharvaveda is less predominant than other Vedas, as it is little used in solemn (Shrauta) ritual. The largely silent Brahmin priest observes the procedures of the ritual and "heals" it with two mantras and pouring of ghee when a mistake occurs.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhi - a Vedic Sanskrit word that means the intellectual faculty and the power to "form and retain concepts, reason, discern, judge, comprehend, understand". In Samkhya and yogic philosophy both the mind and the ego are forms in the realm of nature (prakriti) that have emerged into materiality as a function of the three gunas through a misapprehension of purusha (the consciousness-essence of the jivatman). Discriminative in nature (बुद्धि निश्चयात्मिका चित्त-वृत्ति), buddhi is that which is able to discern truth (satya) from falsehood and thereby to make wisdom possible.

Buddhi contrasts from manas which means "mind", and ahamkara which means "ego, I-sense in egotism".


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yajna - a ritual of offerings accompanied by chanting of Vedic and offering and sublimating the havana sámagri (herbal preparations) in the fire


Cosmology and gods

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purusha - In some lineages of Hinduism, Purusha (Sanskrit puruṣa, पुरुष "man, cosmic man", in Sutra literature also called puṃs "man") is the "Self" which pervades the universe. The Vedic divinities are interpretations of the many facets of Purusha. According to the Rigvedic Purusha sukta, Purusha was dismembered by the devas—his mind is the Moon, his eyes are the Sun, and his breath is the wind.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimurti - creation, maintenance, and destruction personified by the forms of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver and Shiva the destroyer or transformer.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manusmṛti - also known as Mānava-Dharmaśāstra मानवधर्मशास्त्र), is the most important and earliest metrical work of the Dharmaśāstra textual tradition of Hinduism. The text presents itself as a discourse given by Manu, the progenitor of mankind to a group of seers, or rishis, who beseech him to tell them the "law of all the social classes" (1.2). Manu became the standard point of reference for all future Dharmaśāstras that followed it. According to Hindu tradition, the Manu smruti records the words of Brahma.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahma - is the Hindu god (deva) of creation and one of the Trimūrti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahmā Purāņa, he is the father of Manu, and from Manu all human beings are descended. In the Rāmāyaņa and the Mahābhārata, he is often referred to as the progenitor or great grandsire of all human beings. He is not to be confused with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit in Hindu Vedānta philosophy known as Brahman, which is genderless. As per Hindu tradition, Vedas never were created by anyone. It always existed from time immemorial.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daksha - one of the sons of Lord Brahma, who, after creating the ten Manas Putras, created Daksha, Dharama, Kamadeva and Agni from his right thumb, chest, heart and eyebrows respectively. Besides his noble birth, Daksa was a great king. Pictures show him as a rotund and obese man with a stocky body, protruding belly, and muscular with the head of an ibex-like creature with spiral horns.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aditi - mother of the gods (devamatar) and all twelve zodiacal spirits from whose cosmic matrix the heavenly bodies were born. As celestial mother of every existing form and being, the synthesis of all things, she is associated with space (akasa) and with mystic speech (Vāc). She may be seen as a feminized form of Brahma and associated with the primal substance (mulaprakriti) in Vedanta. She is mentioned nearly 80 times in the Rigveda: the verse "Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from Daksha" is seen by Theosophists as a reference to "the eternal cyclic re-birth of the same divine Essence" and divine wisdom. In contrast, the Puranas, such as the Shiva Purana and the Bhagavata Purana, suggest that Aditi is wife of sage Kashyap and gave birth to the Adityas such as Indra, Surya, and also Vamana.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishnu - the Supreme God of Vaishnavism, one of the three main sects of Hinduism. Vishnu is also known as Narayana and Hari. Lakshmi is the wife of Vishnu. The Vishnu Sahasranama declares Vishnu as Paramatman (supreme soul) and Parameshwara (supreme God). It describes Vishnu as the all-pervading essence of all beings, the master of—and beyond—the past, present and future, the creator and destroyer of all existences, one who supports, preserves, sustains and governs the universe and originates and develops all elements within.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardhanarishvara - composite androgynous form of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati, representing the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe, (Purusha and Prakriti) and illustrates how Shakti, the female principle of God, is inseparable from (or the same as, according to some interpretations) Shiva, the male principle of God


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devi - Sanskrit root-word of Divine, its related masculine term is Deva. Devi is synonymous with Shakti, the female aspect of the divine, as conceptualized by the Shakta tradition of Hinduism. She is the female counterpart without whom the male aspect, which represents consciousness or discrimination, remains impotent and void. Goddess worship is an integral part of Hinduism.

Devi is, quintessentially, the core form of every Hindu Goddess. As the female manifestation of the supreme lord, she is also called Prakriti, as she balances out the male aspect of the divine addressed Purusha. Devi or Durga is the supreme Being in the Shaktism tradition of Hinduism, while in the Smartha tradition, she is one of the five primary forms of God. In other Hindu traditions of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, Devi embodies the active energy and power of male deities (Purushas), such as Vishnu in Vaishnavism or Shiva in Shaivism. Vishnu's shakti counterpart is called Lakshmi, with Parvati being the female shakti of Shiva.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali - also known as Kālikā (Sanskrit: कालिका), is the Hindu goddess associated with empowerment, shakti. She is the fierce aspect of the goddess Durga (Parvati). The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death: Shiva. Since Shiva is called Kāla— the eternal time — the name of Kālī, his consort, also means "Time" or "Death" (as in "time has come"). Hence, Kāli is the Goddess of Time and Change. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation of evil forces still has some influence. Various Shakta Hindu cosmologies, as well as Shākta Tantric beliefs, worship her as the ultimate reality or Brahman. She is also revered as Bhavatārini (literally "redeemer of the universe").
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrikas - (Matrika singular, Sanskrit: mātṝkā, मातृका "mother"), also called Matara (Sanskrit: mātaraḥ plural, मातरः) and Matri (mātṛ, मातृ singular), is a group of Hindu goddesses who are always depicted together. Since they are usually depicted as a heptad, they are called Saptamatrika(s) (Sanskrit: saptamātṝkāh, सप्तमातृका:, "seven mothers"): Brahmani, Vaishnavi, Maheshvari, Indrani, Kaumari, Varahi and Chamunda or Narasimhi. However, they may sometimes be eight (Ashtamatrika(s): ashtamātṝkāh, अष्टमातृका:, "eight mothers"). Whereas in South India, Saptamatrika worship is prevalent, the Ashtamatrika are vener

to sort

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramatman - the Absolute Atman or Supreme Soul or Spirit (also known as Supersoul or Oversoul) in Vedanta and Yoga, the “Primordial Self” or the “Self Beyond” who is spiritually practically identical with the Absolute, identical with Brahman. Selflessness is the attribute of Paramatman, where all personality/individuality vanishes.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ātman_(Hinduism) - 'inner-self' or 'soul', the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain salvation (liberation), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana), which is to realize that one's true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent self Brahman
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman - "the unchanging reality amidst and beyond the world", which "cannot be exactly defined", Brahman is conceived as Atman, personal god, impersonal absolute or Para Brahman, or in various combinations of these qualities depending on the philosophical school.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satcitananda - "being, consciousness, bliss", is a description of the subjective experience of Brahman, sublimely blissful experience of the boundless, pure consciousness is a glimpse of ultimate reality



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti - literally meaning "portion, share", from the root bhaj- "to partake in, to receive one's share") refers to religious devotion of a devotee in the worship of the divine. Within monotheistic Hinduism, it is the love felt by the worshipper towards the personal God, a concept expressed in Hindu theology as Iṣṭa-devatā.

Bhakti can be used of either tradition of Hindu monotheism, Shaivaism or Vaishnavism. While bhakti as designating a religious path is already a central concept in the Bhagavad Gita, it rises to importance in the medieval history of Hinduism, where the Bhakti movement saw a rapid growth of bhakti beginning in Southern India with the Vaisnava Alvars (6th-9th century CE) and Saiva Nayanars (5th-10th century CE), who spread bhakti poetry and devotion throughout India by the 12th-18th century CE.

The Bhagavata Purana is text associated with the Bhakti movement which elaborates the concept of bhakti as found in the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhakti movement reached North India in the Delhi Sultanate and throughout the Mughal era contributed significantly to the characteristics of Hinduism as the religion of the general population under the rule of a Muslim elite. After their encounter with the expanding Islam religion, Bhakti proponents—who were traditionally called "saints"—"elaborated egalitarian doctrine that transcended the caste system and encouraged individuals to seek personal union with the divine." Its influence also spread to other religions during this period, and became an integral aspect of Hindu culture and society in the modern era.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana - the Sanskrit word for "life force"; in yoga, Indian medicine, and martial arts, the term refers to a cosmic energy believed to come from the sun and connecting the elements of the universe. The universal principle of energy or force, responsible for the body's life, heat and maintenance, prana is the sum total of all energy that is manifest in the universe. This life energy, prana (प्राण), has been vividly invoked and described in Vedas. In Ayurveda, tantra and Tibetan medicine "praṇā vāyu" is the basic vāyu (wind, air) from which all the other vāyus arise. It is analogous to qi.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadi_(yoga) - are the channels through which, in traditional Indian medicine and spiritual science, the energies of the subtle body are said to flow. They connect at special points of intensity called chakras.







  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaishnavism - focused on the veneration of Vishnu. Vaishnavites, or the followers of the Vishnu, lead a way of life promoting monotheism, which gives importance to Vishnu and his ten incarnations.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaitanya_Mahaprabhu - a Hindu monk and social reformer from 16th century India. A native of Nabadwip in Bengal, he promoted the worship of God, in his tradition known by the name Krishna. He is venerated by followers of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada - was a Gaudiya Vaishnava spiritual teacher (guru) and the Founder-Acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), commonly known as the "Hare Krishna Movement". His mission was to propagate Gaudiya Vaishnavism, a school of Vaishnavite Hinduism that had been taught to him by his guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, throughout the world.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakrishna - was an Indian mystic during 19th-century. His religious school of thought led to the formation of the Ramakrishna Mission by his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda. He is also referred to as "Paramahamsa" by his devotees, as such he is popularly known as Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.



Goals in life;

Chakras

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajna - end of duality, balancing the higher and lower selves and trusting inner guidance, access of intuition, visual consciousness, clarity on an intuitive level.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anahata - complex emotions, compassion, tenderness, unconditional love for the self and others, equilibrium, rejection and well-being, circulation, passion, devotion

Āstika

6 orthodox Hindu/Indian schools of thought

As used in Hindu philosophy the differentiation between āstika and nāstika does not refer to theism or atheism. The terms often, but not always, relate to accepting Vedic literature as an authority, particularly on their teachings on Self (Soul). The Veda and Hinduism do not subscribe to or include the concept of an almighty that is separate from oneself i.e. there is no concept of 'god' as in the Christian or Islamic sense. As N. N. Bhattacharyya writes:

The followers of Tantra were often branded as Nāstika by the political proponents of the Vedic tradition. The term Nāstika does not denote an atheist since the Veda presents a godless system with no singular almighty being or multiple almighty beings. It is applied only to those who do not believe in the Vedas. The Sāṃkhyas and Mīmāṃsakas do not believe in God, but they believe in the Vedas and hence they are not Nāstikas. The Buddhists, Jains, and Cārvākas do not believe in the Vedas; hence they are Nāstikas.

Samkhya

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya - It is described as the rationalist school of Indian philosophy. It is most related to the Yoga school of Hinduism, and its rationalism was influential on other schools of Indian philosophies. An enumerationist philosophy whose epistemology accepted three of six Pramanas as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge. These included Pratyakṣa (perception), Anumāṇa (inference) and Sabda (Āptavacana, word/testimony of reliable sources).

Samkhya is strongly dualist. Sāmkhya philosophy regards the universe as consisting of two realities; Puruṣa (consciousness) and prakriti (matter). Jiva (a living being) is that state in which puruṣa is bonded to prakriti in some form.] This fusion, state the Samkhya scholars, led to the emergence of buddhi (“spiritual awareness”) and ahankara (individualized ego consciousness, “I-maker”). The universe is described by this school as one created by Purusa-Prakriti entities infused with various permutations and combinations of variously enumerated elements, senses, feelings, activity and mind. During the state of imbalance, one of more constituents overwhelm the others, creating a form of bondage, particularly of the mind. The end of this imbalance, bondage is called liberation, or moksha by Samkhya school of Hinduism.

The existence of God or supreme being is not directly asserted, nor considered relevant by the Samkhya philosophers. Sāṃkhya denies the final cause of Ishvara (God). While Samkhya school of Hinduism considers the Vedas as a reliable source of knowledge, it is an atheistic philosophy according to Paul Deussen and other scholars. A key difference between Samkhya and Yoga schools, state scholars, is that Yoga school of Hinduism accepts a "personal, yet essentially inactive, deity" or "personal god".

Samkhya is known for its theory of gunas (qualities, innate tendencies). Guna, it states, are of three types: Sattva being good, compassionate, illuminating, positive, and constructive; Rajas guna is one of activity, chaotic, passion, impulsive, potentially good or bad; and Tamas being the quality of darkness, ignorance, destructive, lethargic, negative. Everything, all life forms and human beings, state Samkhya scholars, have these three gunas, but in different proportions. The interplay of these gunas defines the character of someone or something, of nature and determines the progress of life. The Samkhya theory of gunas was widely discussed, developed and refined by various schools of Indian philosophies including Buddhism. Samkhya's philosophical treatises also influenced the development of various theories of Hindu ethics.

Darkness, dissolution, death, destruction, ignorance, sloth, and resistance

Action, change, mutation; passion, excitement; birth, creation, generation.

Purity, goodness. For an object or food to be sattvic, it must be uncontaminated and should not spread evil or disease in the world. On the contrary its presence must purify the surroundings.

Mīmāṃsā

Vaisheshika

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaisheshika - espouses a form of atomism, that the reality is composed of four substances (earth, water, air, fire). Each of these four are of two types, explains Ganeri, atomic (paramāṇu) and composite. An atom is that which is indestructible (anitya), indivisible, and has a special kind of dimension, called “small” (aṇu). A composite is that which is divisible into atoms. Whatever human beings perceive is composite, and even the smallest perceptible thing, namely, a fleck of dust, has parts, which are therefore invisible. The Vaiśeṣikas visualized the smallest composite thing as a “triad” (tryaṇuka) with three parts, each part with a “dyad” (dyaṇuka). Vaiśeṣikas believed that a dyad has two parts, each of which is an atom. Size, form, truths and everything that human beings experience as a whole is a function of atoms, their number and their spatial arrangements.

Vaisheshika postulated that what one experiences is derived from dravya (substance: a function of atoms, their number and their spatial arrangements), guna (quality), karma (activity), samanya (commonness), vishesha (particularity) and samavaya (inherence, inseparable connectedness of everything).

Nyaya

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyaya - In its metaphysics, Nyaya school is closer to Vaisheshika school of Hinduism than others. It holds that human suffering results from mistakes/defects produced by activity under wrong knowledge (notions and ignorance). Moksha (liberation), it states, is gained through right knowledge. This premise led Nyaya to concern itself with epistemology, that is the reliable means to gain correct knowledge and to remove wrong notions. False knowledge is not merely ignorance to Naiyayikas, it includes delusion. Correct knowledge is discovering and overcoming one's delusions, and understanding true nature of soul, self and reality.

Naiyayika scholars approached philosophy as a form of direct realism, stating that anything that really exists is in principle humanly knowable. To them, correct knowledge and understanding is different than simple, reflexive cognition; it requires Anuvyavasaya (अनुव्यवसाय, cross-examination of cognition, reflective cognition of what one thinks one knows).[10] An influential collection of texts on logic and reason is the Nyayasutras, written by Aksapada Gautama about 2nd century CE.

Nyaya school shares some of its methodology and human suffering foundations with Buddhism. A key difference between the two, however, is that while Buddhism considers the question of whether or not there is a soul or self to be unfathomable; Nyaya school like other schools of Hinduism believe that there is a soul and self. Liberation is considered a state of removal of ignorance, wrong knowledge, the gain of correct knowledge and unimpeded continuation of self.

Vedanta

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanta - literally translates to "the conclusion of Vedas," and originally referred to the Upanishads, a collection of foundational texts in Hinduism (considered the last appendix or final layer of the Vedic canon). By the 8th century, it came to mean all philosophical traditions concerned with interpreting the three basic texts of Hinduist philosophy, namely the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita.

Yoga

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siddha - refers to a Siddha Guru who can by way of Shaktipat initiate disciples into Yoga, may broadly refer to Siddhars, Naths, Ascetics, Sadhus, or Yogis and vice versa because they all practice the Sādhanā concept.
Varieties


  • Yoga Meditation Index - This site is devoted to presenting the ancient Self-Realization path of the Tradition of the Himalayan masters in simple, understandable and beneficial ways, while not compromising quality or depth. The goal of our sadhana or practices is the highest Joy that comes from the Realization in direct experience of the center of consciousness, the Self, the Atman or Purusha, which is one and the same with the Absolute Reality. This Self-Realization comes through Yoga meditation of the Yoga Sutras, the contemplative insight of Advaita Vedanta, and the intense devotion of Samaya Sri Vidya Tantra, the three of which complement one another like fingers on a hand. We employ the classical approaches of Raja, Jnana, Karma, and Bhakti Yoga, as well as Hatha, Kriya, Kundalini, Laya, Mantra, Nada, Siddha, and Tantra Yoga. Meditation, contemplation, mantra and prayer finally converge into a unified force directed towards the final stage, piercing the pearl of wisdom called bindu, leading to the Absolute.




Three yogas
Rāja / ashtanga yoga

documented after and influenced by Buddhism

Yamas

First limb, don'ts

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamas - and its complement, niyamas, represent a series of "right living" or ethical rules within Hinduism and Yoga. They are a form of moral imperatives, commandments, rules or goals. The five Yamas of Patañjali's classical yoga system are commitments that affect the yogi's relations with others. The five Niyamas of Patañjali's classical yoga system are personal obligations to live well.

Ten yamas are codified as "the restraints" in numerous scriptures including the Śāṇḍilya and Vārāha Upanishads, the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Svātmārāma, and the Tirumantiram of Tirumular. Patañjali lists only five yamas in his Yoga Sūtras.

Niyama

Second limb, dos

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niyama - literally means positive duties or observances. In Indian traditions, particularly Yoga, niyamas are recommended activities and habits for healthy living, spiritual enlightenment and liberated state of existence. It has multiple meanings depending on context in Hinduism. In Buddhism, the term extends to the determinations of nature, as in the Buddhist niyama dhammas. In Pāli the spelling niyāma is often used.
Asanas

Third limb, body position, originally identified as a mastery of sitting still



Beginners:

Advanced Beginners:

  • Virasana (Hero or Heroine Pose)
  • Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose)
  • Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations)
  • Vrksasana (Tree Pose)
  • Utthita Trikonasana (Extended Triangle Pose)
  • Utthita Parsvakonasana (Extended Side Angle Pose)
  • Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose)
  • Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand)
  • Ardha Navasana (Half Boat Pose)
  • Ustrasana (Camel Pose)
  • Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose)
  • Salabhasana (Locust Pose)
  • Makrasana (Crocodile Pose)
  • Salamba Sarvangasana (Supported Shoulderstand)
  • Baddha Konasana (Bound Angle Pose)
  • Janu Sirsasana (Head-to-Knee Forward Bend)
  • Paschimottanasana (Seated Forward Bend)
  • Marichyasana III (Marichi's Pose, Variation III)
  • Savasana (Corpse Pose)
Pranayama

Fourth limb, breath

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maipayat - Originally recorded late in the Vedic period, in conjunction with Vedanta, and Yoga, is done working from a full-deep yogic breathing, by initiating set movement patterns that nurture creativity and feeds the body with breath energy. Similar exercises are taught in t'ai chi although Maipayat exercises more fluid movements while attempting to align the chakras.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ujjayi_breath - or spinal breath, chakra activation breath, employed in a variety of Taoist and Yoga practices. In relation to Yoga, it is sometimes called "the ocean breath". Unlike some other forms of pranayama, the ujjayi breath is typically done in association with asana practice. Ujjayi is a diaphragmatic breath, which first fills the lower belly (activating the first and second chakras), rises to the lower rib cage (the third and fourth chakras), and finally moves into the upper chest and throat. The technique is very similar to the three-part Tu-Na breathing found in Taoist Qigong practice. Inhalation and exhalation are both done through the nose. The "ocean sound" is created by moving the glottis as air passes in and out. As the throat passage is narrowed so, too, is the airway, the passage of air through which creates a "rushing" sound. The length and speed of the breath is controlled by the diaphragm, the strengthening of which is, in part, the purpose of ujjayi. The inhalations and exhalations are equal in duration, and are controlled in a manner that causes no distress to the practitioner.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_breathing - Expanding the abdomen while breathing out through the nose, and then compressing it while inhaling via the mouth - the opposite of what an abdomen would do during natural, instinctive breathing
Pratyahara

Fifth limb, 'withdrawal of the senses', a bridge between the bahiranga (external) aspects of yoga and the antaranga (internal) yoga

Dhāraṇā

Sixth limb

The meditator or the meditator's meta-awareness is conscious of meditating (that is, is conscious of the act of meditation) on an object, and of his or her own self, which is concentrating on the object


Dhyana (meditation)

Seventh limb

Samādhi (concentration)

Eighth limb

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samādhi - also called samāpatti, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools refers to a state of meditative consciousness. It is a meditative absorption or trance, attained by the practice of dhyāna. In samādhi the mind becomes still. It is a state of being totally aware of the present moment; a one-pointedness of mind.

In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samāpatti - In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, samāpatti is discussed as the universal form of the Yoga called samprajñāta-samadhi, or savikalpa samadhi, followed by asamprajñāta-samadhi, or nirvikalpa samadhi. It has as its prerequisite the annihilation of all (non-sattvic) modifications (vṛtti) of consciousness (citta).
Practices
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriya - commonly refers to a "completed action", technique or practice within a yoga discipline meant to achieve a specific result, or bodymovement flowing from kundalini
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyāsa - denotes a flowing, dynamic form of yoga, connected to breath or pranayama in which yoga and mudra transitions are embodied as linkages within and between asana.
Mantra


Mudra


Yantra
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yantra - the Sanskrit word for a mystical diagram, especially diagrams or amulets supposed to possess occult powers in astrological or magical benefits in the Tantric traditions of the Indian religions. Traditionally such symbols are used in Eastern mysticism to balance the mind or focus it on spiritual concepts. The act of wearing, depicting, enacting and/or concentrating on a yantra is held to have spiritual or astrological or magical benefits in the Tantric traditions of the Indian religions.


to sort




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashrama_(stage) - one of four stages in an age-based social system as laid out in the Manu Smriti and later Classical Sanskrit texts. The ashrama system of life was an attempt to institutionalize Sramana ideals within the Brahmanical social structure
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sannyasa - practiced by Sannyasi is the life stage of the self realized ascetic within the Hindu system of philosophy of four age-based life stages known as ashrams. It is the topmost and final stage of the ashram system and is traditionally taken by men or women over fifty or by young Brahmacharis who wish to renounce worldly and materialistic pursuits and dedicate their lives to spiritual pursuits. People in this stage of life develop vairāgya, or a state of dispassion and detachment from material life, renouncing worldly thoughts and desires in order to spend the remainder of their lives in spiritual contemplation. A member of the sannyasa order is known as a sannyasi (male) or "sannyasini" (female).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarta_Tradition - also spelt as Smartha, is an orthodox Hindu "family tradition" or sect composed of Brahmins, c.q. "[a] certain category of brahmins", which follows Panchayatana. The term Smārta is used to denote a specific, specialized category of Brahmins, who specialize in the smriti, c.q. who hold the smriti as the most authoritative texts.
Pranava yoga


Nada yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nāda_yoga - an ancient Indian metaphysical system. It is both a philosophical system, a medicine, and- as the name suggests- a form of yoga. The system's theoretical and practical aspects are based on the premise that the entire cosmos and all that exists in the cosmos, including human beings, consists of sound vibrations, called nāda. This concept holds that it is the sound energy in motion rather than of matter and particles which form the building blocks of the cosmos. Nāda yoga is also a way to approach with reverence and respond to sound. Sound and music is in this context, something more than just the sensory properties and sources of sensuous pleasure, sound and music is considered also to play the role as a potential medium to achieve a deeper unity with both the outer and the inner cosmos.
  • Nada Bindu Upanishad
  • Shurangama Sutra - often spelled Shurangama Sutra or Surangama Sutra in English, is a Mahayana sutra and one of the main texts used in the Chán school in Chinese Buddhism. In the Surangama Sutra, Avalokitesvara says that he attained enlightenment through concentration on the subtle inner sound. The Buddha then praises Avalokitesvara and says that this is the supreme way to go.
Sanyasa yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanyasa_yoga - in Hindu astrology are the peculiar planetary situations or combinations seen in certain horoscopes that indicate Sanyasa i.e. renunciation of worldly material life by persons born with those yogas. Sanyasa yogas are also known as Pravrajya yogas.
Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
Yoga Yajnavalkya
Trul khor
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trul_khor - "magical movement instrument, channels and inner breath currents"), known in short as Trul khor "magical instrument" or "magic circle" (adhisāra) is a Vajrayana discipline which includes pranayama and body postures (asanas). From the perspective of Dzogchen, the mind is merely vāyu "breath" in the body. Thus working with vāyu and the body is paramount, while meditation on the other hand is considered contrived and conceptual.

Namkhai Norbu, a prominent exponent of trul khor, prefers to use the Sanskrit equivalent term, Yantra Yoga, when writing in English. Trul khor derives from the instructions of the Indian mahasiddhas who founded Vajrayana.

Trul khor traditionally consists of 108 movements, including bodily movements (or dynamic asanas), incantations (or mantras), pranayama and visualizations. The flow or vinyāsa of movements are likened to prayer beads. Trul khor asanas are depicted on the walls of the Dalai Lama's summer temple of Lukhang.

Six Yogas of Naropa
Hatha yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirumalai_Krishnamacharya - was an Indian yoga teacher, ayurvedic healer and scholar. Often referred to as "The Father of Modern Yoga,"[3][4][5] Krishnamacharya is widely regarded as one of the most influential yoga teachers of the 20th century and is credited with the revival of hatha yoga.
Kriya yoga
Integral yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_yoga - 1921, purna yoga, intended to harmonize the paths of karma, jnana, and bhakti yoga as described in the Bhagavad Gita, can also be considered a synthesis between Vedanta and Tantra, and even between Eastern and Western approaches to spirituality.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_zone - refers to what is described as a spiritually dangerous and misleading transitional spiritual and pseudospiritual region between the ordinary consciousness and true spiritual realisation. Paul Brunton also uses the term, correlates the term intermediate zone with a perilous and deceptive psychological region also given various other names in mystical literature, such as the astral plane, the hall of illusion, and so on. Prior to Aurobindo's use of the term, a similar conception, termed "astral intoxication", was described by the Theosophist W. Q. Judge.
Vihangamyoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vihangamyoga - Vihangam Yoga Organization is an NGO and a pioneer in yoga and advance meditation training, aiming at uplifting the human life in all aspects. The organization was established in the year 1924 by His Holiness Sadguru Sadafaldeo Ji Maharaj who discovered this wonderful meditation technique after 17 year of strenuous meditation practice. Today, under the holy guidance of present Sadguru His Holiness Shri Swatantradeo Ji Maharaj, Vihangam Yoga has reached around 35 nations with hundreds of Ashrams and has transformed the lives of more than 5 million disciples belonging to different races, Re
Kundalini yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini_yoga - also laya yoga, based on a 1935 treatise by Sivananda Saraswati, influenced by the tantra and shakta, involves regular practice of meditation, pranayama, chanting mantra and yoga asana


Siddha Yoga
Ashtanga vinyasa
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtanga_vinyasa_yoga - 1948, style codified by K. Pattabhi Jois, often promoted as a modern-day form of classical Indian yoga. named after the eight limbs (Ashtanga, Sanskrit for "eight-limbed") of yoga mentioned in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Videos:

Bihar School of Yoga
Ananda yoga
Sivananda yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivananda_yoga - 1960s - after teachings of Swami Sivananda, is a non-proprietary form of hatha yoga in which the training focuses on preserving the health and wellness of the practitioner. Sivananda Yoga teachers are all graduates of the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course,[3] and students widely range in age and degrees of ability. Unlike Ashtanga vinyasa yoga's more athletic program involving Bandhas, Sivananda training revolves around frequent relaxation, and emphasizes full, yogic breathing.
Sahaja Yoga
Bikram yoga
Iyengar Yoga
Jivamukti Yoga
Dru yoga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dru_yoga - either be a centuries-old Indian tradition, or a proprietary style by the spiritual and charitable organisation Life Foundation and its guru Dr. Mansukh Patel
Surat Shabd Yoga
Hot yoga
Laughter yoga
Chair Yoga
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Other

Hindu nāstika

Heterodox schools of thought

  • Cārvāka
  • Ājīvika
  • Jainism
  • Buddhism
Cārvāka
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cārvāka - also known as Lokāyata, is a heterodox system of Indian philosophy that assumes various forms of materialism, philosophical skepticism and religious indifference.
Ājīvika
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ājīvika - Ajivika or Ajivaka, literally means "living" in Sanskrit, was a heterodox system of ancient Indian philosophy and an ascetic movement of the Mahajanapada period in the Indian subcontinent. Ājīvika was primarily a heterodox Indian (Nāstika) system. The Ājīvikas may simply have been a more loosely-organized group of wandering ascetics (shramanas or sannyasins). Thought to be contemporaneous to other early Indian nāstika philosophical schools of thought, such as Cārvāka, Jainism and Buddhism.
Jainism

See #Jainism

Buddhism

See #Buddhism

Tantra

A tradition within many traditions.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantras - "Looms" or "Weavings") refers to numerous and varied scriptures pertaining to any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Although Buddhist and Hindu Tantra have many similarities from the outside, they do have some clear distinctions.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vamachara - a Sanskrit term meaning "left-handed attainment" and is synonymous with "Left-Hand Path" or "Left-path" (Sanskrit: Vāmamārga). It is used to describe a particular mode of worship or sadhana (spiritual practice) that is not only "heterodox" (Sanskrit: nāstika) to standard Vedic injunction, but extreme in comparison to the status quo.





  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaula - a type of Hindu tantrism reckoned by Gavin Flood to derive from Kapalika or "shmashāna asceticism", and to divide into northern, eastern, southern and western schools across the subcontinent. The Kaula tradition is sometimes more simply divided into two main branches, Purva Kaula and Uttara Kaula. The Kaula lineage is closely linked to the Siddha and Nātha traditions.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_Shaivism - a group of nondualist Tantric Shaiva traditions from Kashmir that originated in the second half of the first millennium. The term is most often being used to refer to Trika, also called Pratyabhijña, but also includes the earlier schools of Kapulika and its subschool of the Kaulas, and the Krama school. The goal of Kashmir Shaivism is to recognize one's already existing identity with Shiva, the deity who represents Universal Consciousness. It is categorized by various scholars as monistic idealism, absolute idealism, theistic monism, realistic idealism, transcendental physicalism or concrete monism


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diksha - translated as a "preparation or consecration for a religious ceremony", is giving of a mantra or an initiation by the guru in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Diksa is given in a one-to-one ceremony, and typically includes the taking on of a serious spiritual discipline. The word is derived from the Sanskrit root dā ("to give") plus kṣi ("to destroy") or alternately from the verb root dīkṣ ("to consecrate"). When the mind of the guru and the disciple become one, then we say that the disciple has been initiated by the guru.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganachakra - Sanskrit: गणचक्र gamacakra "gathering circle". a generic term for various tantric assemblies or feasts, in which practitioners meet to chant mantra, enact mudra, make votive offerings and practice various tantric rituals as part of a sādhanā, or spiritual practice. The ganachakra often comprises a sacramental meal and festivities such as dancing; the feast generally consisting of materials that were considered forbidden or taboo in medieval India, where the tantric movement arose. As a tantric practice, forms of gaṇacakra are practiced today in Hinduism, Bön and Vajrayāna Buddhism.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maithuna - a Sanskrit term used in Tantra most often translated as sexual union in a ritual context. It is the most important of the five makara and constitutes the main part of the Grand Ritual of Tantra variously known as Panchamakara, Panchatattva, and Tattva Chakra.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahasiddha - a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "siddhi of perfection". They are a certain type of yogin/yogini recognized in Vajrayana Buddhism. Mahasiddhas were tantric practitioners, or tantrikas, who had sufficient empowerments and teachings to act as a guru or tantric master. A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sadhana, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and spiritual abilities and powers. Their historical influence throughout the Indic and Himalayan region was vast, and they reached mythic proportions as codified in their songs of realization and hagiographies, or namthar, many of which have been preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. The Mahasiddhas are the founders of Vajrayana traditions and lineages, such as Dzogchen and Mahamudra.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakini - The Sanskrit term is likely related to the term for drumming, while the Tibetan term means "sky goer" and may have originated in the Sanskrit khecara, a term from the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra. Dakinis are often represented as consorts in Yab-Yum representations. The masculine form of the word is ḍāka, which is usually translated into Tibetan as pawo "hero" (Wylie: dpa' bo). The dakini (and the daka) appeared in medieval legends in North India (such as in the Bhagavata Purana, Brahma Purana, Markandeya Purana and Kathasaritsagara) as a demon in the train of Kali who feeds on human flesh. They are comparable to malevolent or vengeful female spirits, deities, imps or fairies in other cultures, such as the Persian peri. As a key tantric figure, the dakini does appear in Tangmi; the dakini figure disseminated into Japanese culture from Shingon Buddhism, evolving into the dakini-ten ("ten" means "deva" in Japanese), becoming linked to the kitsune iconography. The dakini appears in a Vajrayana formulation of the Three Jewels' Buddhist refuge formula, known as the Three Roots. Most commonly she appears as the dharmapala, alongside a guru and yidam. The dakini, in her various guises, serves as each of the Three Roots. She may be a human guru, a vajra master who transmits the Vajrayana teachings to her disciples and joins them in samaya commitments. The wisdom dakini may be a yidam, a meditational deity; female deity yogas such as Vajrayogini are common in Tibetan Buddhism. Or she may be a protector; the wisdom dakinis have special power and responsibility to protect the integrity of oral transmissions"



Buddhist tantra - nine fold;



Jainism

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_philosophy - the oldest Indian philosophy that separates body (matter) from the soul (consciousness) completely. Jain philosophy deals with reality, cosmology, epistemology (study of knowledge) and Vitalism. The concept of non-injury or ahiṃsā lies at the core of Jain philosophy. Jain philosophy attempts to explain the rationale of being and existence, the nature of the Universe and its constituents, the nature of bondage and the means to achieve liberation.



The seven tattva, truths or fundamental principles that constitute reality, are:

  1. jīva- the soul which is characterized by consciousness
  2. ajīva- the non-soul
  3. āsrava (influx)- inflow of auspicious and evil karmic matter into the soul.
  4. bandha (bondage)- mutual intermingling of the soul and karmas.
  5. samvara (stoppage)- obstruction of the inflow of karmic matter into the soul.
  6. nirjara (gradual dissociation)- separation or falling off of part of karmic matter from the soul.
  7. mokṣha (liberation)- complete annihilation of all karmic matter (bound with any particular soul).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samvara - one of the tattva or the fundamental reality of the world as per the Jain philosophy. It means stoppage—the stoppage of the influx of the material karmas into the soul consciousness. The karmic process in Jainism is based on seven truths or fundamental principles (tattva) of Jainism which explain the human predicament. Out that the seven, the four—influx (āsrava), bondage (bandha), stoppage (saṃvara) and release (nirjarā)—pertain to the karmic process.

Samvara or stoppage of karmic influx is achieved through practice of:

  1. Three guptis or three controls of mind, speech and body
  2. Five samitis or observing carefulness in movement, speaking, eating, placing objects and disposing refuse.
  3. Ten dharmas or observation of good acts like – forgiveness, humility, straightforwardness, contentment, truthfulness, self-control, penance, renunciation, non-attachment and continence.
  4. Anuprekshas or meditation on the truths of this universe.
  5. Pariṣahajaya, that is, a man on moral path must develop a perfectly patient and unperturbed attitude in the midst of trying and difficult circumstances.
  6. Cāritra, that is, endeavour to remain in steady spiritual practices.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism_and_non-creationism - Jainism does not support belief in a creator deity. According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its constituents—soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion—have always existed. All the constituents and actions are governed by universal natural laws. It is not possible to create matter out of nothing and hence the sum total of matter in the universe remains the same (similar to law of conservation of mass). Jain text claims that the universe consists of Jiva (life force or souls), and Ajiva (lifeless objects).Similarly, the soul of each living being is unique and uncreated and has existed since beginningless time.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirthankara - a human being who helps in achieving liberation and enlightenment as an arihant. According to Jain scriptures, that which helps one to cross the great ocean of worldly life is a tīrtha “ford” and a person who fills that role is a tīrthaṅkara “ford-maker”. Tīrthaṅkaras achieve liberation and enlightenment by destroying their constraining (karmas) and becoming role models and leaders for those seeking spiritual guidance. They also seek Kevala Jnana, a state of permanent, perpetual, absolute knowledge of the Soul; it is the precursor to final liberation from the cycle of birth and death.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arihant_(Jainism) - a step before becoming siddha. Arihants destroyed all gathi karma and live on until they reach the siddha status. Arihant is not a synonym for tirthankara, which refers specifically to certain arihants who have certain karmas that enable them to become spiritual leaders. defeated anger, ego, deception, and greed - inner enemies or kashayas responsible for the perpetuation of ignorance. When that happens, the person has destroyed the four ghati karmas, namely Gyanavarniya (knowledge blocking) Karma, Darshanavarniya (perception blocking) Karma, Mohniya (passion causing) Karma and Antaraya "obstacle-causing" karma.

Shinto

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintoism - the indigenous religion of Japan and the people of Japan. It is defined as an action-centred religion, focused on ritual practices to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present-day Japan and its ancient past. Founded in 660 BC according to Japanese mythology, Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written historical records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 8th century. Still, these earliest Japanese writings do not refer to a unified "Shinto religion", but rather to a collection of native beliefs and mythology. Shinto today is a term that applies to the religion of public shrines devoted to the worship of a multitude of gods (kami), suited to various purposes such as war memorials and
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miko - a Shinto term of Japan, indicating a shrine (jinja) maiden or a supplementary priestess who was once likely seen as a shaman but in modern Japanese culture is understood to be an institutionalized role in daily shrine life, trained to perform tasks, ranging from sacred cleansing to performing the Kagura, a sacred dance.

Confucianism

Buddhism

  • w:Buddhism - sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE

See also Activities#Meditation

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda - First cousin, one of the principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. The name means 'bliss' in Pali, Sanskrit as well as other Indian languages.






Dharma / dhamma

  • The state of Nature as it is (yathā bhūta)
  • The Laws of Nature considered both collectively and individually.
  • The teaching of the Buddha as an exposition of the Natural Law applied to the problem of human suffering.
  • A phenomenon and/or its properties.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmacakra - lit. "Wheel of Dharma" or "Wheel of Law"), is one of the Ashtamangala symbols that has represented dharma, the Buddha's teaching of the path to Nirvana, since the early period of Indian Buddhism.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhipakkhiyādhammā - are qualities (dhammā) conducive or related to (pakkhiya) awakening (bodhi). In the Pali commentaries, the term bodhipakkhiyā dhammā is used to refer to seven sets of such qualities regularly mentioned by the Buddha throughout the Pali Canon. Within these seven sets of Enlightenment qualities, there is a total of thirty-seven individual qualities (sattatiṃsa bodhipakkhiyā dhammā). These seven sets of qualities are recognized by both Theravadan and Mahayanan Buddhists as complementary facets of the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine - differentiates between two levels of truth (satya) in Buddhist discourse: relative or commonsensical truth, and absolute or ultimate truth. In Tibetan Buddhism ultimate truth is synonymous with emptiness.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra_(Buddhism) - the beginning-less cycle of repeated birth, mundane existence and dying again. Samsara is considered to be dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful, perpetuated by desire and avidya (ignorance), and the resulting karma. Rebirths occur in six realms of existence, namely three good realms (heavenly, demi-god, human) and three evil realms (animal, ghosts, hellish). Samsara ends if a person attains nirvana, the "blowing out" of the desires and the gaining of true insight into impermanence and non-self reality.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra - a symbolic representation of saṃsāra (or cyclic existence) found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibetan region. In the Mahayana Buddhism, it is believed that the drawing was designed by the Buddha himself in order to help ordinary people understand Buddhist teachings. The bhavacakra is popularly referred to as the wheel of life, and may also be glossed as wheel of cyclic existence or wheel of becoming.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangha - a word in Pali and Sanskrit meaning "association", "assembly," "company" or "community" and most commonly refers in Buddhism to the monastic community of ordained Buddhist monks or nuns. The Sangha also includes laymen and laywomen who are personally dedicated to the discipline of Dharma-Vinaya.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupa#Symbolism - "The shape of the stupa represents the Buddha, crowned and sitting in meditation posture on a lion throne. His crown is the top of the spire; his head is the square at the spire's base; his body is the vase shape; his legs are the four steps of the lower terrace; and the base is his throne.

Although not described in any Tibetan text on stupa symbolism, the stupa may represent the five purified elements:

  • The square base represents earth
  • The hemispherical dome/vase represents water
  • The conical spire represents fire
  • The upper lotus parasol and the crescent moon represents air
  • The sun and the dissolving point represents the element of space


Dependent origination

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratītyasamutpāda - commonly translated as dependent origination or dependent arising, states that all dharmas ("things") arise in dependence upon other dharmas: "if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist." It is a pragmatic teaching, which is applied to dukkha and the cessation of dukkha.

The term is also used to refer to the twelve links of dependent origination, which describes the chain of causes which result in rebirth. By reverting the chain, liberation from rebirth can be attained. In the Tibetan Gelugpa school, pratītyasamutpāda is complementary to the concept of śūnyatā "emptiness," which means that no dharma has an existence of its own, and that there is no such "thing" as an "ultimate truth" or "ultimate reality."

Three Marks Of Existance

  • Impermanence (anicca)
  • Dissatisfaction or suffering (dukkha)
  • Non-self (anattā)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impermanence - one of the essential doctrines or three marks of existence in Buddhism. The term expresses the Buddhist notion that all of conditioned existence, without exception, is transient, or in a constant state of flux. The mutability of life, that time passes on no matter what happens, is an important aspect of impermanence. The Pali word anicca literally means "inconstant", and arises from a synthesis of two separate words, 'Nicca' and the "privative particle" 'a'. Where the word 'Nicca' refers to the concept of continuity and permanence, 'Anicca' refers to its exact opposite; the absence of permanence and continuity.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Śūnyatā - emptiness, voidness, openness, spaciousness, vacuity, is a Buddhist concept which has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. In Theravada Buddhism, suññatā often refers to the not-self (Pāli: anatta, Sanskrit: anātman) nature of the five aggregates of experience and the six sense spheres. Suññatā is also often used to refer to a meditative state or experience.

Four Noble Truths

  1. The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, stress, unsatisfactoriness)
  2. The truth of the origin of dukkha
  3. The truth of the cessation of dukkha
  4. The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha - first noble truth is the truth of dukkha, commonly translated as "suffering", "anxiety", "stress", or "unsatisfactoriness". The principle of dukkha is one of the most important concepts in the Buddhist tradition. The Buddha is reputed to have said: "I have taught one thing and one thing only, dukkha and the cessation of dukkha."
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudaya_sacca - the second of the four noble truths within Buddhist tradition. It refers to the origin or causes of dukkha (suffering). "it is this craving which leads to re-becoming, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, craving for disbecoming"
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirodha_sacca - the third of the four noble truths within Buddhist tradition. Nirodha means "cessation" or "extinction", and sacca means "truth" or "reality". Thus, nirodha sacca is typically translated as the "truth of cessation" or "truth of the cessation of suffering." It refers specifically to the cessation of dukkha (suffering) and its causes; the experience of this cessation is referred to as nirvana.



"In a chapter in an edited volume on the role of culture in depression, Gananath Obeyesekere begins by quoting from Brown and Harris’s influential 1978 study on the social origins of depression in women: The immediate response to loss of an important source of positive value is likely to be a sense of hopelessness, accompanied by a gamut of feelings, ranging from distress, from depression, and shame to anger. Feelings of hopelessness will not always be restricted to the provoking incident—large or small. It may lead to thoughts about the hopelessness of one’s life in general. It is such generalization of hopelessness that we believe forms the central core of depressive disorder. (Brown & Harris, 1978, p. 235)"

"This statement sounds strange to me, a Buddhist, for if it was placed in the context ofSri Lanka, I would say that we are not dealing with a depressive but a good Buddhist. The Buddhist would take one further step in generalization: it is not simply the general hopelessness of one’s own lot; that hopelessness lies in the nature of the world,and salvation lies in understanding and overcoming that hopelessness"

i.e. an alternate valence to a perceived metaphysic of 'nothing' and that the universe ultimately doesn't give a shit, similar to part of the balance of the existential metaphysic.

(opposed to 'everything' and the intersubjective and relational connectedness of the human condition/nature and reality)

"One might want to quibble with Obeyesekere; one might demand more evidence — both psychological and ethnographic — for the similarities he sees between good Sri Lankan Buddhists and American depressives. Do Sri Lankan Buddhists really aspire to a state that we would associate with depression? Or is the very idea of depression so culturally and historically constructed as to mitigate its cross-cultural utility? However one parses these issues, on purely doctrinal grounds Obeyesekere has a point: early Buddhist sutras in general, and Therav�ada teachings in particular, hold that (1) to live is to suffer, (2) the only genuine remedy to suffering is escape from samsara (the phenomenal world) altogether, and (3) escape requires, among other things, abandoning hope that happiness in this world is possible."

Threefold Training

  • higher virtue (adhisīla-sikkhā)
  • higher mind (adhicitta-sikkhā)
  • higher wisdom (adhipaññā-sikkhā)
Threefold Partition Eightfold Path Method of Practice
VIRTUE Right Speech Five Laymen Vows
Right Action
Right Livelihood
MIND Right Effort Dwelling in the four jhanas (meditation)
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration
WISDOM Right View Knowing Four Noble Truths
Right Intention

"And are the three aggregates [of virtue, concentration, & discernment] included under the noble eightfold path, lady, or is the noble eightfold path included under the three aggregates?"

"The three aggregates [not the sense aggregates] are not included under the noble eightfold path, friend Visakha, but the noble eightfold path is included under the three aggregates. Right speech, right action, & right livelihood come under the aggregate of virtue. Right effort, right mindfulness, & right concentration come under the aggregate of concentration. Right view & right resolve come under the aggregate of discernment."

-- Culavedalla Sutta: The Shorter Set of Questions-and-Answers

Noble Eightfold Path

Ariyo aṭṭhaṅgika maggo [25]


All eight elements of the Path begin with the word samyañc (in Sanskrit) or sammā (in Pāli) which means "right, proper, as it ought to be, best, wholesome). The Buddhist texts contrast samma with its opposite miccha.


Wisdom (Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)

  • 1. Wholesome view (understanding the four noble truths) (9. Superior wholesome knowledge)
  • 2. Wholesome intention (10. Superior wholesome liberation)

Ethical conduct (Sanskrit: śīla, Pāli: sīla)

  • 3. Wholesome speech
  • 4. Wholesome action
  • 5. Wholesome livelihood

Concentration (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi)

  • 6. Wholesome effort
  • 7. Wholesome mindfulness
  • 8. Wholesome concentration


"Is the noble eightfold path fabricated/conditioned or unfabricated/unconditioned?"

"The noble eightfold path is fabricated/conditioned."

Only nibbana is unconditioned

-- Culavedalla Sutta: The Shorter Set of Questions-and-Answers



  • Yoga: The Other Eightfold Path (Part I of II) - Buddhism teaches the Noble Eightfold Path to liberation (enlightenment and nirvana). It was so popular in India that centuries later the seer (rishi) Patanjali collected yoga sutras (aphorisms or pithy sayings) to explain the higher purpose of the path of yoga ("union" with the ultimate). The Buddha had done much to revivify the Vedic knowledge, but he himself rejected ancient India's sacred texts as sacrosanct and authoritative. The Buddha did not promote Vedic Brahmanism but promoted a rebellion against the corrupt temple priest practices of the old establishment.


Wholesome view

Sanskrit/Pāli: samyak-dṛṣṭi / sammā-diṭṭhi

First / ninth truth

Of those , right view is the forerunner [...] And what is the right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions? 'There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits, and results of good and bad actions. There is this world and the next world. There is mother and father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are contemplatives and brahmans who faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves.' This is the right view with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in acquisitions.

Wholesome resolve

Sanskrit/Pāli: samyak-saṃkalpa / sammā sankappa

Second / tenth truth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path#Right_resolve

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niyama - literally means positive duties or observances. In Indian traditions, particularly Yoga, niyamas are recommended activities and habits for healthy living, spiritual enlightenment and liberated state of existence. It has multiple meanings depending on context in Hinduism. In Buddhism, the term extends to the determinations of nature, as in the Buddhist niyama dhammas. In Pāli the spelling niyāma is often used.
Wholesome speech

Sanskrit/Pāli: samyag-vāc / sammā-vācā

Third truth



Wholesome action

Sanskrit/Pāli: samyak-karmānta / sammā-kammanta

Fourth truth

Wholesome livelihood

Sanskrit/Pāli: samyag-ājīva / sammā-ājīva

Fifth truth


Wholesome effort

Sanskrit/Pāli: samyag-vyāyāma / sammā-vāyāma

Sixth truth


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paritta - generally translated as "protection" or "safeguard," refers to the Buddhist practice of reciting certain verses and scriptures in order to ward off evil fortune or dangerous conditions, as well as to the specific verses and discourses recited as paritta texts. The practice of reciting or listening to the paritta suttas began very early in the history of Buddhism.

http://www.thlib.org/static/reprints/bot/bot_1989_02_03.pdf

Wholesome mindfulness (sati)

Seventh truth

See Being#Mindfulness


Wholesome concentration (samādhi)

Eighth truth

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samādhi - also called samāpatti, in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and yogic schools refers to a state of meditative consciousness. It is a meditative absorption or trance, attained by the practice of dhyāna. In samādhi the mind becomes still. It is a state of being totally aware of the present moment; a one-pointedness of mind.

In Buddhism, it is the last of the eight elements of the Noble Eightfold Path.

In the Ashtanga Yoga tradition, it is the eighth and final limb identified in the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali.



"And what is right concentration? Herein a monk aloof from sense desires, aloof from unwholesome thoughts, attains to and abides in the first meditative absorption (jhana) which is detachment-born and accompanied by applied thought, sustained thought, joy, and bliss.

"By allaying applied and sustained thought he attains to, and abides in the second jhana which is inner tranquillity, which is unification (of the mind), devoid of applied and sustained thought, and which has joy and bliss.

"By detachment from joy he dwells in equanimity, mindful, and with clear comprehension and enjoys bliss in body, and attains to and abides in the third jhana which the noble ones (ariyas) call: 'Dwelling in equanimity, mindfulness, and bliss.'

"By giving up of bliss and suffering, by the disappearance already of joy and sorrow, he attains to, and abides in the fourth jhana, which is neither suffering nor bliss, and which is the purity of equanimity-mindfulness. This is called right concentration."


Dhyana (Sanskrit: ध्यान, Pali: झान) means "contemplation, reflection" and "profound, abstract meditation". The root of the word is Dhi, which in the earliest layer of text of the Vedas refers to "imaginative vision" and associated with goddess Saraswati with powers of knowledge, wisdom and poetic eloquence. This term developed into the variant dhya- and dhyana, or "meditation". Dhyana, states Thomas Berry, is "sustained attention" and the "application of mind to the chosen point of concentration". Dhyana is contemplating, reflecting on whatever Dharana has focused on.[14] If in the sixth limb of yoga one is concentrating on a personal deity, Dhyana is its contemplation. If the concentration was on one object, Dhyana is non-judgmental, non-presumptuous observation of that object. If the focus was on a concept/idea, Dhyana is contemplating that concept/idea in all its aspects, forms and consequences. Dhyana is uninterrupted train of thought, current of cognition, flow of awareness. A related term is nididhyāsana, the pondering over Upanishadic statements. It is a composite of three terms, namely dhyai, upasana ("dwelling upon"), and bhavana ("cultivating").


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samāpatti - Samāpatti stands for correct (samyag) acquisition (āpatti) of Truth. It is a form of alaukika-pratyakṣa (extraordinary perception) forming thus a legitimate part of the perceptual (pratyakṣa]] instruments of adequate knowledge (pramāṇa). In Buddhism, samapatti refers to the eight jhanas.

Twelve Nidānas

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Nidānas - "cause, foundation, source or origin", an application of the Buddhist concept of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination). They identify the origin of dukkha (suffering) to be in avijja (ignorance).
  1. Ignorance (Pali: Avijjā)
  2. Mental fermentations/volitions (Pali: Saṅkhāra Sanskrit: Saṃskāra)
  3. Status consciousness (Pali: Viññāṇa)
  4. "Name" and "Form" (Pali: Nāmarūpa)
  5. The six senses (Pali: Saḷāyatana)
  6. Contact (Pali: Phassa)
  7. Feelings (Pali: Vedanā)
  8. Cravings/longings/desires (Pali: Taṇhā)
  9. Clinging to (Pali: Upādāna)
  10. Generation of factors for rebirth (Pali: Bhava)
  11. Birth (Pali: Jāti)
  12. All the sufferings (Pali: Jarāmaraṇa)


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidya_(Buddhism) - commonly translated as "ignorance" or "delusion". It can be defined as not understanding the full meaning and implication of the four noble truths or as a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of reality.

Ignorance (avijja) is actually identical in nature with the unwholesome root "delusion" (moha). When the Buddha speaks in a psychological context about mental factors, he generally uses the word "delusion"; when he speaks about the causal basis of samsara, he uses the word "ignorance" (avijja)

Avidyā is identified within the Buddhist teachings as follows:

  • The first link in the twelve links of dependent origination.
  • One of the three poisons within the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.
  • One of the six root kleshas within the Mahayana Abhidharma teachings
  • One of the ten fetters in the Theravada tradition
  • Equivalent to moha within the Theravada Abhidharma teachings
  • Within the context of the twelve links of dependent origination, avidya is typically symbolized by a person who is blind or wearing a blindfold.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṅkhāra - or saṃskāra, is a term figuring prominently in the teaching of the Buddha. The word means 'that which has been put together' and 'that which puts together'. In the first (passive) sense, saṅkhāra refers to conditioned phenomena generally but specifically to all mental "dispositions". These are called 'volitional formations' both because they are formed as a result of volition and because they are causes for the arising of future volitional actions. English translations for saṅkhāra in the first sense of the word include 'conditioned things,' 'determinations,' 'fabrications' and 'formations' (or, particularly when referring to mental processes, 'volitional formations').
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijñāna - translated as "consciousness," "life force," "mind, or "discernment." In the Pāli Canon's Sutta Pitaka's first four nikāyas, viññāṇa is one of three overlapping Pali terms used to refer to the mind, the others being manas and citta. Each is used in the generic and non-technical sense of "mind" in general, but the three are sometimes used in sequence to refer to one's mental processes as a whole.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namarupa - refer to constituent processes of the human being: nāma is typically considered to refer to psychological elements of the human person, while Rūpa refers to the physical. The Buddhist nāma and rūpa are mutually dependent, and not separable; as nāmarūpa, they designate an individual being. "And what [monks] is name-&-form? Feeling, perception, intention, contact, & attention: This is called name. The four great elements, and the form dependent on the four great elements: This is called form. This name & this form are, [monks], called name-&-form." Elsewhere in the Pali Canon, nāmarūpa is used synonymously with the five aggregates.
  1. Eye and Vision
  2. Ear and Hearing
  3. Nose and Olfaction
  4. Tongue and Taste
  5. Skin and Touch
  6. Mind and Thought
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparśa - translated as "contact", "touching", "sensation", "sense impression", etc. It is defined as the coming together of three factors: the sense organ, the sense object, and sense consciousness (vijnana).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanā - translated as either "feeling" or "sensation." In general, vedanā refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness. craving for and attachment to vedanā leads to suffering; reciprocally, concentrated awareness and clear comprehension of vedanā can lead to Enlightenment and the extinction of the causes of suffering.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upādāna - the Sanskrit and Pāli word for "clinging," "attachment" or "grasping", although the literal meaning is "fuel." Upādāna and taṇhā are seen as the two primary causes of suffering. The cessation of clinging leads to Nirvana.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhava - 'status of being, a subjective becoming, states of mind', from भू bhū, 'to become', is often translated as 'feeling, emotion, mood, devotional state of mind'. In Buddhist thought, bhāva denotes the continuity of life and death, including reincarnation, and the maturation arising therefrom. In the bhakti traditions, bhāva denotes the mood of ecstasy, self-surrender, and channelling of emotional energies that is induced by the maturation of devotion to one's ishtadeva (object of devotion).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarāmaraṇa - Sanskrit and Pāli for "old age" (jarā) and "death" (maraṇa), associated with the inevitable end-of-life suffering of all beings prior to their rebirth within saṃsāra (cyclic existence).

Kleshas

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleshas_(Buddhism) - mental states that cloud the mind and manifest in unwholesome actions. Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc. Contemporary translators use a variety of English words to translate the term kleshas, such as: afflictions, defilements, destructive emotions, disturbing emotions, negative emotions, mind poisons, etc. In the contemporary Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist traditions, the three kleshas of ignorance, attachment, and aversion are identified as the root or source of all other kleshas.
  • Ignorance, confusion, bewilderment, delusion - moha/avidyā
  • Attachment, desire, passion, greed - rāga/lobha
  • Aversion, anger, aggression, hatred - dveṣa/dosa
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moha_(Buddhism) - a fundamental ignorance of the nature of reality, and in Mahayana tradition, a dumbfounded state of not knowing what to do – a state of being deeply clouded, in which the mind is not clear

In the Mahayana tradition, the five main kleshas are referred to as the five poisons (Sanskrit: pañca kleśaviṣa; Tibetan-Wylie: dug lnga). The five poisons consist of the three poisons with two additional poisons: pride and jealousy.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irshya - translated as "jealousy" or "envy". It is defined as a state of mind in which one is highly agitated to obtain wealth and honor for oneself, but unable to bear the excellence of others.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Māna - translated as "pride", "arrogance", or "conceit". It is defined as an inflated mind that makes whatever is suitable, such as wealth or learning, to be the foundation of pride. It creates the basis for disrespecting others and for the occurrence of suffering.

Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra lists approximately 50 kleshas.

Fetters

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism) - mental chain or bond (Pāli: samyojana, saŋyojana, saññojana) shackles a sentient being to saṃsāra, the cycle of lives with dukkha. By cutting through all fetters, one attains nibbāna (Pali; Skt.: nirvāṇa).
  1. belief in a self (Pali: sakkāya-diṭṭhi)
  2. doubt or uncertainty, especially about the teachings (vicikicchā)
  3. attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)
  4. sensual desire (kāmacchando)
  5. ill will (vyāpādo or byāpādo)
  6. lust for material existence, lust for material rebirth (rūparāgo)
  7. lust for immaterial existence, lust for rebirth in a formless realm (arūparāgo)
  8. conceit (māna)
  9. restlessness (uddhacca)
  10. ignorance (avijjā)


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asava - Āsava is a Pali term (Sanskrit: Āśrava) translated as inflow, influx, influence; mental bias or canker, cankers that keep one bound to the world of samsāra; used particularly in Jainism and Buddhism.

According to De Silva: "The āsavas which are mentioned frequently are kāmāsava, bhavāsava, diṭṭhāsava and avijjāsava. Horner translates these as the cankers of sense-pleasure, becoming, false views and ignorance. The word canker suggests something that corrodes or corrupts slowly. These figurative meanings perhaps describe facets of the concept of āsava: kept long in storage, oozing out, taint, corroding, etc"


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha - or khandhas (Pāḷi), aggregates in English, are the five functions or aspects that constitute the sentient being: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. The Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really "I" or "mine". In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to an aggregate. Suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates. The Mahayana tradition further puts forth that ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence.

Six temprements

  • Carita
  • Lustful temperament (raga carita)
  • Hateful temperament (dosa carita)
  • Ignorant temperament (moha carita)
  • Devout temperament (saddhā carita)
  • Intellectual temperament (buddhi carita)
  • Discursive temperament (vitakka carita).

Five hinderances

  • Sensory desire (kāmacchanda): the particular type of wanting that seeks for happiness through the five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and physical feeling.
  • Ill-will (vyāpāda; also spelled byāpāda): all kinds of thought related to wanting to reject, feelings of hostility, resentment, hatred and bitterness.
  • Sloth-torpor (thīna-middha): heaviness of body and dullness of mind which drag one down into disabling inertia and thick depression.
  • Restlessness-worry (uddhacca-kukkucca): the inability to calm the mind.
  • Doubt (vicikicchā): lack of conviction or trust.

Samana

  • Pūraṇa Kassapa - Amoralism: denies any reward or punishment for either good or bad deeds.
  • Makkhali Gosāla Fatalism: we are powerless; suffering is pre-destined.
  • Ajita Kesakambalī Materialism: with death, all is annihilated.
  • Pakudha Kaccāyana Eternalism: Matter, pleasure, pain and the soul are eternal and do not interact.
  • Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta Restraint: be endowed with, cleansed by and suffused with the avoidance of all evil.
  • Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta Agnosticism: "I don't think so. I don't think in that way or otherwise. I don't think not or not not." Suspension of judgement.

Enlightenment

some there multiple fast and slow paths, steps and stages to /full/ enlightenment.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_enlightenment - in Theravada Buddhism are are Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anāgāmi, and Arahat, four aspirants progressive stages culminating in full enlightenment. The Buddha referred to people who are at one of these four stages as noble people (ariya-puggala) and the community of such persons as the noble sangha (ariya-sangha). The teaching of the four stages of enlightenment is a central element of the early Buddhist schools, including the Theravada school of Buddhism, which still survives.


The 4 supermundane paths (magga) and the 4 supermundane fruitions (phala) of these paths, 4 pairs:

  1. The one realizing the path of Stream-winning (sotāpattimagga).
  2. The one realizing the fruition of Stream-winning (sotāpattiphala).
  3. The one realizing the path of Once-return (sakadāgāmimagga).
  4. The one realizing the fruition of Once-return (sakadāgāmiphala).
  5. The one realizing the path of Non-return (anāgāmimagga).
  6. The one realizing the fruition of Non-return (anāgāmiphala).
  7. The one realizing the path of Holiness (arahatta-magga).
  8. The one realizing the fruition of Holiness (arahatta-phala).


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotāpanna - or "stream-winner" is a person who has eradicated the first three fetters (sanyojanas) of the mind, namely self-view (or identity), clinging to rites and rituals, and skeptical doubt.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakadagami - "returning once" or "once-returner," is a partially enlightened person, who has cut off the first three chains with which the ordinary mind is bound, and significantly weakened the fourth and fifth.


  • Sakkāya-diṭṭhi: Belief in atmān or self
  • Sīlabbata-parāmāsa: Attachment to rites and rituals
  • Vicikicchā: Skeptical doubt
  • Kāma-rāga: Sensuous craving
  • Byāpāda: ill will

The fetters from which an anāgāmi is not yet free are:

  • Rūparāga: Craving for fine-material existence (the first 4 jhanas)
  • Arūparāga: Craving for immaterial existence (the last 4 jhanas)
  • Māna: Conceit
  • Uddhacca: Restlessness
  • Avijjā: Ignorance

Kāmarāga and Byāpāda, which they are free from, can also be interpreted as craving for becoming and non-becoming, respectively. Anāgāmis are at an intermediate stage between sakadagamis and arahants. Arahants enjoy complete freedom from the ten fetters. An anāgāmi's mind is very pure.


"This paradigm shift can take place only by letting go of all attachments to objects of experience, the subjectively experienced "self", and all relationships, through depersonalization. This paradigm shift is the freedom from the experience of existence, and all the suffering accompanying it. This is called the "cessation of existence" (bhava nirodha). When this happens, all sufferings, fears, worries and anxieties come to an end. This is NIBBANA, which has been defined by the Buddha as "the cessation of existence" (bhava nirodho nibbanam).

"This cessation of existence is not a death but the freedom from the dream of existence, which is an awakening to the reality of "impersonal experience". Therefore Nibbana (Nirvana) is the experience of the ultimate reality of impersonal experience. This idea may be confusing at the beginning, but it becomes clearer as one advances in meditation."


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arhat - a "perfected person" who has attained nirvana. In other Buddhist traditions the term has also been used for people far advanced along the path of Enlightenment, but who may not have reached full Buddhahood. Mahāyāna Buddhists are urged to take up the path of a bodhisattva, and to not fall back to the level of arhats and śrāvakas. The arhats, or at least the senior arhats, came to be widely regarded as "moving beyond the state of personal freedom to join the Bodhisattva enterprise in their own way".



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhi - the understanding possessed by a Buddha regarding the true nature of things. It is traditionally translated into English with the word enlightenment, although its literal meaning is closer to "awakening." The verbal root "budh" means to awaken. Bodhi is presented in the Nikayas as knowledge of the causal mechanism by which beings incarnate into material form and experience suffering. Although its most common usage is in the context of Buddhism, the term buddhi is also used in other Indian philosophies and traditions.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva - an enlightenment (bodhi) being (sattva). Traditionally, a bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhicitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Practice


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradual_training - The Buddha sometimes described the practice (patipatti) of his teaching as the gradual training (Pali: anupubbasikkhā) because the eightfold path involves a process of mind-body transformation that unfolds over a sometimes lengthy period.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anupubbikathā - In Theravada Buddhism, anupubbikathā or ānupubbikathā (Pali) – variously translated as "gradual discourse," "gradual instruction," "progressive instruction," and "step-by-step talk" – is a method by which the Buddha taught the Dhamma to suitably receptive lay people. In this approach, the Four Noble Truths are the consummate teaching. The common formula is: Generosity (dāna), Virtue (sīla), Heaven (sagga), Danger of sensual pleasure (kāmānaṃ ādīnava), Renunciation (nekkhamma), The Four Noble Truths (cattāri ariya-saccāni)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya - "expedient means", "pedagogy", term used in Mahayana Buddhism to refer to an aspect of guidance along the Buddhist Paths to liberation where a conscious, voluntary action is driven by an incomplete reasoning around its direction.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pariṇāmanā Devanāgarī: "transformation; bringing to full development". Tibetan: bsngo ba, "dedication". Sanskrit: Pariṇāmana, "bringing to full development" and "turning of things destined for the community", or a kind of worship (to Amitābha's merit), or "changing into", "transformation" or "concluding", may be rendered in English as "merit transference" though in common parlance it is rendered as "dedication". The Pariṇāmanā or 'dedication' is a standard part of Buddhist spiritual discipline or practice where the practitioner's accumulation of merit (Sanskrit puṇya) is transferred to all sentient beings.

Three Jewels

  • the Buddha
  • the Dharma, the teachings;
  • the Sangha.

Five Precepts

"There are these five gifts, five great gifts — original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, unadulterated from the beginning — that are not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and are unfaulted by knowledgeable contemplatives & brahmans. Which five?

  1. I undertake the training rule to abstain from killing. Pāṇātipātā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.
  2. I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking what is not given. Adinnādānā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.
  3. I undertake the training rule to avoid sexual misconduct. Kāmesumicchācāra veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.
  4. I undertake the training rule to abstain from false speech. Musāvādā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi.
  5. I undertake the training rule to abstain from misconduct through intoxication.

"There is the case where a disciple of the noble ones, abandoning and abstaining, in doing so, gives freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings. In giving freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings, he gains a share in limitless freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, and freedom from oppression. This is the first gift, the first great gift — original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, unadulterated from the beginning — that is not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and is unfaulted by knowledgeable contemplatives & brahmans...

Pāramitā

In the Pāli canon's Buddhavaṃsa the Ten Perfections (dasa pāramiyo) are (original terms in Pāli):

  1. Dāna pāramī : generosity, giving of oneself
  2. Sīla pāramī : virtue, morality, proper conduct
  3. Nekkhamma pāramī : renunciation
  4. Paññā pāramī : transcendental wisdom, insight
  5. Viriya (also spelled vīriya) pāramī : energy, diligence, vigour, effort
  6. Khanti pāramī : patience, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, endurance
  7. Sacca pāramī : truthfulness, honesty
  8. Adhiṭṭhāna (adhitthana) pāramī : determination, resolution
  9. Mettā pāramī : loving-kindness
  10. Upekkhā (also spelled upekhā) pāramī : equanimity, serenity

Brahmavihara

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara - (sublime attitudes, lit. "abodes of brahma") are a series of four Buddhist virtues and the meditation practices made to cultivate them. They are also known as the four immeasurables (Sanskrit: apramāṇa, Pāli: appamaññā). It contains a number of recollections or recitations that promote the development of mettā through virtuous characteristics and meditation. The discourse identifies fifteen moral qualities and conditions conducive to the development of mettā. These include such qualities as being non-deceptive (uju), sincere (suju), easy to correct (suvaco), gentle (mudu) and without arrogance (anatimānī).

The meditator is instructed to radiate out to all beings in all directions the mental states of:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettā - loving-kindness or benevolence
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karuṇā - compassion
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudita - empathetic joy / compersion
  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upekkha - equanimity

Satipatthana

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satipatthana - the Pāli word for the Buddhist concept of the foundations of mindfulness. The corresponding word in Sanskrit (Skt.) is smṛtyupasthāna and in Chinese it is ‘mindfulness-place’ (念處).

The four foundations of mindfulness (Pāli cattāro satipaṭṭhānā) are four practices set out in the Satipatthana Sutta for attaining and maintaining moment-by-moment mindfulness and are fundamental techniques in Buddhist meditation.

The four foundations of mindfulness are:

  • mindfulness of the body;
  • mindfulness of feelings or sensations (vedanā);
  • mindfulness of mind or consciousness (citta); and
  • mindfulness of mental phenomena or mental objects (dhammā).

The Buddha referred to the four foundations for establishing mindfulness as a "direct" or "one-way path" to the realisation of nirvana. These practices continue to be recognized, taught, and practiced as key techniques for achieving the benefits of mindfulness, especially in modern Theravadan Buddhism and in the Vipassana or Insight Meditation Movement.

Four Right Exertions

Four Bases

  • Intention or purpose or desire or zeal (chanda)
  • Effort or energy or will (viriya)
  • Consciousness or mind or thoughts (citta)
  • Investigation or discrimination (vīmaṃsā)

Five Faculties

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indriya - the Sanskrit and Pali term for physical strength or ability in general, and for the five senses more specifically. In Buddhism, the term refers to multiple intrapsychic processes and is generally translated as "faculty" or, in specific contexts, as "spiritual faculty" or "controlling principle."[1] The term literally means "belonging to Indra," chief deity in the Rig Veda and lord of Tāvatiṃsa heaven, hence connoting supremacy, dominance and control, attested in the general meaning of "power, strength" from the Rigveda.

In Buddhism, depending on the context, indriya traditionally refers to one of the following groups of faculties: the 5 spiritual faculties the 5 or 6 sensory faculties the 22 phenomenological faculties

Five Strengths

  • Faith (saddha) - controls doubt
  • Energy/Effort/Persistence (viriya) – controls laziness
  • Mindfulness (sati); - controls heedlessness
  • Concentration (samādhi) - controls distraction
  • Wisdom/Discernment (pañña, prajña) – controls ignorance

Seven Factors of Enlightenment

  • Mindfulness (sati) i.e. to recognize the dhammas (phenomena or reality, two ways one can translate "dhamma").
  • Investigation (dhamma vicaya) of dhammas.
  • Energy (viriya) also determination
  • Joy or rapture (pīti)
  • Relaxation or tranquility (passaddhi) of both body and mind
  • Concentration (samādhi) a calm, one-pointed state of concentration of mind
  • Equanimity (upekkha), to be fully aware of all phenomena without being lustful or averse towards them.

Early

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Buddhism - can refer to two distinct periods: Pre-sectarian Buddhism, which refers to the Teachings and monastic organization and structure, founded by Gautama Buddha. The Early Buddhist schools, into which pre-sectarian Buddhism split (without formal schisms, in the sense of Vinaya).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikaya_Buddhism - coined by Dr. Masatoshi Nagatomi, in order to find a more acceptable (less derogatory) term than Hinayana to refer to the early Buddhist schools. Examples of these schools are pre-sectarian Buddhism and the early Buddhist schools. Some scholars use the term as excluding pre-sectarian Buddhism.

Texts



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāli_Canon - standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the most complete extant early Buddhist canon. It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to writing during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in 29 BCE, approximately four hundred and fifty four years after the death of Gautama Buddha


Tipiṭaka
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripitaka - also referred to as Tipiṭaka or Pali Canon, is the traditional term for the Buddhist scriptures. These are canonical texts revered as exclusively authoritative in Theravada Buddhism. The Mahayana Buddhism also reveres them as authoritative but, unlike Theravadins, it also reveres various derivative literature and commentaries that were composed much later.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhāran_Buddhist_Texts - the oldest Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, dating from about the 1st century CE, including a Dhammapada, discourses of Buddha (for example the Rhinoceros Horn Sutra), Avadanas and Purvayogas, commentaries and Abhidharma texts. Dharmaguptaka sect.


Sutta Pitaka
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digha_Nikaya - the "long" discourses, includes The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness, The Fruits of the Contemplative Life, and The Buddha's Last Days. There are 34 long suttas in this nikaya.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhammacakkappavattana_Sutta - "The Setting in Motion of the Wheel of Dharma", considered to be a record of the first teaching given by the Buddha after he attained enlightenment. The main topic of this sutta is the Four Noble Truths, which are the central teachings of Buddhism that provide a unifying theme, or conceptual framework, for all of Buddhist thought. This sutta also introduces the Buddhist concepts of the middle way, impermanence, and dependent origination.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khuddaka_Nikaya - the "minor collection", a heterogeneous mix of sermons, doctrines, and poetry attributed to the Buddha and his disciples. The contents vary somewhat between editions. The Thai edition includes 1-15 below, the Sinhalese edition 1-17 and the Burmese edition 1-18.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khuddakapatha - The collection is composed of the following nine discourses: "Going for Refuge" (Saranattayam), "Ten Precepts" (Dasasikkhapadam), "Thirty-two Parts [of the Body]" (Dvattimsakaro), "Novice's Questions" (Kumarapanha), "Discourse on Blessings" (Mangala Sutta), "Discourse on Treasures" (Ratana Sutta), "[Hungry Shades] Outside the Wall Chapter" (Tirokutta Sutta), "Reserve Fund Chapter" (Nidhikanda Sutta) and "Discourse on Lovingkindess" (Metta Sutta). The Khuddakapatha is considered a late addition to the Pali Canon, collecting discourses all but one of which is found elsewhere in the Pali Canon.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udana - translated "inspired utterances". The book comprises 80 such utterances, most in verse, each preceded by a narrative giving the context in which the Buddha utters it.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutta_Nipata - literally, "Suttas falling down", thought to originate from before the Buddha's parinibbana, consist largely of verse, though some also contain some prose. It is divided into five sections
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_Sutra - Sutta Nipata's first chapter, a very early Buddhist text advocating the merit of solitary asceticism for pursuing enlightenment (as opposed to practicing as a householder or in a community of monks or nuns).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimanavatthu - Pali for "Vimana Stories". The Vimanavatthu is an anthology of 85 short stories written in verse. The stories are similar to each other in that each of them describes the life and deeds of a character who has attained residence in a heavenly mansion, the "Vimana", due to his/her meritorious deeds.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petavatthu - composed of 51 verse narratives describing specifically how the effects of bad acts can lead to rebirth into the unhappy world of petas (ghosts) in the doctrine of karma. It gives prominence to the doctrine that giving alms to monks may benefit the ghosts of one's relatives (see Ancestor worship).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theragatha - a collection of short poems supposedly recited by early members of the Buddhist sangha. Many of the verses of the Theragatha concern the attempts of monks to overcome the temptations of Mara. It consists of 264 poems, organized into 21 chapters. Notable texts from the Theragatha include the eighth poem of chapter sixteen, consisting of verses recited by the reformed killer Angulimala, and the third poem of chapter seventeen, in which the Buddha's cousin and retainer Ananda mourns the passing of his master.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therigatha - a collection of short poems supposedly recited by early members of the Buddhist sangha in India around 600 BC. It consists of 73 poems organized into 16 chapters. It is the earliest known collection of women's literature.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jataka_tales - stories that tell about the previous lives of the Buddha, in both human and animal form. The future Buddha may appear in them as a king, an outcast, a god, an elephant—but, in whatever form, he exhibits some virtue that the tale thereby inculcates.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apadāna - consists of about 600 poems (between 589 and 603 in different editions), mostly biographical stories of monks and nuns. Many of the stories of monks and nuns are expansions of, or otherwise related to, verses presented in the Theragatha and Therigatha as having been spoken by senior members of the early Sangha.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cariyapitaka - a short verse work that includes thirty-five accounts of the Buddha's former lives (similar to Jataka tales) when he as a bodhisattva exhibited behaviors known as "perfections," prerequisites to buddhahood. This canonical text, along with the Apadana and Buddhavamsa, is believed to be a late addition to the Pali Canon and has been described as "hagiographical.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettipakarana - the nature of the Netti is a matter of some disagreement among scholars. The translator, supported by Professor George Bond of Northwestern University,[1] holds that it is a guide to help those who already understand the teaching present it to others. However, A. K. Warder, Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit at the University of Toronto, disagrees, maintaining that it covers all aspects of interpretation, not just this.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milinda_Panha - purports to record a dialogue in which the Indo-Greek king Menander I (Pali Milinda) of Bactria, who reigned in the 2nd century BCE, poses questions on Buddhism to the sage Nāgasena.


Vinaya Pitaka
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinaya_Pitaka - It was compiled at the First Council shortly after the Buddha's death, and recited by Upali, with little later addition. Most of the different versions are fairly similar, most scholars consider most of the Vinaya to be fairly early, that is, dating from before the separation of schools.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinaya - The Vinaya (a word in Pāli as well as in Sanskrit, with literal meaning 'leading out', 'education', 'discipline') is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based on the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline. Another term for Buddhism is dharmavinaya. Extant vinaya texts include the Theravāda Vinaya, Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya, Mahīśāsaka Vinaya, Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, Sarvāstivāda Vinaya, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya.
Abhidhamma Pitaka
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhidhamma_Pitaka - ancient (3rd century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications. The Abhidhamma works do not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or abstract and systematic lists. According to the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Abhidhamma started as an elaboration of the teachings of the suttas, but later developed independent doctrines. The literal translation of the term Abhidharma is unclear. Two possibilities are most commonly given: abhi - higher or special + dharma- teaching, philosophy, thus making Abhidharma the "higher teachings", and abhi - about + dharma of the teaching, translating it instead as "about the teaching" or even "metateaching". In the West, the Abhidhamma has generally been considered the core of what is referred to as "Buddhist Psychology".
Atthakatha


Online


Schools

  • vāda holding the semantic field: "doctrine", "teachings"





Under the influence of materials from the Theravāda school, some western historians have tended to see the Mahāsāṃghikas as a lax, breakaway group. However, the account by the Mahāsāṃghika school itself saw the Sthaviras as being the breakaway group which was attempting to modify the original Vinaya.


The Sautrāntika differed from their parent school, the Sarvāstivādins on matters of ontology. While the Sarvāstivādin abhidharma described a complex system in which past, present, and future phenomena are all held to have some form of their own existence, the Sautrāntika subscribed to a doctrine of "extreme momentariness" that held that only the present moment existed. They seem to have regarded the Sarvāstivādin position as a violation of the basic Buddhist principle of impermanence). The Sarvāstivādin abhidharma also broke down human experience in terms of a variety of underlying phenomena (a view similar to that held by the modern Theravadin abhidhamma); the Sautrāntika believed that experience could not be differentiated in this manner.

They used the concept of an āśraya (substrate, refuge) to explain the continuity of consciousness through rebirth, whereas the Pudgalavādins and Vātsiputrīyins posited a pudgala (a 'personal entity' distinct from the five skandha), and where non-Buddhist Indian philosophy typically referred to an ātman.[citation needed] Vasubandhu, one of the Indian monastic scholars primarily responsible for articulating the doctrines of the Yogācāra school, was sympathetic to the Sautrāntika on many doctrinal issues, and wrote critiques of the Vaibhāṣika tradition from a Sautrāntika perspective.

No separate monastic code specific to the Sautrāntika has been found, nor is the existence of any such separate disciplinary code evidenced in other texts; this indicates that they were likely only a doctrinal division within the Sarvāstivādin school.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulasarvastivada - maybe created from Sautrāntika. The Tibetan Emperor Ralpacan restricted Buddhist ordination to the Mūlasarvāstivādin vinaya. As Mongolian Buddhism was introduced from Tibet, Mongolian ordination follows this rule as well. The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is extant in Tibetan (9th century translation) and Chinese (8th century translation), and to some extent in the original Sanskrit.


  • Kāśyapīya
    • Mahīśāsaka
      • Dharmaguptaka
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibhajyavāda - "doctrine of analysis" grouping
    • Tāmraparṇīya - "the Sri Lankan lineage"
      • Theravada - only of the original 18 schools remaining
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theravada - (Pali, literally "school of the elder monks") is a branch of Buddhism that uses the teaching of the Pāli Canon, a collection of the oldest recorded Buddhist texts, as its doctrinal core, but also includes a rich diversity of traditions and practices that have developed over its long history of interactions with various cultures and communities. It is the dominant form of religion in Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma, and is practiced by minority groups in Vietnam, Bangladesh, and China. In addition, the diaspora of all of these groups as well as converts around the world practice Theravāda Buddhism.

Theravadin accounts of its own origins mention that it received the teachings that were agreed upon during the putative Third Buddhist council under the patronage of the Indian Emperor Ashoka around 250 BCE. These teachings were known as the Vibhajjavada. Emperor Ashoka is supposed to have assisted in purifying the sangha by expelling monks who failed to agree to the terms of Third Council. Later, the Vibhajjavādins in turn is said to have split into four groups: the Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya, Dharmaguptaka, and the Tāmraparṇīya.


"One camp refused to rank the concept of person as a truth on the ultimate level. This group inspired what eventually became the classic Theravada position on this issue: that the "person" was simply a conventional designation for the five aggregates. However, the other camp — who developed into the Pudgalavadin (Personalist) school — said that the person was neither a ultimate truth nor a mere conventional designation, neither identical with nor totally separate from the five aggregates. This special meaning of person, they said, was required to account for three things: the cohesion of a person's identity in this lifetime (one person's memories, for instance, cannot become another person's memories); the unitary nature of rebirth (one person cannot be reborn in several places at once); and the fact that, with the cessation of the khandhas at the death of an arahant, he/she is said to attain the Further Shore. However, after that moment, they said, nothing further could be said about the person, for that was as far as the concept's descriptive powers could go.

As might be imagined, the first group accused the second group of denying the concept of anatta, or not-self; whereas the second group accused the first of being unable to account for the truths that they said their concept of person explained. Both groups, however, found that their positions entangled them in philosophical difficulties that have never been successfully resolved."


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Buddhist_council - was convened in about 250 BCE at Asokarama in Pataliputra, supposedly under the patronage of Emperor Ashoka. This is however disputed, as mention of the council never appears in the Edicts of Ashoka. The traditional reason for convening the Third Buddhist Council is reported to have been to rid the Sangha of corruption and bogus monks who held heretical views. It was presided over by the elder monk Moggaliputta-Tissa and one thousand monks participated in the Council. The council is recognized and known to both the Theravada and Mahayana schools, though its importance is central only to the Theravada.

So it was that in the seventeenth year of the Emperor's reign the Third Council was called. Thera Moggaliputta Tissa headed the proceedings and chose one thousand monks from the sixty thousand participants for the traditional recitation of the Dhamma and the Vinaya, which went on for nine months. The Emperor himself questioned monks from a number of monasteries about the teachings of the Buddha. Those who held wrong views were exposed and expelled from the Sangha immediately. In this way the Bhikkhu Sangha was purged of heretics and bogus bhikkhus.

According to the Pali and Chinese accounts, the Elder Moggaliputta Tissa, in order to refute a number of heresies and ensure the Dhamma was kept pure, compiled a book during the council called the Kathavatthu. This book consists of twenty-three chapters, and is a collection of discussions on the points of controversy. It gives refutations of the 'heretical' views held by various Buddhist sects on matters philosophical. The Kathavatthu is the fifth of the seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. However, the historicity of this has been questioned, as the account preserved in the San Jian Lu Pi Po Sho (Sudassanavinayavibhasha), although otherwise almost identical, does not mention the Kathavatthu.

Moggaliputtatissa told Ashoka that the doctrine taught by the Buddha was the Vibhajjavada, the Doctrine of Analysis. This term is used in various senses, and it is not clear exactly what it meant in this context. Traditionally, however, the Sri Lankan Theravadins and other mainland schools of Early Buddhism identified themselves as Vibhajjavada.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Buddhist_council - the name of two separate Buddhist council meetings. The first one was held in the 1st century BC, in Sri Lanka. In this fourth Buddhist council the Theravadin Pali Canon was for the first time committed to writing, on palm leaves. The second one was held by the Sarvastivada school, in Kashmir around the 1st century AD.


Yanas

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yana_(Buddhism) - refers to a mode, method or approach to spiritual practice in Buddhism, and in particular to divisions of various schools of Buddhism according to their type of practice in relation to the realization of emptiness.




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutrayana - Indo-Tibetan three-fold classification of yanas. Theravada ("Hinayana"), Mahayana, and Vajrayana. The third yana, Vajrayana, comprises Tantrayana and Dzogchen.
Hinayana
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinayana - is a Sanskrit term literally meaning: the "Smaller Vehicle", applied to the Śrāvakayāna, the Buddhist path followed by a śrāvaka who wishes to become an arhat. The term appeared around the 1st or 2nd century. Hīnayāna is often contrasted with Mahāyāna, which means the "Great Vehicle." The Hinayana or Small Vehicle is defined by Kalu Rinpoche as follows: "The Small Vehicle is based on becoming aware of the fact that all we experience in samsara is marked by suffering. Being aware of this engenders the will to rid ourselves of this suffering, to liberate ourselves on an individual level, and to attain happiness. We are moved by our own interest. Renunciation and perseverance allow us to attain our goal." The Chinese monk Yijing who visited India in the 7th century, distinguishes Mahāyāna from Hīnayāna as follows: Both adopt one and the same Vinaya, and they have in common the prohibitions of the five offenses, and also the practice of the Four Noble Truths. Those who venerate the bodhisattvas and read the Mahāyāna sūtras are called the Mahāyānists, while those who do not perform these are called the Hīnayānists.

Maha Stupa at Thotlakonda Monastic Complex initially flourished as an early Buddhist school of Hinayana and later developed as one among the Theravada Schools of Buddhism, which witnessed peak activity during 2nd Century BCE, in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. The term was widely used in the past by Western scholars to cover "the earliest system of Buddhist doctrine" as the Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1899) put it. It has been used as a synonym for the Theravada tradition, which continues as the main form of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia, but some scholars deny that the term included Theravada Buddhism. In 1950 the World Fellowship of Buddhists declared that the term Hīnayana should not be used when referring to any form of Buddhism existing today.

Śrāvakayāna
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Śrāvakayāna - one of the three yānas known to Indian Buddhism. It translates literally as the "vehicle of listeners [i.e. disciples]". Historically it was the most common term used by Mahāyāna Buddhist texts to describe one hypothetical path to enlightenment. Śrāvakayāna is the path that meets the goals of an Arhat—an individual who achieves liberation as a result of listening to the teachings (or lineage) of a Samyaksaṃbuddha.


Pratyekabuddhayāna
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratyekabuddhayāna - refers to the path, or vehicle, of a pratyekabuddha ("solitary awakened one", pra(tye)- of pra(na), eka-one, buddha-enlightened). This term was used in Indian Buddhism by early Buddhist schools, and is also used by the Mahāyāna tradition.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratyekabuddha - literally "a lone buddha", "a buddha on their own" or "a private buddha", is one of three types of enlightened beings according to some schools of Buddhism. The other two types are arhats and Sammāsambuddhas (Sanskrit samyaksambuddhas).
Mahayana
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayana - originated in India, and some scholars believe that it was initially associated with one of the oldest historical branches of Buddhism, the Mahāsāṃghika. The largest school of Buddhism today.


Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle") was originally an honorary synonym for Bodhisattvayāna ("Bodhisattva Vehicle") — the vehicle of a bodhisattva seeking buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. The term Mahāyāna was therefore formed independently at an early date as a synonym for the path and the teachings of the bodhisattvas. Since it was simply an honorary term for Bodhisattvayāna, the creation of the term Mahāyāna and its application to Bodhisattvayāna did not represent a significant turning point in the development of a Mahāyāna tradition.

The earliest Mahāyāna texts often use the term Mahāyāna as a synonym for Bodhisattvayāna, but the term Hīnayāna is comparatively rare in the earliest sources. The presumed dichotomy between Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna can be deceptive, as the two terms were not actually formed in relation to one another in the same era.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prajnaparamita - means "the Perfection of (Transcendent) Wisdom.", indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva Path, elucidated and described in the genre of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, which vary widely in length and exhaustiveness. The Prajñāpāramitā sūtras suggest that all things including oneself, appear as thoughtforms (conceptual constructs)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatamsaka_Sutra - one of the most influential Mahayana sutras of East Asian Buddhism. The title is rendered in English as Flower Garland Sutra, Flower Adornment Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture. describes a cosmos of infinite realms upon realms, mutually containing one another. The vision expressed in this work was the foundation for the creation of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which was characterized by a philosophy of interpenetration.




  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Sutra - Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established.


Bodhisattva
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhūmi_(Buddhism) - the ten stages on the Mahayana bodhisattva's path of awakening. The Sanskrit term bhūmi literally means "ground" or "foundation". Each stage represents a level of attainment, and serves as a basis for the next one. Each level marks a definite advancement in one's training, that is accompanied by progressively greater power and wisdom.
Mantrayana

The particular lineage in Indonesia is referred to as Mantranaya ("Mantra Path"). Mantranaya is historically designated and evident in the oldest extant Old Javanese esoteric Buddhist literature. Mantranaya is an extension of Mahayana Buddhism consisting of differences in the adoption of additional techniques (upaya, or 'skillful means') rather than in philosophy. Some of these upāya are esoteric practices which must be initiated and transmitted esoterically only through a skilled spiritual teacher.

The third period began, according to Conze, in about the 7th century, to take centre stage and become a vehicle for salvation in their own right. Tantra started to gain momentum in the 6th and 7th century, with specifically Buddhist forms appearing as early as 300CE. Mantrayana was an early name for the what is now more commonly known as Vajrayana, which gives us a hint as to the place of mantra in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. The aim of Vajrayana practice is to give the practitioner a direct experience of reality, of things as they really are. Mantras function as symbols of that reality, and different mantras are different aspects of that reality – for example wisdom or compassion. Mantras are often associated with a particular deity, one famous exception being the Prajnaparamita mantra associated with the Heart Sutra. One of the key Vajrayana strategies for bringing about a direct experience of reality is to engage the entire psycho-physical organism in the practices. In one Buddhist analysis the person consists of 'body, speech and mind' (refer: Three Vajra). So a typical sadhana or meditation practice might include mudras, or symbolic hand gestures; the recitations of mantras; as well as the visualisation of celestial beings and visualising the letters of the mantra which is being recited. Clearly here mantra is associated with speech. The meditator may visualise the letters in front of themselves, or within their body. They may be pronounced out loud, or internally in the mind only.

Vajrayana
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrayana - also known as Tantric Buddhism, Tantrayāna, Mantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Esoteric Buddhism and the Diamond Way or Thunderbolt Way. The Lama and the Guru yoga are central in this system. Vajrayāna is a complex and multifaceted system of Buddhist thought and practice which evolved over several centuries. According to Vajrayāna scriptures, the term Vajrayāna refers to one of three vehicles or routes to enlightenment, the other two being the Śrāvakayāna (also known as the Hīnayāna) and Mahāyāna. Note that Hinayāna (or Nikaya) is not to be confused with Theravada (a practice lineage), although it is sometimes equated to it.

Founded by Indian Mahāsiddhas, Vajrayāna subscribes to Buddhist tantric literature.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajra#In_Vajrayana_Buddhism - the vajra is the symbol of Vajrayana, one of the three major branches of Buddhism. Vajrayana is translated as "Thunderbolt Way"] or "Diamond Way" and can imply the thunderbolt experience of Buddhist enlightenment or bodhi. It also implies indestructibility, just as diamonds are harder than other gemstones. In Tantric Buddhism (Vajrayana) the vajra and ghanta (bell) are used in many rites by a lama or any Vajrayana practitioner of sadhana. The vajra is a male polysemic symbol that represents many things for the tantrika. The vajra is representative of upaya (skilful means) whereas its companion tool, the bell which is a female symbol, denotes prajna (wisdom). Some deities are shown holding each the vajra and bell in separate hands, symbolizing the union of the forces of compassion and wisdom, respectively.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Vajras - namely "body, speech and mind", are a formulation within Vajrayana Buddhism and Bon that hold the full experience of the śūnyatā "emptiness" of Buddha-nature, void of all qualities (Wylie: yon tan) and marks (Wylie: mtshan dpe) and establish a sound experiential key upon the continuum of the path to enlightenment. The Three Vajras correspond to the trikaya and therefore also have correspondences to the Three Roots and other refuge formulas of Tibetan Buddhism. The Three Vajras are viewed in twilight language as a form of the Three Jewels, which imply purity of action, speech and thought.

The Three Vajras are often mentioned in Vajrayana discourse, particularly in relation to samaya, the vows undertaken between a practitioner and their guru during empowerment. The term is also used during Anuttarayoga Tantra practice. In Tendai and Shingon Buddhism of Japan, they are known as the Three Mysteries (三密 sanmitsu?).


Tantrayana
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra - Many tantric traditions developed within Buddhism, over its history in South Asia and East Asia. These are also called the Vajrayana traditions. The tradition has been particularly prevalent in Tibet and Nepal. The Buddhist Tantric practices and texts, states Jacob Dalton, developed between 5th to 7th century CE and this is evidenced by Chinese Buddhist translations of Indian texts from that period preserved in Dunhuang. Ryan Overbey too affirms this, stating that Buddhist Tantric spells and ritual texts were translated by Chinese Buddhist scholars six times and these spells appear in multiple texts between 5th and 8th century CE.

According to Alexis Sanderson, various classes of Vajrayana literature developed as a result of royal courts sponsoring both Buddhism and Saivism. The Mañjusrimulakalpa, which later came to classified under Kriyatantra, states that mantras taught in the Shaiva, Garuda and Vaishnava tantras will be effective if applied by Buddhists since they were all taught originally by Manjushri. The Guhyasiddhi of Padmavajra, a work associated with the Guhyasamaja tradition, prescribes acting as a Shaiva guru and initiating members into Saiva Siddhanta scriptures and mandalas. The Samvara tantra texts adopted the pitha list from the Shaiva text Tantrasadbhava, introducing a copying error where a deity was mistaken for a place.



Fourfold division - The best-known classification is by the Gelug, Sakya, and Kagyu schools, the so-called Sarma or New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism. They divide the Tantras into four hierarchical categories:

  • Kriyayoga, action tantra, which emphasizes ritual;
  • Charyayoga, performance tantra, which emphasizes meditation;
  • Yogatantra, yoga tantra;
  • Anuttarayogatantra, highest yoga tantra, which is further divided into "mother", "father" and "non-dual" tantras.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Tantras - the second three divisions in the ninefold division of practice according to the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. This system divides the whole of the Buddhist path into three divisions of three and is in contrast to the division of the Sarma, or New Translation schools (Gelug, Kagyu and Sakya) which use a fourfold division. The three divisions of the Outer Tantra correspond to the lower three category of tantras of the New Translation (Sarma) schools.


The three divisions of the Outer Tantras are:

  • Kriyatantra or kriyayoga- the first of the outer tantras, and places a special emphasis on ritual actions, such as ritual bathing, and ritual 'magic' to perform rites of pacification, increase and wrath. The empowerments required are the simple vase empowerment and crown empowerment. The emphasis of this level of tantra is on obtaining the siddhis, which are then used for the benefit of all beings, causing the accumulation of merit.

The deities of kriyayoga are split into 3 families;

  • The highest Tathagata (buddha) family,
  • The middling Padma (lotus) family,
  • The lowest Vajra (thunderbolt) family.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charya_tantra_yana - Charyayoga or Upayoga (in Nyingma), Upa tantra, or Ubhaya tantra is a yana (literally "vehicle") of Esoteric Buddhism-though there is debate about whether it is considered to be buddhism, and as such is both a class of tantric literature and of praxis. The yana of Charya or ‘conduct’ tantra is given this name because it demonstrates a balanced emphasis on the outer ritual actions and ablutions of body and speech and the inner cultivation of intentionality and mindfulness. Hence, outer and inner conduct. The Charya tantra is enumerated as one of the three Outer Tantras in both the four-tantric-yanas classification scheme of the Sarma, or 'New Translation Schools' and the nine-yana classification of the Nyingma, 'Ancient Translation School'.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogatantra - emphasizes the inner yoga meditation of method and wisdom; or alternatively, because based on knowledge and understanding of all aspects of the profound ultimate truth and the vast relative truth, it emphasizes contemplation that inseparably unites these two truths.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahayoga - one visualizes oneself as the divinity with consort. "All manifestation, thoughts and appearances are considered to be the sacred aspects of the divinities within relative truth," in the words of Tulku Thondup. By visualizing all phenomena as the deities of the mandala of buddhahood, in the development stage, all appearances are purified.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_stage - visualizes a meditational deity (yidam) or refuge tree before themselves in front generation, or as themselves in self generation, to engender an alteration to their perception and/or experience of the appearance aspect of reality


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anuyoga - emphasis shifts away from external visualization toward the completion stage, in which one meditates on the inner or subtle body with its primary energy centres (chakras), and its prana (winds or subtle energies), nadis (the inner pathways along which one's energy travels), and bindu (the consciousness). In anuyoga, all appearances are seen as the three great mandalas, and reality is understood as the deities and their pure lands.



  • Atiyoga' or Dzogchen - The analogy given by Dzogchen masters is that one's nature is like a mirror which reflects with complete openness but is not affected by the reflections, or like a crystal ball that takes on the colour of the material on which it is placed without itself being changed. The knowledge that ensues from recognizing this mirror-like clarity (which cannot be found by searching nor identified) is what Dzogchenpas refer to as rigpa.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzogchen - or "Great Perfection", also called Atiyoga, is a tradition of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism aimed at attaining and maintaining the natural primordial state or natural condition.[1] It is a central teaching of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism and of Bon. In these traditions, Dzogchen is the highest and most definitive path of the nine vehicles to liberation.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anuttarayoga_Tantra - often translated as Unexcelled Yoga Tantra or Highest Yoga Tantra, is a term used in Tibetan Buddhism in the categorization of esoteric tantric Indian Buddhist texts that constitute part of the Kangyur, or the 'translated words of the Buddha' in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. In the highest class of tantra, two stages of practice are distinguished. Details of these practices are normally only explained to practitioners by their teachers after receiving an initiation or 'permission to practice'. In some Buddhist tantras, both stages can be practiced simultaneously, whereas in others, one first actualizes the generation stage before continuing with the completion stage practices.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semde - the "Mind series"; this category contains the earliest (proto) Dzogchen teachings. Tradition attributes them to Padmasmabhava and his consorts, and dates them to the 8th century, but they first appeared in the 9th century, written by Tibetans


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menngagde- the series of secret Oral Instructions, which also reflects the developments of the 11th-14th centuries; this series has overshadowed the other two, and is in effect the only one practiced nowadays.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigpa - the "self-reflexive awareness that cognizes Buddha-nature." It has also come to mean the "pristine awareness" that is the fundamental ground itself.
  • http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Ground_rigpa - acts as the basis for all of samsara and nirvana, and is identical to the subtle clear light. This is the pristine awareness one experiences at the time of death, but not during the ordinary waking state. It is from this awareness that the foundation consciousness arises.
  • http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Effulgent_rigpa - an aspect of rigpa which is to be identified and experienced only when coarse levels of mind and conceptual thoughts are active. At that point the experience of the fundamental innate mind of clear light has ‘ceased’―‘ceased’ in the sense that it is no longer a direct object of your experience. However, there is still a definite quality of clarity and awareness that permeates the coarser states of consciousness. This type of clear light experienced as a quality that permeates these states is the effulgent rigpa
  • http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Essential_rigpa - The fundamental innate mind of clear light is considered to be the nature of mind, or the ultimate root of consciousness. In the same way that a sesame seed is entirely permeated by sesame oil, as soon as there is clear and aware consciousness, it is said to be permeated by the clear light rigpa. This aspect of rigpa, this in-dwelling clear light is what is called essential rigpa



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_(Tibetan_Buddhism) - means wind or breath. It is a key concept in the Vajrayana traditions of Tibetan Buddhism and has a variety of meanings. Lung is a concept that's particularly important to understandings of the subtle body and the Three Vajras (body, speech and mind). Tibetan medicine practitioner Dr Tamdin Sither Bradley provides a summary:

"The general description of rLung is that it is a subtle flow of energy and out of the five elements (air, fire, water, earth and space) it is most closely connected with air. However it is not simply the air which we breathe or the wind in our stomachs, it goes much deeper than that. rLung is like a horse and the mind is the rider, if there is something wrong with the horse the rider will not be able to ride properly. Its description is that it is rough, light, cool, thin, hard, movable. The general function of rLung is to help growth, movement of the body, exhalation and inhalation and to aid the function of mind, speech and body. rLung helps to separate in our stomachs what we eat into nutrients and waste products. However its most important function is to carry the movements of mind, speech and body. The nature of rLung is both hot and cold."


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahavairocana_Tantra - an important Vajrayana Buddhist text. It is also known as the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra, or more fully as the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Vikurvita Adhiṣṭhāna Tantra. In Tibet it is considered to be a member of the Carya class of tantras. In Japan where it is known as the Mahāvairocana Sūtra, it is one of two central texts in the Shingon school, along with the Vajrasekhara Sutra. Both are also part of the Tendai school.



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahamudra - "a ritual hand-gesture, one of a sequence of 'seals' in Tantric practice, the nature of reality as emptiness, a meditation procedure focusing on the nature of Mind, an innate blissful gnosis cognizing emptiness nondually, or the supreme attainment of buddhahood at the culmination of the Tantric path."
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing-out_instruction - said to be the direct introduction to the nature of mind in the Tibetan Buddhist lineages of Mahāmudrā and Dzogchen. In these traditions, a "root guru" (S. mūlaguru, Wylie: rtsa-ba'i bla-ma, pronounced "tsawey lama") is the master who gives the "pointing-out instruction" in such a way that the disciple successfully recognizes the "nature of mind." The tradition of conferring such instructions outside of the context of formal abhiṣeka (empowerment) is unique to the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages. Whether or not such instructions are valid without the formal abhiṣeka has historically been a point of contention with the more conservative Gelug and Sakya lineages. The pointing-out instruction is often equated with the "fourth" or ghanta abhiṣeka of more formal vajrayana empowerment.


  • The Berzin Archives is a collection of translations and teachings by Dr. Alexander Berzin primarily on the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Covering the areas of sutra, tantra, Kalachakra, dzogchen, and mahamudra meditation, the Archives presents material from all five Tibetan traditions: Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, Gelug, and Bon, as well as comparisons with Theravada Buddhism and Islam. Also featured are Tibetan astrology and medicine, Shambhala, and Buddhist history.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_flag - a colorful rectangular cloth, often found strung along mountain ridges and peaks high in the Himalayas. They are used to bless the surrounding countryside and for other purposes. Prayer flags are believed to have originated with Bon, which predated Buddhism in Tibet. In Bon, shamanistic Bonpo used primary-colored plain flags in healing ceremonies in Nepal. They are unknown in other branches of Buddhism. Traditional prayer flags include woodblock-printed text and images.


  • Mantrayāna, Mantramahāyāna, Mantranaya





  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahaja - "spontaneous, natural, simple, or easy", "coemergent; spontaneously or naturally born together" is a term of some importance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist spirituality. Sahaja practices first arose in Bengal during the 8th century among Buddhist yogis called Sahajiya siddhas.

Sahajiyas such as Saraha believed that enlightenment could be achieved in this lifetime, by laypersons living in samsara. Though he was a famed Buddhist sage, Saraha was married and was known to seek intense sensual joy (mahasukha) as a way to enlightenment. Indeed, one of his verses states: “eat, drink, indulge the senses”. The sahajiyas practiced a form of ritual union which was supposed to bring the female and male elements together in balance.

From Joy there is some bliss, from Perfect Joy yet more. From the Joy of Cessation comes a passionless state. The Joy of Sahaja is finality. The first comes by desire for contact, the second by desire for bliss, the third from the passing of passion, and by this means the fourth [Sahaja] is realized. Perfect Joy is samsara [mystic union]. The Joy of Cessation is nirvana. Then there is a plain Joy between the two. Sahaja is free of them all. For there is neither desire nor absence of desire, nor a middle to be obtained.



  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yidam - a type of deity associated with tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism said to be manifestations of Buddhahood or enlightened mind. During personal meditation (sādhana) practice, the yogi identifies their own form, attributes and mind with those of a yidam for the purpose of transformation. Yidam is sometimes translated by the terms "meditational deity" or "tutelary deity". Examples of yidams include the meditation deities Chakrasamvara, Kalachakra, Hevajra, Yamantaka, and Vajrayogini, all of whom have a distinctive iconography, mandala, mantra, rites of invocation and practice.

In Vajrayana, the yidam is one of the three roots of the "inner" refuge formula and is also the key element of Deity yoga since the 'deity' in the yoga is the yidam.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hevajra - The Hevajra Tantra, a yoginītantra of the anuttarayogatantra class, is believed to have originated between the late 8th (Snellgrove), and the late 9th or early 10th centuries (Davidson), in Eastern India, possibly Kamarupa. Tāranātha lists Saroruha and Kampala (also known as "Lva-va-pā, "Kambhalī", and "Śrī-prabhada") as its "bringers"



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahasiddha - maha meaning "great" and siddha meaning "adept", a certain type of yogin/yogini recognized in Vajrayana Buddhism, founders of Vajrayana traditions and lineages, such as Dzogchen and Mahamudra.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empowerment_(Vajrayana) - a ritual in Vajrayana which initiates a student into a particular tantric deity practice. The Tibetan word for this is wang (Skt. abhiṣeka; Tib. དབང་, wang; Wyl. dbang), which literally translates to power. The Sanskrit term for this is abhiseka which literally translates to sprinkling or bathing or anointing. A tantric practice is not considered effective or as effective until a qualified master has transmitted the corresponding power of the practice directly to the student. This may also refer to introducing the student to the mandala of the deity.



  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo - means literally "intermediate state"—also translated as "transitional state" or "in-between state" or "liminal state". In Sanskrit the concept has the name antarabhāva. It is a concept which arose soon after the Buddha's passing, with a number of earlier Buddhist groups accepting the existence of such an intermediate state, while other schools rejected it.

Used loosely, the term "bardo" refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena. These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions. For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality, while for others it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth.

The term bardo can also be used metaphorically to describe times when our usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, during a period of illness or during a meditation retreat. Such times can prove fruitful for spiritual progress because external constraints diminish. However, they can also present challenges because our less skillful impulses may come to the foreground, just as in the sidpa bardo.


Sahaja - yana


Ari Buddhism
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Buddhism - he Ari Gaing (Burmese: အရည်းဂိုဏ်း, IPA: [əjí ɡáiɴ]) is the name given to the religious practice common in Burma prior to Anawrahta's rise and the subsequent conversion of Bagan to Theravada Buddhism in the eleventh century. It was introduced in the 7th century, possibly through trade contact from India or Tibet

Ari practices have largely been categorized as a tantric form of Buddhism, combining elements of Buddhism, nat worship, indigenous nāga worship and Hinduism. Some scholars claim that it is related to the Buddhist religious practices of Nanzhao and the subsequent Dali Kingdom in modern-day Yunnan, China. Other historians like Than Tun contend that the Aris were forest-dwelling monks who simply differed in monastic practice from Theravadin bhikkhus, especially with regard to adherence to the Vinaya, as they were much less orthodox, allowed to consume alcohol, engage in sexual relations, and eat midday. Despite his conversion to Theravada Buddhism due to the efforts of Shin Arahan, a Mon bhikkhu, Anawrahta still supported Mahayana cultic practices and printed coins in Sanskrit rather than Pali.

Shingon Buddhism

The primary difference between Shingon and Tibetan Buddhism is that there is no Inner Tantra or Anuttarayoga Tantra in Shingon. Shingon has what corresponds to the Kriyā, Caryā, and Yoga classes of tantras in Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan system of classifying tantras into four classes is not used in Shingon.

Anuttarayoga Tantras such as the Yamantaka Tantra, Hevajra Tantra, Mahamaya Tantra, Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, and the Kalachakra Tantra were developed at a later period of Esoteric Buddhism and are not used in Shingon.

Aro Buddhism
  • Aro Buddhism - The Aro gTér is a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist lineage whose unusual characteristics make it singularly appropriate for many Westerners. The Aro gTér Tradition is principally concerned with transforming our experience of everyday being, rather than achieving an esoteric or spiritualised mode of existence. Our aim is to engender cheerful courage, perceptive consideration, sincere determination, natural gallantry, graciousness, creativity, and spaciousness.

The teachings of the Aro gTér descend from a lineage of enlightened women – beginning with Yeshé Tsogyel. She was the female Tantric Buddha, who—together with Padmasambhava—founded the Nyingma tradition of Buddhism. The Aro gTér is a small family lineage within that tradition – founded by the female visionary Lama Aro Lingma in 1909.



India

Sri Lanka

Madhyamaka

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka - refers primarily to a Mahāyāna Buddhist school of philosophy founded by Nāgārjuna. According to Madhyamaka all phenomena are śūnya, empty, of "substance" or "essence" (svabhāva) or inherent existence, because they are dependently co-arisen. But this "emptiness" itself is also "empty": it does not have an existence on its own, nor does it refer to a transcendental reality beyond or above phenomenal reality.

Himalayan

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayan_Buddhism - a term used to collectively refer to the Buddhist schools of Tibet, Bhutan, and regions of Nepal, and those practiced in the Indian Himalayan regions of Ladakh, Himachel Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachel Pradesh. There are four main, and several smaller, sects of Buddhism which were centred in Tibet but spread to the surrounding Himalayan regions:
  • Nyingma
  • Sakya
  • Kagyu
  • Geluk


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padmasambhava - also known as the Second Buddha, was a sage guru from northwestern Classical India (modern-day Swat Valley, Pakistan). Padmasambhava is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet, Bhutan and neighboring countries in the 8th century AD.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newar_Buddhism - The Newar Buddhism of Nepal, which was centred in the Kathmandu valley, is older than Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism drew many teachings, particularly Vajarayana teachings, from Newar Buddhism as well as teachings from Indian Buddhism

All these Buddhist traditions are closely related historically and all include practices of both the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions of Buddhism. The Buddhism of Mongolia is part of the same cultural milieu, although Mongolia is not in the Himalayan region.

Tibetan




  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhist_canon - a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to sutrayana texts from Early Buddhist (mostly Sarvastivada) and Mahayana sources, the Tibetan canon includes tantric texts. The Tibetan Canon underwent a final compilation in the 14th century by Buton Rinchen Drub (1290–1364).

The Tibetans did not have a formally arranged Mahayana canon and so devised their own scheme which divided texts into two broad categories:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangyur (Wylie: bka'-'gyur) or "Translated Words", consists of works supposed to have been said by the Buddha himself. All texts presumably have a Sanskrit original, although in many cases the Tibetan text was translated from Chinese or other languages.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengyur (Wylie: bstan-'gyur) or "Translated Treatises", is the section to which were assigned commentaries, treatises and abhidharma works (both Mahayana and non-Mahayana). The Tengyur contains 3626 texts in 224 Volumes.


  • Nyingma—the teachings of the kama, terma and pure vision traditions within the Nyingma School of Ancient Translations, which had come down in an aural lineage transmitted by countless learned and accomplished masters, all thanks to the kindness of Khenpo Shantarakshita, Guru Padmasambhava and the Dharma-King Trisong Deutsen.
  • Kadam—the divine teachings of the Old and New Kadam traditions, founded by the incomparable and glorious Lord Jowo Atisha and further developed through the magnificent efforts of Lobsang Drakpa, who was Manjushri in person.
  • Lamdré/Sakya—the essential instructions of the 'Path with its Result' (Tib. Lamdré), the heart-essence of the mahasiddha Virupa, which came down to the glorious Sakyapa founders and their heirs, and were then passed on by the various lineages including those of Sakya, Ngor and Tsar (Wyl. sa ngor tsar gsum).
  • Marpa Kagyü—the four streams of teachings within the Kagyü tradition that stems from Marpa, Milarepa and Gampopa, and branched into the four major and eight minor Kagyü lineages.
  • Shangpa Kagyü—the golden doctrine of the dakini Niguma from the glorious Shangpa Kagyü, which comes from the learned and accomplished Khyungpo Naljor.
  • Kalachakra/'Six Branch Practice of Vajrayoga' (Tib. Jordruk; Wyl. sbyor drug)—the 'Six-Branched Application', which emphasizes the Vajra Yoga of the perfection stage of the splendid Kalachakra, and which came to Tibet from the noble Dharma-kings of India and others such as Kalapada in early, intermediate and later phases, and developed into seventeen traditions, which were then brought together and passed on by the renunciate Tukjé Tsöndru and others.
  • Shyijé and Chö—the noble teachings of the 'Pacifying of Suffering' Tradition coming from Padampa Sangyé together with the profound teachings on the objects of severance, or Chö, which were passed on by Machik Lapdrön and others.
  • 'Approach and Accomplishment of the Three Vajras'—the teachings bestowed on the mahasiddha Orgyenpa Rinchen Pal by the mother of the buddhas, Vajrayogini herself.

Note: the Jonang and Gelug schools are not part of this list because they formed within Tibet.


Terma
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terma_(religion) - key Tibetan Buddhist and Bön teachings, which the tradition holds were originally esoterically hidden by various adepts such as Padmasambhava and his consorts in the 8th century for future discovery at auspicious times by other adepts, known as tertöns. As such, they represent a tradition of continuing revelation in Buddhism. The majority of terma teachings are tantric in nature, although there are notable exceptions. 'Treasure.' 1) The transmission through concealed treasures hidden, mainly by Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal, to be discovered at the proper time by a 'tertön,' a treasure revealer, for the benefit of future disciples. It is one of the two chief traditions of the Nyingma School, the other being 'Kama.' This tradition is said to continue even long after the Vinaya of the Buddha has disappeared. 2) Concealed treasures of many different kinds, including texts, ritual objects, relics, and natural objects.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol - Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State, Tibetan Book of the Dead, a funerary text. The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place.
Nyingma school
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyingma - a name emerging in the 11th century, the sole Ngagyur or "old translation" school is often equated as originating with the widespread introduction of Buddhism to Tibet around the turn of the 8th century. The oldest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, "Nyingma" literally means "ancient," and is often referred to as Ngagyur (Tibetan: སྔ་འགྱུར།, Wylie: snga 'gyur, "school of the ancient translations" or "old school"). The Tibetan alphabet and grammar was actually created for this endeavour.
Sarma
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarma_(Tibetan_Buddhism) - "new translation" schools include the three newer of the four main schools, comprising the following traditions and their sub-branches with their roots in the 11th century. primarily follows Tantric teachings (Vajrayāna) which were translated into Tibetan during the second diffusion of the Buddha Dharma into Tibet (diffusing the so-called New Tantras).
Kagyu school
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kagyu - Sarma school. Due to the Kagyu tradition's particularly strong emphasis on guru devotion and guru yoga, and the personal transmission of esoteric instructions (dam ngag or man ngag) from master to disciple, the early Kagyu tradition soon gave rise to a bewildering number of independent sub-schools or sub-sects centered around individual charismatic Kagyu teachers and their lineages. These lineages are hereditary as well as mindstream emanation in nature.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_Kagyu - probably the largest and certainly the most widely practiced lineage within the Kagyu school. The central teaching of the Karma Kagyu is the doctrine of Mahamudra, also known as the "Great Seal". Within the Karma Kagyu, meditative practice is almost invariably presented in a progressive manner. Early practice includes Shamatha meditation (calm abiding; single-pointedness), introduction to Buddhist history and philosophy, and initiation into the lower Tantras - classically across the Yidams (deities) Avalokiteshvara (Tibetan Chenrezik), Tara and Amitabha Buddha. This is followed by Ngondro (the practice of the Four Extraordinary Foundations) and Vipassana meditation. During the traditional three-year retreat, retreatants usually focus their practice on the Six Yogas of Naropa. At the Anuttarayogatantra level of practice, the principal Yidams of the lineage are Vajravarahi, Hevajra and Chakrasamvara. While one of the distinguishing characteristics of the Karma Kagyu is its emphasis on meditative practice, all forms and levels of Buddhist history and philosophy are also taught, most notably the Shentong branch of Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka philosophy.
  • http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Kagyü - one of the four main traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. The Kagyü tradition is one of the ‘Sarma’ or ‘new’ schools that mainly follow the tantras translated during the later transmission of the Buddhadharma to Tibet around the 11th century. Often called ‘the Practice Lineage’, the Kagyü tradition places great emphasis on intensive meditation practice, and on guru yoga, the power of devotion and the transmission from master to disciple. Apart from Tibet and all across the Himalayan regions, the Kagyü tradition has a very strong following in South East Asia and Malaysia, and has long since taken root in the West.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsangnyön_Heruka - "The Madman Heruka from Tsang", 1452-1507, was an author and a master of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. Born in Tsang, he is best known as a biographer and compiler of the Life of Milarepa and The Collections of Songs of Milarepa, both classics of Tibetan literature.
Sakya school
Jonang
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonang - traced to early 12th century master Yumo Mikyo Dorje, but became much wider known with the help of Dolpopa Sherab Gyeltsen, a monk originally trained in the Sakya school. The Jonang school was widely thought to have become extinct in the late 17th century at the hands of the Fifth Dalai Lama who forcibly annexed the Jonang monasteries to his Gelug school, declaring them heretical. Recently, however, it was discovered that some remote Jonang monasteries escaped this fate and have continued practicing uninterrupted to this day.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chöd - "Cutting Through the Ego,", the practice is based on the Prajñāpāramitā or "Perfection of Wisdom" sutras which expound the "emptiness", combined with specific meditation methods and tantric ritual. The chod practitioner seeks to tap the power of fear through activities such as rituals set in graveyards, and visualisation of offering their bodies in a tantric feast in order to put their understanding of emptiness to the ultimate test.
Gelug school
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalai_Lama - a monk of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism founded by Je Tsongkhapa. The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso. The Dalai Lama is considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. The name is a combination of the Mongolic word dalai meaning "ocean" and the Tibetan word བླ་མ་ (bla-ma) meaning "guru, teacher, mentor". The Tibetan word "lama" corresponds to the better known Sanskrit word "guru". For certain periods between the 17th century and 1962, the Gelug school managed the Tibetan government, which administered portions of Tibet from Lhasa.

The title "Dalai Lama" was first bestowed by the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan upon Sonam Gyatso in 1578. Since the time of Genghis Khan, only people who were of his royal lineage were allowed to rule Mongolia. This frustrated many would-be rulers who were not of this line. Altan Khan was the most destructive of these usurpers. He perceived that through the Buddhist faith he could gain legitimacy by claiming to be a reincarnation of Khublai Khaan. Altan Khan chose the Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism (founded by Tsongkhapa, 1357-1419). In 1577 he invited the leader of this order, Sonam Gyatsho, to come to Mongolia and teach his people. Sonam Gyatsho proclaimed Altan Khan to be the reincarnation of Kublai Khan, and in return, Altan Khan gave the title Dalai Lama to Sonam Gyatsho. Altan Khan posthumously awarded the title to his two predecessors, making Sonam Gyatsho the 3rd Dalai Lama.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_Dalai_Lama - Gendun Gyatso Palzangpo, also Gendun Gyatso. renaissance, non-violence. He was a renowned scholar and composer of mystical poetry, who traveled widely to extend Gelugpa influence, and became abbot of the largest Gelugpa monastery, Drepung, which from this time on was closely associated with the Dalai Lamas. According to Sumpa Khenpo, the great Gelug scholar, he also studied some Nyingma-pa tantric doctrines.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Dalai_Lama - the first to be created Dalai Lama, although the title was retrospectively given to his two predecessors. studied at Drepung Monastery and became its abbot. His reputation spread quickly and the monks at Sera Monastery also recognised him as their abbot. According to Sumpa Khenpo, the great Gelug scholar, he also studied some Nyingmapa tantric doctrines. When one of Tibet's kings, who had been supported by the Kagyupa, died in 1564, Sonam Gyatso presided over his funeral. His political power, and that of the Gelugpas, became dominant in Tibet by the 1570s.
  • domestically –
    • by the end of centuries of civil wars which had originally ensued upon the disintegration of the Tibetan empire following the assassination of King Langdarma in 842 (CE), and
  • in terms of foreign policy –
    • by the formal establishment of friendly diplomatic relations with China's imperial court during the formative years of the Qing Dynasty, and
    • by his meeting with early European explorers of Tibet, and
    • his military expeditions against Bhutan and the war against Ladakh.
  • lacked armies from this era-ish

Pure Land

East Asia


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiền_uyển_tập_anh - a Chinese-language Vietnamese Buddhist biographical text dating to 1337.[1][2][3][4] It connects the history of Buddhism in Vietnam with China and has aspects of a Dharma transmission text modelled on The Transmission of the Lamp genre.

Central Asia

Chinese

During the early period of Chinese Buddhism, the Indian early Buddhist schools recognized as important, and whose texts were studied, were the Dharmaguptakas, Mahīśāsakas, Kāśyapīyas, Sarvāstivādins, and the Mahāsāṃghikas. The Dharmaguptakas made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to areas such as Iran, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so. Therefore, most countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordination lineage for bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs.

Tiantai

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiantai - An important school of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, revering the Lotus Sutra as the highest teaching in Buddhism. In Japan the school is known as Tendai-shū, in Korea it is known as Cheontae, and in Vietnam it is called Thiên Thai tông. Unlike earlier schools of Chinese Buddhism, the Tiantai school was entirely of Chinese origin. The schools of Buddhism that had existed in China prior to the emergence of the Tiantai are generally believed to represent direct transplantations from India, with little modification to their basic doctrines and methods. However, Tiantai grew and flourished as a natively Chinese Buddhist school under the 4th patriarch, Zhiyi, who developed a hierarchy of Buddhist sutras that asserted the Lotus Sutra as the supreme teaching, as well as a system of meditation and practices around it.

After Zhiyi, Tiantai was eclipsed for a time by newer schools such as the East Asian Yogācāra and Huayan schools, until the 6th patriarch Zhanran who revived the school and defended its doctrine against rival schools. The debates between the Faxiang school and the Tiantai school concerning the notion of universal Buddhahood were particularly heated, with the Faxiang school asserting that different beings had different natures and therefore would reach different states of Enlightenment, while the Tiantai school argued in favor of the Lotus Sutra teaching of Buddhahood for all beings. Over time, the Tiantai school became doctrinally broad, able to absorb and give rise to other movements within Buddhism, though without any formal structure. The tradition emphasized both scriptural study and meditative practice, and taught the rapid attainment of Buddhahood through observing the mind.

The Five Periods are five periods in the life of the Buddha in which he delivered different teachings, aimed at different audiences with a different level of understanding:

  • The Period of Avatamsaka. During twenty-one days after his Enlightenment, the buddha delivered the Avatamsaka Sutra.
  • The Period of Agamas. During twelve years, the Buddha preached the Agamas for the Nihayana, including the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.
  • The Period of Vaipulya. During eight years, the Buddha delivered the Mahayana teachings, such as the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra, the Suvarnaprabhasa Sutra and other Mahayana sutras.
  • The Period of Prajna. During twenty-two years, the Buddha explained emptiness in the Prajnaparamita-sutras.
  • The Period of Dharma-pundarik and Nirvana. In the last eight years, the Buddha preached the doctrine of the One Buddha Vehicle, and delivered the Lotus Sutra and the Nirvana Sutra just before his death.

The Eight Teachings consist of the Four Doctrines, and the Fourfold Methods.

  • Four Doctrines
    • Tripitaka Teaching: the Sutra, Vinaya and Abhidhamma, in which the basic teachings are explained
    • Shared Teaching: the teaching of emptiness
    • Distinctive Teaching: aimed at the Bodhisattva
    • Perfect Teaching - the Chinese teachings of the Lotus Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra
  • Fourfold Methods
    • Gradual Teaching, for those with medium or inferior abilities
    • Sudden Teaching, the Distinctive Teachings and the Complete Teaching for those with superior abilities
    • Secret Teaching, teachings which are transmitted without the recipient being aware of it
    • Variable Teaching, no fixed teaching, but various teachings for various persons and circumstances


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huayan_school - a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy that first flourished in China during the Tang dynasty. It is based on the Avatamsaka Sutra (Chinese: 華嚴經; pinyin: Huáyán jīng) and on a lengthy Chinese interpretation of it, the Huáyán lùn (Chinese: 華嚴論. The name Flower Garland is meant to suggest the crowning glory of profound understanding. The Huayan School is known as Hwaeom in Korea and Kegon in Japan.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Dharmadhātu
    • 'Shih' is a rendering of the character 事 which holds the semantic field: "matter", "phenomenon", "event". It may be understood as the 'realm' (Sanskrit: dhātu) of all matters and phenomena. All dharmas are seen as particular separate events.
    • The Dharmadhātu of 'Li'(Chinese: 理法界; "li fajie"). 'Li' is a rendering of the character 理 which holds the semantic field: "principle", "law", "noumenon". This 'realm' (Sanskrit: dhātu) may be understood as that of principles. It has been referred to as "the realm of the one principle". The "one principle" being qualified as śūnyatā (Sanskrit). All events are an expression of the absolute.
    • The Dharmadhātu of Non-obstruction of 'Li' against 'Shih' (Chinese: 理事無礙法界; "lishi wuai fajie"). This 'realm' (Sanskrit: dhātu) has been rendered into English as "the realm of non-obstruction between principle and phenomena". Events and essence interpenetrate.
    • The Dharmadhātu of the Non-obstruction of 'Shih' and 'Shih' (Chinese: 事事無礙法界; "shishi wuai fajie"). This 'realm' (Sanskrit: dhātu) has been rendered into English as "the realm of non-obstruction between phenomena". All events interpenetrate.
  • Dushun (Chinese: 杜順; Wade–Giles: Tu-Shun), responsible for the establishment of Huayan studies as a distinct field;
  • Zhiyan (Chinese: 智儼; Wade–Giles: Chih-yen), considered to have established the basic doctrines of the sect;
  • Fazang (Chinese: 法藏; Wade–Giles: Fa-tsang), considered to have rationalized the doctrine for greater acceptance by society;
  • Chengguan (Chinese: 澄觀; Wade–Giles: Ch'eng-kuan), together with Zongmi, are understood to have further developed and transformed the teachings
  • Guifeng Zongmi (Chinese: 圭峰宗密; Wade–Giles: Kuei-feng Tsung-mi), who is simultaneous a patriarch of the Chinese Chán tradition.

Yogācāra

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogacara - influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. Associated with Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE, but also included non-Mahayana practitioners of the Dârstântika school.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asanga
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhinirmocana_Sutra - Sūtra of the Explanation of the Profound Secrets is a Mahāyāna Buddhist text that is classified as belonging to the Yogācāra school of Buddhism. This sūtra was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese four times, the most complete and reliable of which is typically considered to be that of Xuanzang. It also was translated into Tibetan.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Consciousnesses - a classification developed in the tradition of the Yogacara school of Buddhism. They enumerate the five senses, supplemented by the mind, defilements of the mind, and finally the fundamental store-house consciousness, which is the basis of the other seven.


"For myself, each morning I try to do (or intend to do, it doesn’t always work out that way!) a comprehensive practice that is called the Wheel of Awareness. This WoA practice was created to integrate consciousness as it differentiates and then links a wide array of elements of being aware. Within the metaphoric hub is the sense of knowing; within the rim is that which is known—such as the first five senses, the sixth sense of the sensations from the interior of the body, the seventh sense of our mental life of emotions and thoughts, and even an eighth sense of our relations to people and the planet. Moving a spoke of attention from hub to rim around the various elements of the rim enables hub and rim to be differentiated and then linked. This is how consciousness can be integrated."

Nichiren

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichiren_Buddhism - based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk Nichiren (1222–1282). Nichiren Buddhism is generally noted for its focus on the Lotus Sutra and an attendant belief that all people have an innate Buddha nature and are therefore inherently capable of attaining enlightenment in their current form and present lifetime


Chán

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma - a Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Ch'an to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolin Kung Fu.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Chán - (from Sanskrit dhyāna, meaning "meditation") is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism developed in China from the 6th century CE onwards, becoming dominant during the Tang and Song dynasties. After the Song, Chán more or less fused with the Pure Land school. From China, Chán spread south to Vietnam and east to Korea (where it is known as Seon) and, in the 13th century, to Japan, where it became known as Zen. The Chán/Zen tradition became the best-known instance of Buddhism in the Western World.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laṅkāvatāra_Sūtra - draws upon the concepts and doctrines of Yogācāra and Buddha-nature. The most important doctrine issuing from the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra is that of the primacy of consciousness (Skt. vijñāna) and the teaching of consciousness as the only reality. In the sūtra, the Buddha asserts that all the objects of the world, and the names and forms of experience, are merely manifestations of the mind:



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Mountain_Teaching - The East Mountain community was a specialized meditation training centre. The establishment of a community in one location was a change from the wandering lives of Bodhiharma and Huike and their followers. It fitted better into the Chinese society, which highly valued community-oriented behaviour, instead of solitary practice. An important aspect of the East Mountain Teachings was its nonreliance on a single sutra or a single set of sutras for its doctrinal foundation as was done by most of the other Buddhist sects of the time. The East Mountain School incorporated both the Lankavatara Sutra and the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutras.

The view of the mind in the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana (Chinese: Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun) also had a significant import on the doctrinal development of the East Mountain Teaching.: In the words of the Awakening of Faith — which summarizes the essentials of Mahayana — self and world, mind and suchness, are integrally one. Everything is a carrier of that a priori enlightenment; all incipient enlightenment is predicated on it. The mystery of existence is, then, not, "How may we overcome alienation?" The challenge is, rather, "Why do we think we are lost in the first place?"


Zen

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sōtō - the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, imported in the 13th century by Dōgen Zenji, who studied Caodong Buddhism.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinzai_school - Rinzai Zen is marked by the emphasis it places on kensho ("seeing one's true nature") as the gateway to authentic Buddhist practice, and for its insistence on many years of exhaustive post-kensho training to embody the free functioning of wisdom within the activities of daily life. Training focuses on zazen (seated meditation), kōan, and samu (physical work done with mindfulness).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ōbaku - established in 1661 by a small faction of masters from China and their Japanese students at Manpuku-ji in Uji, Japan. "Insofar as the Ōbaku belonged to the Rinzai tradition, zazen and kōan practice were made part of daily life, but ritual was also accorded a place of considerable importance."


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōan - is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samu_(Zen) - refers to physical work that is done with mindfulness as a simple, practical and spiritual practice. Samu might include activities such as cleaning, cooking, gardening, or chopping wood. Samu is a way to bring mindfulness into everyday life as well as to get things done. Samu is popular in Zen monasteries, particularly as a means of maintaining the monastery and as practicing mindfulness. "If you consider quietude right and activity wrong, then this is seeking the real aspect by destroying the worldly aspect, seeking nirvana, the peace of extinction, apart from birth and death. When you like quiet and hate activity, this is the time to apply effort. Suddenly when in the midst of activity, you topple the sense of quietude-that power surpasses quietistic meditation [seated meditation] by a million billion times." -Dahui Zonggao
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hua_Tou - Korean: hwadu, Japanese: wato, a form of Buddhist meditation common in the teachings of Chinese Chán and Korean Seon. Hua Tou can be translated as 'word head', 'head of speech' or 'point beyond which speech exhausts itself'. A Hua Tou can be a short phrase that is used as a subject of meditation to focus the mind. Hua Tou are based on the encounter-dialogues and koans of the interactions between past masters and students, but are shorter phrases than koans. The Hua Tou method was invented by the Chinese Zen master Dahui Zonggao (1089 – 1163) who was a member of the Linji school. Hua Tou practice does not use regular interviews and question and answer sessions between student and teacher (dokusan). According to Dahui, Hua Tou is also a form of meditation that "can be carried out by laymen in the midst of their daily activities."
  • "What is it?"
  • "What is this?"
  • "Who is repeating the Buddha’s name?"
  • "Who is dragging this corpse around?" (popularized by Hsu Yun)
  • "Who am I?"
  • "What was my Original face before my father and mother were born?"
  • "What is Mu?"

Huaijang entered the room and bowed to Huineng. Huineng asked: “Where do you come from?”. “I came from Mount Sung”, replied Huaijang. “What is this and how did it get here?” demanded Huineng. Huaijang could not answer and remained speechless. He practised for many years until he understood. He went to see Huineng to tell him about his breakthrough. Huineng asked: “What is this?” Huaijang replied: “To say it is like something is not to the point. But still it can be cultivated”. 

A monk once asked Jo ju, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?"
Jo Ju answered, "Mu!"(No)

1. Buddha said everything has Buddha-nature. Jo Ju said a dog has no Buddha-nature. Which one is correct?

2. Jo Ju said, "Mu!" What does this mean?

3. I ask you, does a dog have Buddha-nature?

Commentary: Silence is better than holiness, so opening your mouth is a big mistake. But if you use this mistake to save all beings, this is Zen.
  • PDF: Go Straight - A collection of Dharma Talks by Teachers of the Kwan Um School of Zen
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Equanimity - Book of Equanimity or Book of Serenity (Japanese: Shōyōroku) is a collection of 100 koans compiled in the early 12th century by the Chinese Chán master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157). Along with The Gateless Gate, the Book of Equanimity is considered one of the two primary compilations of Zen dialogue.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cliff_Record - is a collection of Chán Buddhist koans originally compiled in China during the Song dynasty in 1125 (宋宣和七年) and then expanded into its present form by the Chán master Yuanwu Keqin (圜悟克勤 1063 – 1135). The book includes Yuanwu's annotations and commentary on Xuedou Zhongxian's (雪竇重顯 980 – 1052) collection 100 Verses on Old Cases 《頌古百則》 — a compilation of 100 koans. Xuedou selected 82 of these from the Jingde Chuandeng Lu 《景德傳燈錄》 (Jingde era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp), with the remainder selected from the Yunmen Guanglu 《雲門廣録》 (Extensive Record of Yunmen Wenyan (864 – 949).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gateless_Gate - a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (無門慧開)(1183–1260) (Japanese: Mumon Ekai). The common theme of the koans of the Wumen Guan and of Wumen's comments is the inquiry and introspection of dualistic conceptualization. Each koan epitomizes one or more of the polarities of consciousness that act like an obstacle or wall to the insight. The student is challenged to transcend the polarity that the koan represents and demonstrate or show that transcendence to the Zen teacher.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101_Zen_Stories - a 1919 compilation of Zen koans including 19th and early 20th century anecdotes compiled by Nyogen Senzaki, and a translation of Shasekishū, written in the 13th century by Japanese Zen master Mujū (無住) (literally, "non-dweller").


Western

Buddhist modernism

Critical Buddhism

Integral Buddhism

Open source

to sort

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." -Thich Nhat Hanh

"You can only lose what you cling to." -Buddha


Third/middle path/way differs from certain existential values. to rethink.



Daniel P Brown;



Tao

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua - are eight trigrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. Each consists of three lines, each line either "broken" or "unbroken," representing yin or yang, respectively. Due to their tripartite structure, they are often referred to as "trigrams" in English.

The trigrams are related to taiji philosophy, taijiquan and the wu xing, or "five elements". The relationships between the trigrams are represented in two arrangements, the Primordial (先天八卦), "Earlier Heaven" or "Fuxi" bagua (伏羲八卦), and the Manifested (後天八卦), "Later Heaven," or "King Wen" bagua. The trigrams have correspondences in astronomy, astrology, geography, geomancy, anatomy, the family, and elsewhere.

The ancient Chinese classic I Ching (Pinyin:Yi Jing) consists of the 64 possible pairs of trigrams (called "hexagrams") and commentary on them.

Judaism


Christianity



  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charism - in general denotes any good gift that flows from God's love to humans. The word can also mean any of the spiritual graces and qualifications granted to every Christian to perform his or her task in the Church. In the narrowest sense, it is a theological term for the extraordinary graces given to individual Christians for the good of others. These extraordinary spiritual gifts, often termed "charismatic gifts", are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, increased faith, the gifts of healing, the gift of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, diverse kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues (1 Corinthians 12:8-10). To these are added the gifts of apostles, prophets, teachers, helps (connected to service of the poor and sick), and governments (or leadership ability) which are connected with certain offices in the Church. These gifts are given by the Holy Spirit to individuals, but their purpose is to build up the entire Church. The charismata in this narrowest sense are distinguished from the graces given for personal sanctification, such as the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit.


Manichaeism

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism - a major religion that was founded by the Iranian prophet Mani (in Persian: مانی, Syriac: ܡܐܢܝ, Latin: Manichaeus or Manes) (c. 216–276 AD) in the Sasanian Empire. Manichaeism taught an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light whence it came. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements.

Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic-Syriac speaking regions. It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire. It was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the east than in the west, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China, contemporary to the decline in China of the Church of the East – see Ming Dynasty. While most of Mani's original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived.

Turkic

Tengri

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengri - Tengri was the chief deity worshipped by the ruling class of the Central Asian steppe peoples in 6th to 9th centuries (Turkic peoples, Mongols and Hungarians). It lost its importance when the Uighuric kagans proclaimed Manichaeism the state religion in the 8th century.

Shugendō

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shugendō - a highly syncretic religion that originated in Heian Japan in which enlightenment is equated with the attainment of oneness with the kami (神?), i.e., the spirits or phenomena that are worshiped in the Shinto religion. This perception of experiential "awakening" is obtained through the understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature, centered on an ascetic, mountain-dwelling practice. The focus or goal of Shugendō is the development of spiritual experience and power. Having backgrounds in mountain worship, Shugendō incorporated beliefs or philosophies from early Japanese religious beliefs, Taoism and esoteric Buddhism. The 7th century ascetic and mystic En no Gyōja is often considered as having first organized Shugendō as a doctrine. Shugendō literally means "the path of training and testing" or "the way to spiritual power through discipline.

With its origins in the solitary practitioners (hijiri) in the 7th century, Shugendō evolved as a sort of amalgamation between Vajrayana, Shinto and several other religious influences including Taoism. Buddhism and Shinto were amalgamated in shinbutsu-shūgō, and Kūkai's syncretic religion held wide sway up until the end of the Edo period, coexisting with indigenous elements within Shugendō. In 1613 during the Edo period, the Tokugawa shogunate issued a regulation obliging Shugendō temples to declare allegiance either to Shingon Buddhism or Tendai.

During the Meiji Restoration, when Shinto was declared an independent state religion separate from Buddhism, shugendō was banned as a superstition not fit for a new, enlightened Japan. Some Shugendō temples converted themselves into various officially approved Shintō denominations. In modern times, shugendō is practiced mainly in Tendai and Shingon temples, retaining an influence on modern Japanese religion and culture. Some temples include Kimpusen-ji in Yoshino (Tendai), Ideha Shrine in the Three Mountains of Dewa and Daigo-ji in Kyoto (Shingon).

Sikhism

Islam

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dervish - someone treading a Sufi Muslim ascetic path or "Tariqah", known for their extreme poverty and austerity. In this respect, Dervishes are most similar to mendicant friars in Christianity or Hindu/Buddhist/Jain sadhus.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barzakh - In Sufism, the or Barzakh or Alam-e-Araf, is not only where the human soul resides after death but it is also a place that the soul can visit during sleep and meditation. Major Scholar, Ibn 'Arabi, defines Barzakh as the intermediate realm or "isthmus". It is between the World of Corporeal Bodies and the World of Spirits, and is a means of contact between the two worlds. Without it, there would be no contact between the two and both would cease to exist. It is described as simple and luminous, like the World of Spirits, but also able to take on many different forms just like the World of Corporeal Bodies can. In broader terms Barzakh, “is anything that separates two things”. It has been described as the dream world in which the dreamer is in both life and death.


Paganism



Norse

Folklore

Theosophy

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy - refers to systems of esoteric philosophy concerning, or investigation seeking direct knowledge of, presumed mysteries of being and nature, particularly concerning the nature of divinity. Theosophy is considered a part of the broader field of esotericism, referring to hidden knowledge or wisdom that offers the individual enlightenment and salvation. The theosophist seeks to understand the mysteries of the universe and the bonds that unite the universe, humanity, and the divine. The goal of theosophy is to explore the origin of divinity and humanity, and the world. From investigation of those topics, theosophists try to discover a coherent description of the purpose and origin of the universe.


Hermeticism

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kybalion - a 1908 book claiming to be the essence of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, published anonymously by a group or person under the pseudonym of "the Three Initiates".


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theurgy - the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving henosis, and perfecting oneself.

Rosicrucianism

Orders

Tarot

Magick

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_magic - or ritual magic, also referred to as high magic and as learned magic in some cases, is a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. It is named as such because the works included are characterized by ceremony and myriad necessary accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an extension of ritual magic, and in most cases synonymous with it. Popularized by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it draws on such schools of philosophical and occult thought as Hermetic Qabalah, Enochian magic, Thelema, and the magic of various grimoires.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotropaic_magic - intended to "turn away" harm or evil influences, as in deflecting misfortune or averting the evil eye. "Apotropaic" observances may also be practiced out of vague superstition or out of tradition, as in good luck charm (perhaps some token on a charm bracelet), amulets, or gestures such as fingers crossed or knocking on wood. The Greeks made offerings to the Averting Gods, chthonic deities and heroes who grant safety and deflect evil.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_magic - the attempt to bind the passions of another, or to capture them as a sex object through magical means rather than through direct activity. It can be implemented in a variety of ways, such as written spells, dolls, charms, amulets, potions, or different rituals.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimoire - a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons.


Witchcraft

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunning_folk - Folk healers, in England also known as cunning folk or (more rarely) as white witches are practitioners of folk medicine, folk magic, and divination within the context of the various traditions of folklore in Christian Europe (from at least the 15th up until at least the early 20th century).
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discoverie_of_Witchcraft - a partially sceptical book published by the English gentleman Reginald Scot in 1584, intended as an exposé of medieval witchcraft. It contains a small section intended to show how the public was fooled by charlatans, which is considered the first published material on magic. Scot believed that the prosecution of those accused of witchcraft was irrational and un-Christian, and he held the Roman Church responsible. Popular belief held that all obtainable copies were burned on the accession of James I in 1603.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Horseman%27s_Word - was a fraternal secret society that operated in Scotland from the eighteenth through to the twentieth century. Its members were drawn from those who worked with horses, including horse trainers, blacksmiths and ploughmen, and involved the teaching of magical rituals designed to provide the practitioner with the ability to control both horses and women. It also acted as a form of trade union, aiming to gain better rights for its members. The initiation rituals into the society incorporated a number of elements such as reading passages from the Bible backwards, and the secrets included Masonic-style oaths, gestures, passwords and handshakes. Like the similar societies of the Miller's Word and the Toadsmen, they were believed to have practiced witchcraft. In East Anglia, horsemen with these powers were sometimes called Horse Witches.


  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_witchcraft - used to refer to a variety of contemporary forms of witchcraft. Pagan studies scholar Ethan Doyle White described it as "a broad movement of aligned magico-religious groups who reject any relation to Gardnerianism and the wider Wiccan movement, claiming older, more "traditional" roots. Although typically united by a shared aesthetic rooted in European folklore, the Traditional Craft contains within its ranks a rich and varied array of occult groups, from those who follow a contemporary Pagan path that is suspiciously similar to Wicca to those who adhere to Luciferianism".

Thelema

Wicca

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicca - Wicca (English pronunciation: /ˈwɪkə/) is a modern pagan, witchcraft religion. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and it was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. It draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practice. The word witch derives from Middle English wicche, Old English wicce (/ˈwɪttʃe/) (feminine) "witch" and wicca (/ˈwɪttʃɑ/) (masculine) "wizzard".

Wicca is a diverse religion with no central authority or figure defining it. It is divided into various lineages and denominations, referred to as traditions, each with its own organisational structure and level of centralisation. Due to its decentralized nature, there is some disagreement over what actually constitutes Wicca. Some traditions, collectively referred to as British Traditional Wicca, strictly follow the initiatory lineage of Gardner and consider the term Wicca to apply only to such lineaged traditions, while other eclectic traditions do not.

Wicca is typically duotheistic, worshipping a god and goddess traditionally viewed as a mother goddess and horned god. These two deities are sometimes viewed as facets of a greater pantheistic godhead. However, beliefs range from hard polytheism to even monotheism. Wiccan celebration follows approximately eight seasonally based festivals known as Sabbats. An unattributed statement known as the Wiccan Rede is the traditional basis of Wiccan morality. Wicca often involves the ritual practice of magic, though it is not always necessary.

Chaos


"The transmutation of the mind to magical consciousness has often been called the Great Work. It has a far-reaching purpose leading eventually to the discovery of the True Will. Even a slight ability to change oneself is more valuable than any power over the external universe. Metamorphosis is anexercise in willed restructuring of the mind.

"All attempts to reorganize the mind involve a duality between conditions as they are and the preferred condition. Thus it is impossible to cultivate any virtue like spontaneity, joy, pious, pride, grace, or omnipotence without involving oneself in more conventionality, sorrow, guilt, sin, and impotence in the process. Religions are founded on the fallacy that one can or ought to have one without the other. High magic recognizes the dualistic condition but does not care whether life is bittersweet or sweet and sour; rather it seeks to achieve any arbitrary perceptual perspective at will.

"Any state of mind might arbitrarily be chosen as an objective for transmutation, but there is a specific virtue to the ones given. The first is an antidote to the imbalance and possible madness of the magical trance. The second is a specific against obsession with the magical practices in the third section. They are:

1) Laughter/Laughter 2) Non-attachment/Non-disinterest.

"Attaining these states of mind is accomplished by a process of ongoing meditation. One tries to enter into the spirit of the condition whenever possible and to think about the desired result at other times. By this method, a strong new mental habit can be established.

"Consider laughter: it is the highest emotion, for it can contain any of the others from ecstacy to grief. It has no opposite. Crying is merely an underdeveloped form of it which cleanses the eyes and summons assistance to infants. Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself.

"The trick is to see that joke played out even in the neutral and ghastly events which surround one. It is not for us to question the universe's apparent lack of taste. Seek the emotion of laughter at what delights and amuses, seek it in whatever is neutral or meaningless, seek it even in what is horrific and revolting. Though it may be forced at first, one can learn to smile inwardly at all things.

"Non-attachment/Non-disinterest best describes the magical condition of acting without lust of result. It is very difficult for humans to decide on something and then to do it purely for its own sake. Yet it is precisely this ability which is required to execute magical acts. Only single-pointed awareness will do. Attachment is to be understood both in the positive and negative sense, for aversion is its other face. Attachment to any attribute of oneself, one's personality, one's ambitions, one's relationships or sensory experiences — or equally,aversion to any of these — will prove limiting.

"On the other hand, it is fatal to lose interest in these things for they are one's symbolic system or magical reality. Rather, one is attempting to touch the sensitive parts of one's reality more lightly in order to deny the spoiling hand of grasping desire and boredom. Thereby one may gain enough freedom to act magically.

"In addition to these two meditations there is a third, more active, form of metamorphosis, and this involves one's everyday habits. However innocuous they might seem, habits in thought word, and deed are the anchor of the personality. The magician aims to pull up that anchor and cast himself free on the seas of chaos.

"To proceed, select any minor habit at random and delete it from your behavior: at the same adopt any new habit atrandom. The choices should not involve anything of spiritual, egocentric, or emotional significance, nor should you select anything with any possibility of failure. By persisting with such simple beginnings you become capable of virtually anything.

"All works of metamorphosis should be committed to the magical diary."

Bahá'í Faith

Yazidi

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yazidi - Kurdish-speaking people who adhere to a branch of Iranian religions that blends elements of Mithraism, pre-Islamic Mesopotamian/Assyrian religious traditions, Christianity and Islam.

The origin of Yazidism is now usually seen by scholars as a complex process of syncretism, whereby the belief system and practices of a local faith had a profound influence on the religiosity of adherents of the 'Adawiyya Sufi order living in the Yezidi mountains, and caused it to deviate from Islamic norms relatively soon after the death of its founder, Shaykh 'Adī ibn Musafir, who is said to be of Umayyad descent. He settled in the valley of Laliş (some 36 miles north-east of Mosul) in the early 12th century. Şêx Adî himself, a figure of undoubted orthodoxy, enjoyed widespread influence. He died in 1162, and his tomb at Laliş is a focal point of Yazidi pilgrimage.

Austin Osman Spare

New Thought

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Thought - a spiritual movement, sometimes classed as a Christian denomination, which developed in the United States in the 19th century, following the teachings of Phineas Quimby. promotes the ideas that Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect. Although New Thought is neither monolithic nor doctrinaire, in general, modern-day adherents of New Thought believe that God or Infinite Intelligence is "supreme, universal, and everlasting", that divinity dwells within each person, that all people are spiritual beings, that "the highest spiritual principle [is] loving one another unconditionally... and teaching and healing one another", and that "our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living". The New Thought movement originated in the early 19th century, and survives to the current day in the form of a loosely allied group of religious denominations, authors, philosophers, and individuals who share a set of beliefs concerning metaphysics, positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization, and personal power.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Science - Science of Mind was established in 1927 by Ernest Holmes (1887–1960) and is a spiritual, philosophical and metaphysical religious movement within the New Thought movement. In general, the term "Science of Mind" applies to the teachings, while the term "Religious Science" applies to the organizations. However, adherents often use the terms interchangeably. In his book, The Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes stated "Religious Science is a correlation of laws of science, opinions of philosophy, and revelations of religion applied to human needs and the aspirations of man." He also stated that Religious Science/Science of Mind (RS/SOM) is not based on any "authority" of established beliefs, but rather on "what it can accomplish" for the people who practice it.

The RS/SOM teaching generally incorporates idealistic and panentheistic philosophies. RS/SOM teaches that all beings are expressions of and part of Infinite Intelligence, also known as Spirit, Christ Consciousness, or God. It teaches that, because God is all there is in the universe (not just present in Heaven, or in assigned deities, as believed by traditional teachings), Its power can be used by all humans to the extent that they recognize and align themselves with Its presence. Ernest Holmes said "God is not ... a person, but a Universal Presence ... already in our own soul, already operating through our own consciousness."

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_prayer - a form of prayer or a metaphysical technique that is focused on a positive outcome rather than a negative situation. For example, a person who is experiencing some form of illness would focus the prayer on the desired state of perfect health and affirm this desired intention "as if already happened" rather than identifying the illness and then asking God for help to eliminate it.

Anthroposophy

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education - a humanistic approach to pedagogy based on the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. The first Waldorf school was founded in 1919 in Stuttgart, Germany. At present there are 1,039 independent Waldorf schools, 2,000 kindergartens and 646 centers for special education, located in 60 countries. There are also Waldorf-based state schools, charter schools and academies, and homeschooling environments.

Brahma Kumaris



Attunement

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attunement - a form of energy medicine originally developed by Lloyd Arthur Meeker (1907 – 1954) and his colleagues. Meeker taught and practiced Attunement as a central feature of his spiritual teaching and ministry, Emissaries of Divine Light. Attunement is taught as a personal spiritual practice and as a healing modality offered through the hands. Emissaries of Divine Light believe that Attunement is a pivotal factor in the conscious evolution of humanity. Like Qigong, Reiki and Therapeutic touch Attunement is a putative practice as defined by the United States National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), lacking published scientific study of its effectiveness. Attunement practitioners and clients rely on personal and anecdotal experience to confirm its validity.

Vera Stanley Adler


Alan Watts



Joseph Campbell

Alan Moore

Radical Faeries

Satanism

Diamond Approach

Discordianism

SubGenius

Theopoetics

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theopoetics - an interdisciplinary field of study that combines elements of poetic analysis, process theology, narrative theology, and postmodern philosophy. Originally developed by Stanley Hopper and David Leroy Miller in 1960s and furthered significantly by Amos Wilder with his 1976 text, Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination. Theopoetics suggests that instead of trying to develop a “scientific” theory of God, as Systematic Theology attempts, theologians should instead try to find God through poetic articulations of their lived (“embodied”) experiences. It asks theologians to accept reality as a legitimate source of divine revelation and suggests that both the divine and the real are mysterious — that is, irreducible to literalist dogmas or scientific proofs. Theopoetics makes significant use of “radical” and “ontological” metaphor to create a more fluid and less stringent referent for the Divine. One of the functions of theopoetics is to recalibrate theological perspectives, suggesting that theology can be more akin to poetry than physics. It belies the logical assertion of the Principle of Bivalence and stands in contrast to some rigid Biblical hermeneutics that suggest that each passage of scripture has only one, usually teleological, interpretation.

Don Miguel Ruiz

The Four Agreements:

“1. Be Impeccable With Your Word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.”

Falun Gong

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong - Falun Dafa (literally, "Dharma Wheel Practice" or "Law Wheel Practice") is a Chinese spiritual practice that combines meditation and qigong exercises with a moral philosophy centered on the tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance (Chinese: 真、善、忍). The practice emphasizes morality and the cultivation of virtue, and identifies as a qigong practice of the Buddhist school, though its teachings also incorporate elements drawn from Taoist traditions. Through moral rectitude and the practice of meditation, practitioners of Falun Gong aspire to better health and, ultimately, spiritual enlightenment.

Other







The Celestine Prophecy

Drew Dellinger

Russell Brand

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