[This article attempts to identify certain of the elements and structures that have constituted the Buddhist tradition as it has evolved over the past twenty-five hundred years. It traces a complex of social and ideological formations that have allowed...

Buddhism In India, Buddhism was a heterodox religious movement against the authority of the Vedas, the Bible of orthodox Hinduism. Gautama Buddha (c. 563 . The Essentials of Buddhist Philosophy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1947. Wright, Arthur...

Buddhism FOUNDED: Fifth century B.C.E.RELIGION AS A PERCENTAGE OF WORLD POPULATION: 6 Percent Overview Buddhism is the world Connell, trans. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1996. Warder,...

Buddhism—Schools This composite entry is composed of the following sub-entries: Chan and Zen Dge-Lugs Hua Yan Madhymaka...

Buddhism arose around 500 B.C.E. as a practical response to the trouble and suffering that characterize the human condition. Uniquely among traditions concerned with those issues, Buddhism has never offered a final description of ultimate reality; it...

ZHENYAN Buddhism is a form of Vajrayāna Buddhism that flourished in China from the seventh to the twelfth century. The term zhenyan is a translation of the Sanskrit word mantra and literally means "real word." The school is also...

Buddhism Buddhism derives its name from the Sanskrit word buddha (awakened, wise, or learned), which was one of the many epithets given to Siddh sa. Albany: SUNY Press,...

religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: “awakened one”), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and the mid-4th centuries &BCE; (before the Common Era or Christian era)....

HORNER, I. B. The British scholar Isaline B. Horner (1896–1981) devoted her considerable intelligence and energy to furthering scholarly and popular understanding of Buddhism, especially in the English-speaking West. After earning her B.A....

Buddhism is a missionary salvation religion, first taught by the Buddha (‘the Enlightened One’) in the north Indian Gangetic plain in the sixth and early fifth centuries BC. The Buddha came from the edge of the Brahmanic society of his day,...

one of the fundamental doctrines of Buddhism, said to have been set forth by the Buddha, the founder of the religion, in his first sermon, which he gave after his enlightenment. Although the term Four Noble Truths is well known in English, it is a...

Major world religion and philosophy founded in northeastern India in the 5th century &BCE;. Based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha, Buddhism takes as its goal the escape from suffering and from the cycle of rebirth: the...

The supreme Goal of Buddhist endeavour; release from the limitations of existence. The word is derived from a root meaning extinguished through lack of fuel, and since rebirth is the result of desire (tanhā), freedom from rebirth is attained by...

Zen training is a process of transcending thought, for the intellect functions in duality, and the ‘moment’ of Zen experience is in Non-duality. Normal logic is therefore worse than useless to achieve this experience; it binds the mind in...

An Indian doctrine which the Buddha embodied in his own teaching in a modified form. To be distinguished from transmigration, for the latter implies the return to earth in a new body of a distinct entity which may be called a soul. In Bsm. Rebirth is...

In 1945 the Buddhist Society drafted Twelve principles of Buddhism in the hope that they might be widely accepted as common to all Schools of Bsm. In 1946 they were accepted at Kyoto at a meeting of a Committee of all Bst. Schools in Japan convened by...

There are yet few books which convey in fiction the essence and flavour of Bsm. The Lama in Kipling’s Kim and in Talbot Mundy’s Om are both good. Mrs Adam Beck’s Life of the Buddha is the best Life in fiction form, and her Garden of...

Effort. Sammā Vāyāma is the sixth step on the Noble Eightfold Path (q.v.). The Efforts are described as that to destroy such evil as has arisen in the mind, to prevent any more arising; to produce such good as has not yet arisen in the...

Lit. Higher Dhamma. The third division of the Canon of the Theravāda School (q.v.). (See Tipitaka.) It is largely a commentary on the Sutta Pitaka. the Sermons, and subjects them to analysis. Philosophical and psychological, it contains an entire...

The name given by the West to the Teachings of Gautama the Buddha (q.v.), but usually called by his followers the Buddha Dhamma (see Dhamma). Buddhism is a way of life, a discipline; not a system of dogmas to be accepted by the intellect. It is a way...

Action. Sammā Kammanta, Right Action, is the fourth step on the Noble Eightfold Path (q.v.) and is there given as abstention from Killing, Stealing and unlawful Sexual Intercourse. In its expanded form, however, Right Action in Bsm. covers a very...

(Sammā Ājīva) Right Livelihood is the Fifth Stage of the Noble Eightfold Path (q.v.). The ignoble trades—those which a Buddhist should avoid—include butchery, hunting and fishing, warfare and the making of weapons of war, and...

Mindedness free from sensuous desire, ill-will and other such taints. The second step on the Noble Eightfold Path (q.v.). May be extended to right intent or Motive (q.v.), not only the state of mind but the purpose for which the Path is...

The four sites visited by Buddhist pilgrims are the birth-place, Lumbinī Park (q.v.); Buddha Gaya (q.v.), which is the site of the Enlightenment; Sarnath (q.v.), where the First Sermon was preached. and Kusinara (q.v.), the scene of the Great...

Views. Sammā-ditthi, right view, is the first step of the Noble Eightfold Path (q.v.). An example of wrong views is Sakkāya-ditthi, the false belief that the skandhas, or constituents of personality, contain an immortal ‘soul’....

Nominally, one born into the Buddhist religion, or one who accepts Buddhism as his religion by public recitation of Pansil (q.v.). Actually, one who studies, disseminates and endeavours to live the fundamental principles of the Buddhadhamma...

the religious tradition derived from the teachings of the Buddha which has grown into a world religion with several schools of philosophy, some major and minor sects and a variety of religious observances and spiritual...

Wholesome. Akusala, unwholesome. Terms used to describe acts whose karmic effect will be to assist or retard progress in mind-development, or to produce pleasant or painful...

The teaching of the Buddha. The phrase most often used in Theravāda countries for what in the West is called Buddhism or Buddha Sāsana...

Maturing, ripening. See Kamma-vipāka, as ‘ripe’...

Main article: Buddhist texts Buddhist scriptures and other texts exist in great variety. Different schools of Buddhism place varying levels of value on them. Some schools venerate certain texts as...