Glossary

　　Acariya: Teacher; mentor.

　　Anagami: Non-returner. A person who has abandoned the five lower fetters that bind the mind to the cycle of rebirth (see sanyojana), and who after death will appear in one of the Brahma worlds called the Pure Abodes, there to attain nibbana, never again to return to this world.

　　Anatta: Not-self; ownerless.

　　Anicca: Inconstant; unsteady; impermanent.

　　Anupadisesa-nibbana: Nibbana with no fuel remaining (the analogy is to an extinguished fire whose embers are cold) -- the nibbana of the arahant after his passing away.

　　Apaya-mukha: Way to deprivation -- extra-marital sexual relations; indulgence in intoxicants; indulgence in gambling; associating with bad people.

　　Arahant: A person who has abandoned all ten of the fetters that bind the mind to the cycle of rebirth (see sanyojana), whose heart is free of mental effluents (see asava), and who is thus not destined for future rebirth. An epithet for the Buddha and the highest level of his Noble Disciples.

　　Ariya-sacca: Noble Truth. The word ”ariya” (noble) can also mean ideal or standard, and in this context means ”objective” or ”universal” truth. There are four: stress, the origin of stress, the disbanding of stress, and the path of practice leading to the disbanding of stress.

　　Asava: Mental effluent or pollutant -- sensuality, becoming, views, and unawareness.

　　Avijja: Unawareness; ignorance; obscured awareness; delusion about the nature of the mind.

　　Ayatana: Sense medium. The inner sense media are the sense organs -- eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. The outer sense media are their respective objects.

　　Bodhi-pakkhiya-dhamma: ”Wings to Awakening” -- seven sets of principles that are conducive to Awakening and that, according to the Buddha, form the heart of his teaching: [1] the four frames of reference (see satipatthana); [2] four right exertions (sammappadhana) -- the effort to prevent evil from arising in the mind, to abandon whatever evil has already arisen, to give rise to the good, and to maintain the good that has arisen; [3] four bases of success (iddhipada) -- desire, persistence, intentness, circumspection; [4] five dominant factors (indriya) -- conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, discernment; [5] five strengths (bala) -- identical with [4]; [6] seven factors for Awakening (bojjhanga) -- mindfulness, investigation of phenomena, persistence, rapture, serenity, concentration, equanimity; and [7] the eightfold path (magga) -- Right View, Right Attitude, Right Speech, Right Activity, Right Livelihoood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.

　　Brahma: ”Great One” -- an inhabitant of the heavens of form or formlessness.

　　Buddho (buddha): Awake; enlightened.

　　Deva: ”Shining One” -- an inhabitant of the heavens of sensual bliss.

　　Devadatta: A cousin of the Buddha who tried to effect a schism in the Sangha and who has since become emblematic for all Buddhists who work knowingly or unknowingly to undermine the religion from within.

　　Dhamma (dharma): Phenomenon; event; the way things are in and of themselves; their inherent qualities; the basic principles that underlie their behavior. Also, principles of behavior that human beings ought to follow so as to fit in with the right natural order of things; qualities of mind they should develop so as to realize the inherent quality of the mind in and of itself. By extension, ”Dhamma” is used also to refer to any doctrine that teaches such things. Thus the Dhamma of the Buddha refers both to his teachings and to the direct experience of nibbana, the quality to which those teachings point.

　　Dhatu: Property; element; impersonal condition. The four physical properties or elements are earth (solidity), water (liquidity), wind (motion), and fire (heat…

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