GLOSSARY

Anusaya: Latent obsession—sensual passion, irritation, views, doubt, pride, passion for becoming, and ignorance.

Apāya: State of deprivation; the four lowest levels of existence—rebirth in hell, as a hungry shade, as an angry demon, or as a common animal.

Arahant: A person whose heart is freed from mental fermentations (see āsava) and is thus not destined for further rebirth .

Āsava: Mental fermentation or effluent—sensual passion, states of becoming, and ignorance. Some lists add views as a fourth member of the list.

Avijjā: Ignorance, unawareness, counterfeit knowledge.

Dhamma: Event; phenomenon; the way things are in and of themselves; their inherent qualities; the basic principles underlying 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 nine transcendent qualities: the paths, fruitions, and nibbāna. By extension, ‘Dhamma’ is used also to refer to any doctrine that teaches such things.

Dhātu: Element; property; potential. The four physical properties are those of earth (solidity), water (liquidity), fire (heat), and wind (energy or motion).

Jhāna: Meditative absorption. Rūpa jhāna denotes absorption in a physical object; arūpa jhāna, absorption in a non-physical object.

Kamma: Intentional acts that lead to renewed states of becoming and birth.

Khandha: Component parts of sensory perception—which, when clung to, constitute suffering and stress: rūpa (physical phenomena); vedanā (feelings of pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain); saññā (perceptions, labels, concepts, allusions); saṅkhāra (mental fabrications, formations, processes); and viññāṇa (consciousness).

Lokadhamma: Ways of the world—fortune, loss, status, loss of status, praise, criticism, pleasure, and pain.

Nibbāna: Liberation; the unbinding of the mind from passion, aversion, and delusion, and thus from the round of death and rebirth.

Nīvaraṇa: Hindrances to concentration—sensual desire, ill will, torpor & lethargy, restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty.

Ogha: Flood; factors that sweep the mind along the round of death and rebirth—sensual passion, becoming, and ignorance. Some lists add views as a fourth member of the list.

Pāramī: Perfection; qualities that lead to awakening—generosity, virtue, renunciation, discernment, persistence, endurance, truthfulness, determination, goodwill, and equanimity.

Paṭibhāga: The manipulation of visions that appear in meditation.

Satipaṭṭhāna: Establishing of mindfulness: the practice of staying focused on body, feelings, mind, or mental qualities in and of themselves.

Uggaha nimitta: An image appearing spontaneously during meditation.

Upakkilesa: Mental corruption or defilement—passion, aversion, and delusion in their various forms.

Vinaya: The monastic discipline.