Buddhism
The Buddha’s teaching and its traditions: Theravāda, Mahāyāna, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.
- BuddhismThe traditions that follow the teaching of the Buddha on suffering and its cessation.
- TheravādaThe “Way of the Elders”, the Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, based on the Pali canon.
- MahāyānaThe “Great Vehicle” of Buddhism, centred on the bodhisattva path and emptiness.
- MadhyamakaThe Mahāyāna school of the “middle way” between existence and non-existence.
- YogācāraThe Mahāyāna school, founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, that analyses experience as representation in consciousness.
- ZenThe meditation school of East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhism.
- Tibetan BuddhismThe Buddhism of Tibet and the Himalaya, joining Indian Mahāyāna philosophy with tantric practice.
- HuayanThe Chinese Buddhist school of the Flower Garland Sūtra, which teaches that all things contain and reflect one another.
- DzogchenThe “Great Perfection” of Tibetan Buddhism and Bön: the teaching that the mind’s nature is already pure, aware and complete.
- TiantaiThe Chinese Buddhist school of the Lotus Sūtra, founded by Zhiyi, which taught the threefold truth and the whole in a single thought.
- Rinzai ZenThe school of Chan and Zen descended from Linji, which seeks sudden awakening through the kōan.
- Pure Land BuddhismThe Buddhism of trust in the Buddha Amitābha, whose vow promises birth in his Pure Land to all who call on him.
- The BuddhaThe teacher whose awakening and teaching founded Buddhism.
- NāgārjunaFounder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy.
- BuddhaghosaThe great commentator of the Theravāda and author of the Visuddhimagga.
- ŚāntidevaAuthor of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, the classic guide to the bodhisattva path.
- DōgenFounder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan and author of the Shōbōgenzō.
- FazangThe great systematizer of Huayan Buddhism, who taught the interpenetration of all things.
- ZongmiHuayan patriarch and Chan master who sought to unite Buddhist doctrine and meditation.
- HōnenJapanese founder of the Jōdo school, who taught the exclusive recitation of Amida’s name.
- ShinranDisciple of Hōnen and founder of the Jōdo Shinshū, who taught that even faith is the gift of Amida.
- LongchenpaTibetan master who gave the Dzogchen teaching its classic systematic form.
- ZhiyiFounder of the Tiantai school, who systematized Chinese Buddhism around the Lotus Sūtra and the threefold truth.
- LinjiChinese Chan master famous for his shouts and blows, founder of the Linji (Rinzai) school.
- Hakuin EkakuJapanese Zen master who revived the Rinzai school and its kōan training, painter and calligrapher.
- MilarepaTibetan yogin and poet, the great example of transformation through devotion, hardship and solitary practice.
- KōanA paradoxical case or saying from the Chan and Zen masters, used as the focus of meditation to break through ordinary thinking.
- Emptiness (śūnyatā)In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the absence of intrinsic existence in all things.
- Non-self (anātman)The Buddhist teaching that no permanent self can be found in or behind experience.
- InterpenetrationThe Huayan teaching that every phenomenon contains and is contained by every other, as in Indra’s net.
- NembutsuMindfulness of the Buddha, above all the recitation of Amida’s name, the central practice of Pure Land Buddhism.
- Other-powerReliance on the saving power of the Buddha’s vow rather than one’s own efforts, in Pure Land Buddhism.
- The DhammapadaMüller’s translation of the Dhammapada, a collection of 423 verses attributed to the Buddha and among the best-loved texts of the Pali canon, on the mind, the path and the awakened life. The volume also contains V. Fausbøll’s translation of the Sutta-nipāta.
- MūlamadhyamakakārikāNāgārjuna’s founding work of the Madhyamaka: some 450 verses in twenty-seven chapters that examine causation, motion, the self, time and nirvāṇa, and show that nothing has intrinsic existence. Chapter 24, on the four noble truths, identifies emptiness with dependent origination.