The essentially pure nature of mind is obscured and afflicted by various psychological defilements, which destroy the mind’s peace and composure and lead to unwholesome deeds of body, speech, and mind, acting as causes for continued existence in saṃsāra. Included among them are the primary afflictions of desire (rāga), anger (dveṣa), and ignorance (avidyā). It is said that there are eighty-four thousand of these negative mental qualities, for which the eighty-four thousand categories of the Buddha’s teachings serve as the antidote. Kleśa is also commonly translated as “negative emotions,” “disturbing emotions,” and so on. The Pāli kilesa, Middle Indic kileśa, and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit kleśa all primarily mean “stain” or “defilement.” The translation “affliction” is a secondary development that derives from the more general (non-Buddhist) classical understanding of √kliś (“to harm,“ “to afflict”). Both meanings are noted by Buddhist commentators.

The five aggregates, the bases upon which the mistaken idea of a self is projected, are those of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

Thirty-seven practices or qualities whose cultivation leads to awakening.

Belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, these are four contemplations on (1) the body, (2) feelings, (3) mind, and (4) phenomena.

The Bengali Buddhist reformer who visited Tibet in the middle of the eleventh century and whose disciples established the Kadampa (bka’ gdams pa) tradition.

Four qualities belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, these are concentration based on (1) intention, (2) diligence, (3) attention, and (4) analysis.

The four types of birth are birth from a womb, birth from an egg, birth from warmth and moisture, and miraculous birth.

The seven branches of awakening, belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, are mindfulness, investigation, energy, joy, meditative stabilization, equanimity, and pliancy.

A great scholar of Narthang monastery in central Tibet. He lived from 1227 to 1305 and was one of the first compilers of the the Kangyur.

Literally, the “baskets,” or collections containing the Buddha’s teachings.

Susceptible to the contaminations (āsrava; zag pa), literally “outflows” or mental defilements that “flow out” toward the objects of cyclic existence. One classification enumerates three contaminations related to desire, existence, and ignorance.

Eighth of the twelve links of dependent origination. Craving is often listed as threefold: craving for the desirable, craving for existence, and craving for nonexistence.

The twelve links of dependent origination describe the process of being bound in cyclic existence, and, when reversed, the process of liberation. The twelve links are ignorance, formation, consciousness, name and form, the six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, appropriation, becoming, birth, and old age and death.

Morally virtuous or disciplined conduct and the abandonment of morally undisciplined conduct of body, speech, and mind. In a general sense, moral discipline is the cause for rebirth in higher, more favorable states, but it is also foundational to Buddhist practice as one of the three trainings (triśikṣā) and one of the six perfections of a bodhisattva. Often rendered as “ethics,” “discipline,” and “morality.”

The eight branches of the path, belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditative stabilization.

Deliverance from cyclic existence.

Emptiness denotes the ultimate nature of reality, the total absence of inherent existence and self-identity with respect to all phenomena. According to this view, all things and events are devoid of any independent, intrinsic reality that constitutes their essence. Nothing can be said to exist independent of the complex network of factors that gives rise to its origination, nor are phenomena independent of the cognitive processes and mental constructs that make up the conventional framework within which their identity and existence are posited. When all levels of conceptualization dissolve and when all forms of dichotomizing tendencies are quelled through deliberate meditative deconstruction of conceptual elaborations, the ultimate nature of reality will finally become manifest. It is the first of the three gateways to liberation.

The four kinds of exertion, belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, are the efforts to prevent the occurrence of unskillful states, to abandon unskillful states already arisen, to develop skillful states, and to sustain and increase skillful states already arisen.

Refers to cyclic existence in this sūtra.

The five faculties, belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, are faith, perseverance, mindfulness, meditative concentration, and wisdom.

The four truths of nobles ones are the truths of suffering, the origin of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path leading to the cessation of suffering. Another classification of the truths referred to in the sūtra is that of the two truths, conventional and ultimate .

Three qualities related to ultimate reality: emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness. In this sūtra, alse referred to as the three liberations.

The five hindrances are sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, excitement and remorse, and doubt.

The four meditations on love (maitrī), compassion (karuṇā), joy (muditā), and equanimity (upekṣā), as well as the states of mind and qualities of being that result from their cultivation. They are also called the four abodes of Brahmā (caturbrahmavihāra). In the Abhidharmakośa, Vasubandhu explains that they are called apramāṇa‍—meaning “infinite” or “limitless”‍—because they take limitless sentient beings as their object, and they generate limitless merit and results. Love is described as the wish that beings be happy, and it acts as an antidote to malice (vyāpāda). Compassion is described as the wish for beings to be free of suffering, and acts as an antidote to harmfulness (vihiṃsā). Joy refers to rejoicing in the happiness beings already have, and it acts as an antidote to dislike or aversion (arati) toward others’ success. Equanimity is considering all beings impartially, without distinctions, and it is the antidote to attachment to both pleasure and malice (kāmarāgavyāpāda).

The eight conditions unfavorable for the practice of the Buddhist path: birth (1) in the hells, (2) among the pretas, (3) as an animal, (4) among the long-lived gods, and in the human realm (5) among barbarians, (6) among extremists, (7) in places where a buddha has not appeared or the Buddhist teachings do not exist, and (8) without adequate faculties to understand the teachings.

“Kāśyapa” occurs in this sūtra as the name of the disciple of the Buddha, Venerable Mahākāśyapa, and also of the past buddha, Tathāgata Kāśyapa.

The three types of knowledge are the knowledge of previous lives, the knowledge of divine sight or of the deaths and rebirths of beings, and the knowledge of the exhaustion of contamination (āsrava; zag pa).

The eight kinds of liberation refer to eight meditative states: (1) the perception of material form by one who has form; (2) the perception of material form by one without form; (3) the beautiful; (4) infinite space; (5) infinite consciousness; (6) nothingness; (7) neither perception nor absence of perception; and (8) the cessation of perception and feeling.

Generally a reference to a person’s spiritual disposition.

The Sanskrit term śrāvaka, and the Tibetan nyan thos, both derived from the verb “to hear,” are usually defined as “those who hear the teaching from the Buddha and make it heard to others.” Primarily this refers to those disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain the state of an arhat seeking their own liberation and nirvāṇa. They are the practitioners of the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma on the four noble truths, who realize the suffering inherent in saṃsāra and focus on understanding that there is no independent self. By conquering afflicted mental states (kleśa), they liberate themselves, attaining first the stage of stream enterers at the path of seeing, followed by the stage of once-returners who will be reborn only one more time, and then the stage of non-returners who will no longer be reborn into the desire realm. The final goal is to become an arhat. These four stages are also known as the “four results of spiritual practice.”

The realms of animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings.

Mahākāśyapa was one of the principal disciples of the Buddha.

One of several common terms that are used to describe meditative states. The four meditative concentrations are the four concentrations of the form realm.

In a general sense, samādhi can describe a number of different meditative states. In the Mahāyāna literature, in particular in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, we find extensive lists of different samādhis, numbering over one hundred.In a more restricted sense, and when understood as a mental state, samādhi is defined as the one-pointedness of the mind (cittaikāgratā), the ability to remain on the same object over long periods of time. The Drajor Bamponyipa (sgra sbyor bam po gnyis pa) commentary on the Mahāvyutpatti explains the term samādhi as referring to the instrument through which mind and mental states “get collected,” i.e., it is by the force of samādhi that the continuum of mind and mental states becomes collected on a single point of reference without getting distracted.

The term bhikṣu, often translated as “monk,” refers to the highest among the eight types of prātimokṣa vows that make one part of the Buddhist assembly. The Sanskrit term literally means “beggar” or “mendicant,” referring to the fact that Buddhist monks and nuns‍—like other ascetics of the time‍—subsisted on alms (bhikṣā) begged from the laity. In the Tibetan tradition, which follows the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, a monk follows 253 rules as part of his moral discipline. A nun (bhikṣuṇī; dge slong ma) follows 364 rules. A novice monk (śrāmaṇera; dge tshul) or nun (śrāmaṇerikā; dge tshul ma) follows thirty-six rules of moral discipline (although in other vinaya traditions novices typically follow only ten).

A person who has directly realized the noble truths .

Refers to the discourses of the Buddha.

A term meaning acceptance, forbearance, or patience. As the third of the six perfections, patience is classified into three kinds: the capacity to tolerate abuse from sentient beings, to tolerate the hardships of the path to buddhahood, and to tolerate the profound nature of reality. As a term referring to a bodhisattva’s realization, dharmakṣānti (chos la bzod pa) can refer to the ways one becomes “receptive” to the nature of Dharma, and it can be an abbreviation of anutpattikadharmakṣānti, “forbearance for the unborn nature, or nonproduction, of dharmas.”

The five powers, belonging to the thirty-seven aids to awakening, are the power of faith, the power of perseverance, the power of mindfulness, the power of meditative concentration, and the power of wisdom.

The act of bringing something to mind or being mindful of something.

Faith, discipline, learning, generosity, a sense of shame, fear of blame, and wisdom.

One of the three terms associated with the nature of reality in the context of the three gateways to liberation.

A state in which the mind is focused on a single object.

The second meditative state pertaining to the formless realm.

The first meditative state pertaining to the formless realm.

The fourth meditative state pertaining to the formless realm.

The third meditative state pertaining to the formless realm.

The five states of existence refer to the five destinies of birth as a god, as a human, as an animal, as a preta (or “hungry ghost”), and in the hells.

One of several common terms that are used to describe meditative states. The four states of meditative attainment refer here to the states of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither perception nor absence of perception.

Six kinds of supernatural awareness resulting from meditative concentration.

The three realms are the desire realm (kāmadhātu; ’dod khams), form realm (rūpadhātu; gzugs khams), and formless realm (ārūpyadhātu; gzugs med khams).

Refers to phenomena that are not produced by causes and conditions.

Free from the contaminations; see “contaminated.”

Literally “long-lived,” a term (often honorific) used to address a Buddhist monk.

The mental factor that discerns phenomena.

One of the three terms associated with the nature of reality in the context of the three gateways to liberation.