The document defines some basic Buddhist terms: - Hīnayāna refers to the earliest Buddhist teachings, while Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna refer to later systems of Buddhist philosophy. - Key Buddhist figures include the Buddha (born Siddhartha Gautama), as well as the concepts of Dharma (teachings), Sangha (monastic community), and Sansara (cycle of rebirth). - Central Buddhist doctrines include the four noble truths of suffering, impermanence, non-self, and nirvana; and the noble eightfold path as the route to end suffering.

1. Basic terms of Buddhism
:) For all the marvellous BYF 2008 participants
Eva Mudra, 2009.
based on the dictionary of Monier Williams Didier

2. hīnayāna - 'simpler or lesser vehicle' name of the earliest system of Buddhist doctrine
mahāyāna - 'great vehicle' name of the later system of Buddhist teaching said to have been first
promulgated by Nāgārjuna and treated of in the Mahāyāna-sūtras
vajrayāna – 'diamond or flash vehicle' name of the lastly evolved buddhist system, wich implied
the ritual magic and yoga practices, hindu tantrism, but at the same time follows the bodhisattva-
path
Buddha - √budh - to wake up
(with Buddhists) a fully enlightened man who has achieved perfect knowledge of the truth and
thereby is liberated from all existence and before his own attainment of Nirvāṇa reveals the method
of obtaining it, the principal Buddha of the present age (born at Kapila-vastu about the year 500
B.C. his father, Śuddhodana, of the Śākya tribe or family, being the Rāja of that district, and his
mother, Māyā-devī, being the daughter of Rāja Su-prabuddha.. ; hence he belonged to the Kṣatṛya
caste and his original name Śākya-muni or Śākya-siṃha (lion) was really his family name, while
that of Gautama was taken from the race to which his family belonged. He is said to have died when
he was 80 years of age, prob. about 420 B.C. He was preceded by 3 mythical Buddhas of the
present Kalpa, or by 24, reckoning previous Kalpa, or according to others by 6 principal Buddhas;
(in Hinduism he is regarded as the 9th incarnation of Viṣṇu)
His other names
Bhagavān – basic invocation, often translated for „Blessed One”
Tathā-gata (or tathā-āgata) – thus have gone
Su-gata – well-gone
Śākya-muni – the sage of the Śakyas
dharma √dhṛ – keep, maintain, use, bear
- usage, practice, customary observance or prescribed conduct, duty
- right, justice (often as a synonym of punishment)
- virtue, morality, religion, religious merit, good works
ind. according to right or rule, rightly, justly, according to the nature of anything; cf. below
the law, doing one's duty
- the law or doctrine of Buddhism (as distinguished from the {sañgha} or monastic order
- the ethical precepts of Buddhism (or the principal {dharma} called {sūsra} , as distinguished from
the {abhi-dharma} or, further dharma and from the {vinaya} or "discipline, these three constituting
the canon of Southern Buddhism
- nature, character, peculiar condition or essential quality, property, mark, peculiarity (sva-bhāva in
the mahāyāna)
saṃgha sam√han – to join, shut, close
`close contact or combination', any collection or assemblage, heap, multitude, quantity, crowd, host,
number, `a multitude of sages'
saṃsāra sam√sṛ – to flow together with
course, passage, passing through a succession of states, circuit of mundane existence,
transmigration, metempsychosis, the world, secular life, worldly illusion (āsaṃsārāt) 'from the
beginning of the world')

3. karman √kṛ - to do, make, perform, accomplish, cause, effect, prepare, undertake
- act, action, performance, business
- office, special duty, occupation, obligation
- any religious act or rite (as sacrifice, oblation &c, esp. as originating in the hope of future
recompense and as opposed to speculative religion or knowledge of spirit)
- work, labour, activity
catvāri āryasatyāni – the four noble truths
The four stemps, which are accepted by all the buddhist lineages
a-nitya - impermanence
duḥkha – (dus + kha)
uncomfortable, uneasiness, pain, sorrow, trouble, difficulty, not just physical suffering
an-ātman – egolessnes – and at the same time the rejection of the hindu ātmavāda
nirvāna nir√vaṇ – to lose the sound
mfn. blown or put out , extinguished (as a lamp or fire), set (as the sun), calmed, quieted, tamed,
dead, deceased (lit. having the fire of life extinguished), lost, disappeared
- extinction of the flame of life, dissolution, death or final emancipation from matter and re-union
with the Supreme Spirit
(with Buddhists and Jainas) absolute extinction or annihilation (śūnya) of individual existence or of
all desires and passions, perfect calm or repose or happiness, highest bliss or beatitude
The four main sufferings
jāti – birth, production
jarā – old age
vyādhi – disorder, disease, sickness
maraṇam - death
ārya aṣṭāṅgika mārga – the noble eightfold path
1. dṛṣṭi – √dṛś – see, look, regard, consider
theory, eye, mainly the right view
2. saṃkalpa - √saṃ-kḷp – to wish, long for, produce, determine, fix
conception or idea or notion formed in the mind or heart, will, volition, desire, purpose, definite,
intention or determination or decision or wish for, sentiment conviction, persuasion, the right
thought
3. vāc – right speech
4. karma – here it is deed, or right action
5. ājīva – ā√jīv – to live by; right livelihood
6. vyāyāma vi√ā-yā; right exertion, efforts
7. smṛti √smṛ remembrance, reminiscence, thinking of or upon, calling to mind, memory, right
mindfulness (in vedic culture it is the basic knowledge – what the sages remember)
8. sam-ādhi concentration of the thoughts, profound or abstract meditation, intense contemplation
of any particular object (so as to identify the contemplator with the object meditated upon; this is
the eighth and last stage of Yoga;
with Buddhists Samādhi is the fourth and last stage of Dhyāna or intense abstract meditation, right
concentration

4. śamatha √śam – to toil at, fatigue or exert one's self
quiet, tranquillity, absence of passion
vipaśyanā vi√paś – observe, percieve, distinguish
right or direct knowledge that we gain during meditation (and not from others, fe.)
skandha – the five objects of sense – (see the simile of the house)
rūpa – form, shape, figure, beauty, loveliness
vedanā – perception, feeling
saṃjñā – acknowledge, recognise, understand
saṃskāra - the faculty of memory, mental impression or recollection, impression on the mind of
acts done in a former state of existence, the faculty of reproductive imagination
vijñāna - consciousness or thought-faculty
tathatā – „that”ness – when one sense the things as they are
ekatva - „one”ness – there are no discriminations