དཀར་པོའི་ཆོས་བཞི་
Transliteration: dkar po'i chos bzhi
"The four white (/ positive) dharmas". In the ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོ་ Great Vehicle these are explained as the four things that prevent the degeneration of བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་ bodhicitta. 1) སྲོག་གམ་ཐ་ན་བཞད་གད་ཀྱི་ཕྱིར་ཡང་ཤེས་བཞིན་གྱི་རྫུན་མི་སྨྲ་བ་ "abandoning consciously telling lies at the cost of one's life or even for a joke"; 2) སེམས་ཅན་ལ་གཡོ་སྒྱུ་མེད་པར་བསམ་པ་དྲང་པོར་གནས་པ་ "helping sentient beings st…
རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་
Transliteration: rdo rje 'chang
<noun> "Vajra Bearer". Translation of the Sanskrit "vajradhara". The Sanskrit and Tibetan terms mean "bearer of the vajra" and note that this is slightly different from རྡོ་རྗེ་འཛིན་པ་ "holder of the vajra". The "bearer of the vajra" has more air of authority to it; it means the person who has it and is the authority of it. The "holder of the vajra" means more simply, someone who has the va…
རྡོ་རྗེ་གསུམ་
Transliteration: rdo rje gsum
<phrase> "The three vajras".
I. Meaning the three vajras of a buddha: 1) སྐུ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ vajra body; 2) གསུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་ vajra speech; 3) ཐུགས་རྡོ་རྗེ་ vajra mind. This term is used to distinguish between: the ultimate, indestructible aspects that constitute a buddha; the path versions of the same which have not reached the finality of a buddha's body, speech, and mind; and the ordinary impure asp…
སྒྲོ་འདོགས་པ་
Transliteration: sgro 'dogs pa
I. <verb> v.t. see འདོགས་པ་ for tense forms. "To exaggerate" or "to overstate". This term is one of a pair that are widely used in Buddhist philosophy. It represents one of two extreme possibilities of how something is spoken of or viewed. For any given thing it is possible to understate it, seeing less in it than what is actually there, or to overstate it, seeing more in it than is actuall…
རང་བཞིན་
Transliteration: rang bzhin
<phrase> "Nature". Translation of the Sanskrit "svabhāva". Some of the implications of this term can be understood through a consideration of the formulation that is generally used to understand a given phenomenon: ངོ་བོ་, རང་བཞིན་, and བྱེད་ལས་ "entity, nature, and function". The རང་བཞིན་ nature of something is the nature of some ངོ་བོ་ particular entity, the particular qualities of the en…
བཙན་ཐབས་
Transliteration: btsan thabs
I. 1) <noun> Lit. "forceful means" and hence "force", vigour", "energy / strength", "strong impetus". 2) <adv> "With forceful means "firmness" and "forcefully", "vigorously", "firmly", "energetically", "briskly", "with strong impetus". 3) <adj> "Of forceful means", "forceful", "vigorous", "energetic", "brisk". A general term for forceful means that ranges all the way in meaning …
འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་
Transliteration: 'khor los sgyur ba'i rgyal po
<noun> "Chakravartin or Wheel-Turning King / Monarch / Emperor". Translation of the Sanskrit "chakravartirāja". The Sanskrit simply means "Charvartin King" but the feature of all four types of Charkavartin King is that they rule over large domains. The འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་བཞི་ four types of Chakravartin King, each have successively larger domains and more power. In addition, chakrava…
ཕྱི་རོལ་པའི་རྟག་པར་སྨྲ་བའི་རྟོག་གེ་སྡེ་ལྔ་
Transliteration: phyi rol pa'i rtag par smra ba'i rtog ge sde lnga
<enum> "The five schools of sophists / philosophy advocating views of permanence". There are varying enumerations of the early, principal Indian schools of philosophy, partly because there were so many different religious schools in India. This is one case where any given enumeration should not be held as the correct one. Note that the early schools of Indian philosophy are commonly enumera…
འཇུ་མི་ཕམ་འཇམ་དབྱངས་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་
Transliteration: 'ju mi pham 'jam dbyangs rnam rgyal rgya mtsho
<noun> "Ju Mipham Jamyang Namgyal Gyatso". [1846-1912]. A particularly famous རྙིང་མ་ Nyingma lama of the great dharma renaissance that occurred in ཁམས་ Kham in the mid-1800's. Mipham Rinpoche was one of the three principal disciples of དཔལ་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ Paltrul Rinpoche. Mipham wrote extensive commentaries on a very wide range of subjects, freq. refuting the positions of the Gelugpa sch…
དམ་བཅའ་
Transliteration: dam bca'
<noun> 1) Lit. "something which is binding". It is a "commitment" of some kind, usually verbal though not necessarily. Hence in some but not all contexts, "pledge", "promise". It could also be "tryst" in the sense of a lover's tryst. It is also used to refer to the commitment between such as married couples. In Tibetan, one would say to one's spouse, "if you have relations with another, you…
རྡོ་རྗེ་སློབ་དཔོན་ལ་ཉེ་བར་མཁོ་བའི་དེ་ཉིད་བཅུ་
Transliteration: rdo rje slob dpon la nye bar mkho ba'i de nyid bcu
<enum> "The ten attributes required in a master". See under དེ་ཉིད་བཅུ་ ten suchnesses for overview. The རབ་གནས་ཀྱི་རྒྱུད་ tantra as quoted in [SKD] gives: 1) དཀྱིལ་འཁོར་ "maṇḍala"; 2) ཏིང་འཛིན་ "samādhi"; 3) ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ "mudrā"; 4) སྟངས་སྟབས་ "stances"; 5) སྔགས་ "mantra"; 6) འདུག་སྟངས་ "seated posture"; 7) བཟླས་བརྗོད་ "recitation"; 8) སྦྱིན་སྲེག་གཏོར་མ་ "fire puja and torma"; 9) ལས་ལ་སྦྱར་ "p…
ཟུག་རྔུ་
Transliteration: zug rngu
<noun> 1) The "pain" / "soreness" / "hurt" / "discomfort" / "ache" associated with anything that has gone wrong with the body. It has the sense of pain that is striking, some sharp discomfort. With this sense, it is also used by the Buddha to indicate the painful circumstance of being in cyclic existence, compared to being in the peace of མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་ nirvāṇa. E.g., in the mind training …
སྒྲ་མེད་
Transliteration: sgra med
I. <noun> "Un-sounded". Grammar term. Translation of the Sanskrit grammar term "aghoṣha". In the Sanskrit system of pronunciation and in the Tibetan system following it, letters are defined as having ཕྱིའི་རྩོལ་བ་ outer effort and inner effort. Outer effort has a couple of aspects. One is that it is either སྒྲ་ལྡན་ "sounded" or སྒྲ་མེད་ "un-sounded". Sanskrit has fourteen un-sounded letters…
སྒྱུ་མའི་དཔེ་བཅུ་གཉིས་
Transliteration: sgyu ma'i dpe bcu gnyis
<phrase> "The twelve analogies of illusion". Phenomena are empty yet vividly apparent. They are described as appearing in an illusory way. There are twelve analogies of this empty yet illusory appearance given in the prajñāpāramitā sūtras dealing with emptiness.
[DGT] gives the twelve as: 1) སྒྱུ་མ་ "illusion"; 2) སྨིག་རྒྱུ་ "mirage"; 3) དྲི་ཟའི་གྲོང་ཁྱེར་ "gandharva city"; 4) འཇའ་ཚོན་ "rain…
ལུང་མ་བསྟན་གྱི་དངོས་པོ་བཅུ་བཞི་
Transliteration: lung ma bstan gyi dngos po bcu bzhi
<phrase> "The fourteen things that went unstated". Translation of the Sanskrit "caturda śhāvyākṛtavastū". There were fourteen questions that were posed to the Buddha which went unanswered. The Buddha sat and gave no reply. Since he gave no indication one way or the other, these things are ལུང་མ་བསྟན་ "unstated" or "undetermined". Acc. [NDS] they are as follows. Note that an alternative rend…
