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The upper info is for display reasons for pages refering to words not included in this dictionary. Useful additions, for Ven. Thanissaro's use can be made here.

This page provides explainings of various Dhamma-teacher like:

• Glossary by Ven. Ajahn Chah contains often used word-use in his teachings and translations.

One may feel given to add word definitions used by certain teacher.

Glossaries and single explanations of various Dhamma-teacher like:

Word descriptions from the glossary of Ven. Ajahn Chah's glossaries found in his books and enriched by other explainings of word by the Venerable Dhamma-teacher.

• Layout and structur to fit to this dictionary.
• Correction of Pāḷi-spelling.
• Added many cross-links
• This collection is and will be enriched by the Ven. Dhammateachers usage of words/definition of words.

➥ ācariya: teacher (Thai: Ajahn). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Ājīvaka: sect of contemplatives contemporary with the Buddha who held the view that beings have no volitional control over their actions and that the universe runs only according to fate or destiny. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Ālāra: teacher who taught the bodhisatta the formless attainment of the base of nothingness as the highest attainment of the holy life. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ anattā: selflessness, nonself, the voidness of any permanent essence, emptiness of any soul-entity. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ ānāpānasati: Mindfulness of breathing

➥ anicca: impermanent, inconstant, sometimes used by Ajahn Chah to mean 'not a sure thing'. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ arahant: , arahat: a fully awakened disciple of the Buddha, one who has attained the fourth and final stage of enlightenment on the Buddhist path. Literally, 'Worthy One'. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ ariya: noble, a noble one; i.e. one who has attained transcendent insight on one of the four levels, the highest of which is the arahant. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ asekha-puggala: one beyond training; i.e., an arahant. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ attā: self, soul. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ avijjā: ignorance (of the Four Noble Truths), delusion, the main root of evil and continual rebirth. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ bhava-taṇhā: craving for becoming. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ bhikkhu-saṅghā: the community of Buddhist monks. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Buddha-sāsana: the Buddha's dispensation; primarily refers to the teachings but also the whole infrastructure of the religion (roughly equivalent to 'Buddhism'). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ caṅkama: walking meditation

➥ chanda: desire, aspiration, intention, will. This term can be used to refer to wholesome desire (e.g. in the four iddhi-pāda) as well as unwholesome desire (e.g. kāma-chanda, the hindrance of sensual desire). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ citta: heart, mind. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ deva-dūta: 'divine messengers'; a symbolic name for old age, sickness, death and the samaṇa (one who has gone forth into the homeless life seeking to realize true happiness and liberation from the fearful cycle of rebirth). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Dhamma: 1. the truth of the way things are, natural principles; 2. the teachings of the Buddha as the perfect description of natural principles; 3. phenomena, things, states, factors, qualities. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ dhamma-savana: hearing (or studying) the Dhamma. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

dhamma-vicaya|➥ dhamma-vicaya: investigation, contemplation of Dhamma. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ dhutaṅga: see entry on tudong. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ dukkha: suffering, unsatisfactoriness. This word has a broad meaning including: dukkha-dukkha - pain ; vipariṇāmadukkha - the suffering due to change and instability ; and sankhāra=dukkha - the unsatisfactory nature of all formations. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ iddhi-pāda: bases for spiritual power, pathways to spiritual success. The four iddhipāda are: chanda - zeal ; vīriya - effort ; citta - application of mind ; and vīmaṁsā - investigation. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ jhāna: very deep states in meditation of sustained, blissful awareness taken to the levels of meditative absorption. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ kalyāna-jāna: good person, virtuous being. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ kāma-taṇhā: sensual craving. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ kammaṭṭhāna: meditation object

➥ kasiṇa: external object of meditation used to develop samādhi (e.g. a coloured disc, a dish of water or a candle flame). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ khandhā: five aggregates or groups which the Buddha used to sum up all the physical and mental phenomena of existence, consisting of form, feeling (not emotion), perception or memory, mental formations (includes thoughts and emotions) and consciousness. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ loka-vidū: Knower of the World, an epithet of the Buddha. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Māra: Evil and temptation personified; the name of a powerful malevolent deity. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ nāga: dragon, also used as an epithet for an arahant. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ nāma-dhammā: mental phenomena. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ ñāya-paṭipanno: practice possessed of insight into the true way. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ nimitta: a mental sign or image arising in meditation. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Nibbāna: the extinguishing of all greed, hatred and delusion; the end of suffering; liberation from saṁsāra; the Unconditioned; the Supreme Happiness and Peace, the goal of the Buddhist path. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ nīvaraṇa: hindrances to samādhi. There are five hindrances: sensual desire, ill-will, drowsiness and dullness, restlessness and remorse, and uncertainty or doubt. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ ogha: flood; another name for the four āsava (tainted outflows from the mind): the flood of sensuality, the flood of views, the flood of becoming and the flood of ignorance. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ opaneyyiko: worthy of inducing in and by one's own mind; worth of realizing; to be tried by practice; leading onward. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ paccattaṁ: to be individually experienced (i.e. veditabbo viññūhi - by the wise for themselves). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ paññā: wisdom, knowledge of things as they are. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ parāmaṭṭha-dhamma: Dhamma described in terms of ultimate meaning (not mere convention). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ pāramī: accumulated wholesome spiritual qualities or perfections, especially referring to virtues cultivated and developed in past lives. The ten pāramī are generosity, moral conduct, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, lovingkindness, and equanimity. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ pīti: rapture, spiritual joy and bliss. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ puthujjana: a common worldling, an ordinary person who has not yet entered the path to stream-entry (as opposed to an ariyā). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sa-bhāva: principle or condition of nature, things as they truly are. Sabhāvadhamma in the forest tradition refers to natural phenomena and insights that arise in the development of Dhamma practice. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

sacca-dhamma|➥ sacca-dhamma: truth. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ samā-patti: attainment (of the four jhāna, the four immaterial attainments, or the path-fruition stages of Awakening). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ samādhi: established mindfulness in meditative concentration, when the mind experiences a calm, peaceful, unified, and blissful sustained awareness (technically samādhi is synonymous with the four jhāna, but is often used in a more general way). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sāmañña-lakkhaṇa: that all things are the same in terms of the three characteristics (anicca, dukkha, anattā). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ samatha: calming, stilling; samatha and vipassanā are two complimentary and inseparable aspects of the mind released from the five hindrances. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sāmīci-paṭipanno: those who practice are possessed of complete rightness or integrity. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sampajañña: Self-awareness, self-recollection, clear comprehension, alertness. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ saṁsāra: the repeated round of rebirth, growth, aging and death that chains beings to existence (literally: the activity of 'wandering on'). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ samudaya: origin, origination, arising. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ saṅkhāra: formations or volitional formations (referring to both the volitional activity of 'forming' things and the things formed). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sāsana: teaching. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ satī: Mindfulness, recollection. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sāvaka: disciple or 'hearer' of the Dhamma. Here the term refers to the ariya-sāvaka, the eight types of noble disciples: one on the path to stream-entry and the stream enterer (sotā-panna), one on the path of once-returner and the once returner (sakadāgāmī), one on the path of non-returner and the non-returner (anāgāmī) and the one on the path to arahantship and the arahant. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sekha: one in training, refers to the seven ariya-sāvakā or ariya-puggala who have entered the fixed path of rightness but have not yet attained the final fruit of arahantship. All non-noble ones are classified as n'eva sekhā n'āsekha, neither-in-training-nor-trained. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sīla: virtuous conduct of body, speech and mind, moral precepts training, development in wholesome habits. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ su-paṭipanno: those who practice well. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ sukha: happiness, pleasure, ease. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ taṇhā: Craving; desires conditioned by ignorance of the way things are. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Tathāgata: 'The one who has gone thus'. The Buddha frequently used this word to refer to himself. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ tudong: (Thai; Pāli dhutaṅga) austere practices recommended by the Buddha for monastics to use to 'shake off' defilements, purify the mind and help develop contentment, renunciation, and energy. In general usage, the Thai word tudong refers to the practice of a monk wandering. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ Uddaka: the second teacher of the bodhisatta, who taught the formless attainment of the base of neither-perception-nor-nonperception as the highest attainment of the Holy Life. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ uju-paṭipanno: those whose practice is straight or direct. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vi-bhava-taṇha: craving for non-existence. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vicāra: examination, sustained activity of attention. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vijjā: true knowledge of the Four Noble Truths. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vīmaṁsā: investigation, inquiring. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vinaya: the monastic code of discipline. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vipassanā: insight, direct seeing of anicca, dukkha and anattā. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vīriya: effort, energy, mental fortitude and diligence. (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)

➥ vitakka: thought, initial activity of attention (the compound vitakka-vicāra has a broad range of meaning from 'thought and examination' to 'initial and sustained application of mind' (on a meditation object). (Source: Glossary late Ven. Ajahn Chah)