Alaya	Store consciousness used to store all karma from past and present lives.
Amitabha	One of the Buddhas presiding the Western Pure Land. Faith in Amitabha Buddha ensures rebirth in the Land.
Anuttara-Samyak-Sambodhi	The perfect enlightenment or the perfect wisdom attained only by a Buddha.
Arhat	One who realized enlightenment through living monastic life in accordance with the codes of disciplines established by the Buddha. Arhat is the highest rank attained in Hinayana schools, equivalent to Bodhisattva in Mahayana schools.
Avalokitesvara	The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, also called Kuan Yin, who realized enlightenment through the faculty of hearing. Kuan Yin is often shown in feminine form, known as a refuge of the sufferers and the distressed.
Avici	The hell of uninterrupted suffering, in which offenders suffer, die and are reborn incessantly.
Bodhi	The state in which the mind is enlightened. It is a state free of afflictions or hindrances.
Bodhisattva	An enlightened being who vows to help others realize their enlightenment through altruistic deeds and self-sacrifices.
Buddha	Literally, a perfect enlightened one. The Buddha refers to Sakyamuni Buddha.
Ch'an	Practice of meditation as a tool to realize enlightenment. It is called Zen in Japanese.
Dharma	The teachings of the Buddha, the truth.
Dharma-door	A method of Buddhist practice leading to enlightenment. There are forty eight thousand such methods according to the Buddha.
Four Universal Vows	The vows made by those who resolve to cultivate the Bodhisattva's path. They are: Sentient beings are boundless; I vow to save them all. Afflictions are endless; I vow to extinguish them all. Dharma-doors are measureless; I vow to learn them all. The Buddha's path is unsurpassed; I vow to realize it.
Great Vehicle	This refers to Mahayana teaching, one of the two branches of Buddhism. It emphasizes the practice of Bodhisattva, who puts off his own salvation and resolves to save all sentient beings.
Hinayana	Known as Small Vehicle, one of the two main streams of thinking in Buddhism. It emphasizes the teaching of personal enlightenment or the practice of Arhat.
Ignorance	Lack of understanding of the true nature or the truth. It is the root of all afflictions. Buddhas are beings who are enlightened by eliminating all ignorance.
Karma	Volitional activity, speech and thought, which possesses a power to affect one's destiny.
Mahayana	One of the main branches of teaching in Buddhism. The followers vow to save all sentient beings from the sea of suffering.
Maitreya	The future Buddha who resides in Tusita Heaven, expected to come sometime after the Nirvana of the Sakyamuni Buddha.
Nirvana	The state of complete liberation in which all defilements and sufferings are extinguished. The Buddha attained this state at the age of thirty-five.
Other Shore	The world of enlightenment. It symbolizes the shift of the state of mind to perfect awareness from ignorance, in contrast to the shore of mortality.
Prajna	The mental ability to discern the truth. It is different from the usual intelligence. It is the wisdom that leads to enlightenment.
Precepts	The rules of conduct and disciplines established by the Buddha to help people avoid bad karma. Five Precepts are one of the basic precepts. They are: not to kill, not to steal, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to lie and not to use intoxicants. For fully ordained monks and nuns, there are 250 and 348 precepts respectively. Precepts are disciplines, one of the three essential Buddhist practices that lead to ultimate liberation.
Samadhi	The final stage of intense concentration in which the mind is peaceful, imperturbable and free from distraction. This state is followed by the realization of enlightenment.
Sangha	The community of Buddhist monks, nuns and disciples. It is one of the Three Treasures in Buddhism. The Buddha and the sutras are the other two.
Sanskrit	The classical language of ancient India. Most of the scriptures of the Buddha were written in Sanskrit as well as Pali.
Tao	Truth, path. Tao is the truth that can only be seen through enlightenment.
Tathagata	A title of the Buddha. It means not come and not gone. In Diamond Sutra, the Buddha said, "Subhuti, if anyone should say that the Tathagata has the characteristics like coming, going, sitting or reclining, he fails to understand my teaching. Why? Because Tathagata is never coming from nor going to anywhere. Therefore it is called Tathagata."
Three Poisons	Greed, hatred and delusion.
Tripitaka	It is the three divisions of the Buddhist teachings: the sutras, the vinayas and the sastras. The sutras are the teachings of the Buddha. The vinayas are the rules of discipline set by the Buddha to help eliminate defilements. The sastras are the commentaries offered by scholars in the latter years.
Western Pure Land	World created by Amitabha Buddha. Also called the World of Ultimate Bliss.