Tārā Skt. (Tib., Dolma), lit., “savior”; an em­anation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, said to arise from his tears in order to help him in his work. She embodies the feminine aspect of compassion and is a very popular deity in Tibetan Buddhism. The cult of Tārā was propa­gated in the 11th century, primarily by Atīsha. Since that time, veneration of Tārā as a yidam has been quite widespread. There are twenty-one forms of Tārā, which are differenti­ated iconographically by color, posture of the body, and differing attributes, and can in addi­tion appear in either a peaceful or a wrathful manifestation. The most frequently en­countered forms are Green Tara and White Tara. The two consorts of the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo (7th century) are regarded as having been embodiments of these two Tārās.

Thangka (thanka) roughly, “picture, paint­ing.” In Tibetan Buddhism, a scroll painting framed in silk, which fulfills various religious functions. The themes of iconography are fixed by tradition and are based on three principles: expression, proportion, and detail. Commissioning the painting of a thangka and the painting itself are considered highly meritorious actions.

The images are painted on linen with vegeta­ble- and mineral-based pigments. In some cases they serve as visual reminders of general Bud­dhist teachings—examples are the wheel of life or the depictions of the previ­ous existences of the Buddha. In oth­er cases thangkas play an important ritual role—as, for example, detailed paintings of cen­tral personalities of a particular school being used for taking refuge. However, the most important role of the thangka is connected with the performance of sādhanas, where the picture functions as support for memory in the process of visualization. Painted mandalas fulfill the same purpose.

Theravāda Pali, lit., “teaching of the elders of the order”; Hīnayāna school (also called the Pali school) belonging to the Sthavira group, which developed from the Vibhajyavādin school. It was founded by Moggaliputta Tissa and brought to Ceylon in 250 BCE by Mahinda, where it was propagat­ed by the monks of the Mahāvihāra monastery. Conflicts over disciplinary questions led to schisms within the Theravāda. Today the Theravāda is widespread in the countries of Southeast Asia (Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Kampuchea, Laos, etc.).

Three Jewels (Skt., triratna) (Pali, tiratna), lit., “three precious ones”; the three essential components of Buddhism: Buddha, dharma, sangha—i.e. the Awakened One, the truth expounded by him, and the followers living in accordance with this truth. Firm faith in the three precious ones is the stage of “stream-entry.” The three precious ones are objects of veneration and are considered “places of refuge.” The Buddhist takes refuge in them by pronouncing the threefold refuge formula, thus acknowledging him- or herself publicly to be a Buddhist. Contemplation of the three precious ones comprises three of the ten contemplations.

Trikāya Skt., lit., “three bodies”; refers to the three bodies possessed by a buddha according to the Mahāyāna view. The basis of this teaching is the conviction that a buddha is one with the absolute and manifests in the relative world in order to work for the welfare of all beings. The three bodies are:

1. Dharmakāya (body of the great order); the true nature of the Buddha, which is identical with transcendental reality, the essence of the universe. The dharmakāya is the unity of the Buddha with everything existing. At the same time it represents the “law” (dharma), the teaching expounded by the Buddha.

2. Sambhogakāya (“body of delight”); the body of buddhas who in a “buddha-paradise” enjoy the truth that they embody.

3. Nirmānakāya (“body of transformation”); the earthly body in which buddhas appear to men in order to fulfill the buddhas’ resolve to guide all beings to liberation.

Tripitaka (Tripitaka) Skt. (Pali, Tipitaka), lit., “Three Baskets”; canon of Buddhist scriptures, consisting of three parts: the Vinaya-Pitaka, the Sūtra-pitaka, and the Abhidharma-pitaka. The first “basket” contains accounts of the origins of the Buddhist sangha as well as the rules of discipline regulating the lives of monks and nuns. The second is composed of discourses said to have come from the mouth of Buddha or his immediate disciples and is arranged into five “collections”: Dīgha-nikāya, Majjhima-nikāya, Samyutta-nikāya, Anguttara-nikāya, Khuddaka-nikāya. The third part is a compendium of Buddhist psychology and philosophy.

The Vinaya-Pitaka contains some of the oldest parts of the canon, which originated in the first decades after the death of the Buddha. After the split into individual schools, the Abhidharma-pitaka, which differs from school to school, was added.

Tulku (sprul-sku) Tib., lit., “transformation body”; in Tibetan Buddhism, a term for a person who, after certain tests, is recognized as the reincarnation of a previously deceased per­son. This conception developed out of the trikāya teaching and was first applied in Tibet with the discovery of the second karmapa, Karma Pakshi (1204–83). The tulku was seen as an important means for assuring the spiritual and political continuity of monastic institu­tions. In addition to those of the four heads of the principal schools of Tibetan Buddhism, there were a great number of tulku lineages in Tibet.

Vajrasattva Skt., lit., “Diamond Being”; in Vajrayana Buddhism, the principle of purity and purification. Vajrasattva embodies the ca­pacity to eliminate spiritual impurities of all kinds, particularly neglected commitments to­ward one’s teacher and ones’ own spiritual de­velopment. Vajrasattva is a sambhogakāya manifestation; he unifies all the five buddha-families within him­self in the same way that the white color of his body (in iconography) unifies all the five colors. With his right hand he holds a dorje to his heart, which signifies his indestructible essence. His left hand, holding a bell, rests on his hip; this is an expression of his compassion. The hundred-syllable mantra associated with him is used in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism for purification of the mind.

Vajrayāna Skt., lit., “Diamond Vehicle”; a school of Buddhism that arose, primarily in northeast and northwest India, around the mid­dle of the first millennium. It developed out of the teachings of the Mahāyāna and reached Tibet, China, and Japan from Central Asia and India along with the Mahāyāna. This movement arose from a need to extend the worldview of Buddhism to inveterate “magical” practices and is characterized by a psychological method based on highly developed ritual practices. The Vajrayāna had its origin in small groups of prac­titioners gathered around a master (guru). The accessibility of Vajrayāna through written texts as well as its assimilation by monastic institutions was a relatively late devel­opment in this movement. Because of the use of certain sacred syllables, Tibetan Buddhism also refers to the Vajrayāna as the Mantrayāna.

Vipashyanā (vipaśyanā), Skt. (Pali, vipassa­nā); insight, clear seeing; intuitive cognition of the three marks of existence, namely, the impermanence (anitya), suffer­ing (duhkha), and egolessness (anātman) of all physical and mental phenomena. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, vipashyanā is seen as an­alytical examination of the nature of things that leads to insight into the true nature of the world—emptiness (shūnyatā). Such insight prevents the arising of new passions. Vipa­shyanā is one of the two factors essential for the attainment of enlightenment; the oth­er is shamatha (calming the mind).

Zazen Jap. (Chin., tso-ch’an), lit., za, “sit­ting” and zen, “absorption”; meditative prac­tice taught in Zen as the most direct way to enlightenment. Zazen is not meditation in the usual sense, since medi­tation includes, at least initially, the focusing of the mind on a “meditation object” (for exam­ple, a mandala or a graphic representation of a bodhisattva) or contemplating abstract proper­ties (for instance, impermanence or compas­sion). Zazen, however, is intended to free the mind from bondage to any thought-form, vi­sion, thing, or representation, however sublime or holy it might be.

Even such aids to zazen practice as kōans are not meditation objects in the usual sense; the essential nature of a kōan is paradox, that which is beyond conception.

In its purest form zazen is dwelling in a state of thought-free, alertly wakeful attention, which, however, is not directed toward any ob­ject and clings to no content. If practiced over a long period of time with persis­tence and devotion, zazen brings the mind of the sitter to a state of totally contentless wakeful­ness, from which, in a sudden breakthrough of enlightenment, the sitter can realize their own true na­ture or buddha-nature, which is identical with the nature of the entire universe.

Zen Jap., an abbreviation of the word zen­na (also zenno), the Japanese way of reading Chinese ch’an-na (short form, ch’an). This in turn is the Chinese version of the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which refers to collectedness of mind or meditative absorption in which all dualistic distinctions like I/you, subject/object, and true/ false are eliminated. Zen can be defined both ex­oterically and esoterically.

Exoterically regarded, Zen, or Ch’an as it is called when referring to its history in China, is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in China in the 6th and 7th centuries from the meeting of Dhyāna Buddhism, which was brought to China by Bodhidharma, and Tao­ism. In this sense Zen is a religion, the teachings and practices of which are directed toward self-realization and lead finally to complete awakening as experienced by Shākyamuni Buddha after in­tensive meditative self-discipline under the Bodhi-tree. More than any other school, Zen stresses the prime importance of the enlighten­ment experience and the uselessness of ritual re­ligious practices and intellectual analysis of doc­trine for the attainment of liberation. Zen teaches the practice of zazen, sitting in meditative absorption as the shortest, but also the steepest, way to awakening. The essential nature of Zen can be summa­rized in four short statements: (1) “[a] special transmission outside the [orthodox] teaching”; (2) nondependence on [sa­cred] writings”; and (3) “direct pointing [to the] human heart”; leading to (4) realization of [one’s own] nature [and] becoming a buddha.” This pregnant characterization of Zen is attributed by tradition to Bodhidhar­ma, its first patriarch; however, many modern scholars suspect that it originated rather with the later Ch’an master Nan-ch’uan P’u-yuan (Jap., Nansen Fugan).

According to legend the “special transmission outside the orthodox teaching” began with the famous discourse of Buddha Shākyamuni on Vulture Peak Mountain (Gridhrakūta). At that time, surrounded by a great host of disciples who had assembled to hear him expound the teaching, he is said only to have held up a flower without speaking. Only his student Kashyapa understood and smiled—as a result of his mas­ter’s gesture he suddenly experienced a break­through to enlightened vision and grasped the essence of the Buddha’s teaching on the spot. With this, the first transmission from heart-mind to heart-mind took place. The Buddha con­firmed Mahākāshyapa, as his enlightened stu­dent was called henceforth, as the first Indian patriarch in the lineage of transmission. In Zen, which is often also called the “School of Bud­dha-Mind,” sudden enlightenment has played a central role.

It is said that the buddhadharma was passed down in an unbroken chain of transmis­sion to the twenty-eighth Indian patriarch, Bod­hidharma. The Indian period and its lineage of transmission, which was first mentioned in later Chinese texts, is regarded as legendary by histo­rians, since there are no historical documents concerning it. For Zen itself, the historicity of the early patriarchs is irrelevant, since the au­thenticity of the enlightenment experience, which can be easily tested by an enlightened master (if he has not grown slack), is the matter of primary concern. What is important here is living truth rather than the dry, thinglike reality of documents and dates to which scientific re­searchers would like to reduce a richer, more global reality that they do not understand.

When Bodhidharma brought Dhyāna Bud­dhism from India to China at the beginning of the 6th century, he became the first patriarch of the lineage of Ch’an (Zen). In the course of fur­ther transmission of the teaching, down to the 6th patriarch Hui-neng (638–713), there de­veloped out of the combination of the spiritual essence of Dhyāna Buddhism and the teaching and approach to life of Taoism, which was con­genial to Buddhism in many ways, what today we call Zen. This is primarily the teaching of the Southern school stemming from Hui-neng, which stressed the doctrine of sudden enlighten­ment . Another school of Ch’an, the Northern school, which was originated by Shen-hsiu, a “rival” of Hui-neng, and taught gradual enlightenment, survived for only a short time.

With Hui-neng and his immediate dharma successors began the great period of Ch’an, which especially during the T’ang period but also in the beginning of the Sung period produced a large number of great masters. Among these were extraordinary masters such as Ma­tsu Tao-i, (Jap., Baso Dōitsu), Pai-chang Huai-hai (Jap., Hyakujō Ekai), Te-shan Hsuan-chien (Jap., Tokusan Senkan), Tung-shan Liang-chieh (Jap., Tōzan Ryōkai), Chao-shou T’ung-shen (Jap., Jōshū Jūshin), and Lin-chi I-hsuan (Jap., Rinzai Gigen). These masters largely shaped the training methods that became typical of Ch’an. The lineage of the Southern school of Ch’an split into “five houses, seven schools”; these were currents within the Ch’an tradition that differed in details of training style but not in essential content. They are the Sōtō school, the Urn-mon school, the Hōgen school, the Igyō school, and the Rinzai school; subschools of Rinzai are the Yogi school and the Ōryō school.

Of these traditions, two, those of the Rinzai school and the Sōtō school, reached Japan, in the 12th century and at the beginning of the 13th century, respectively. Both schools are still ac­tive there today. While Ch’an in China declined after the Sung period and then, through admix­ture with the Pure Land school of Buddhism during the Ming period, ceased to exist altogeth­er as an authentic lineage of transmission of the buddhadharma “from heart-mind to heart-mind,” in Japan, as Zen, it began to flourish anew. Dōgen Zenji, who brought the Sōtō tra­dition to Japan, and Eisai Zenji, Shinchi Kakushin, Shōmyō, and others in the Rinzai tradition, together with a few Chinese Ch’an masters who were invited to Japan, founded the Zen tradition. A school founded in Japan in the middle of the 17th century by the Chinese mas­ter Yin-yuan Lung-ch’i (Jap., Ingen Ryūki), the Ōbaku school, is today practically with­out importance, having only one active monas­tery, the Mampuku-ji in Uji near Kyōto. One of the most outstanding figures in Zen was Hakuin Zenji, who reformed Japanese Rinzai Zen in the 18th century after a period of deterio­ration and helped it to revive and flourish once again.

Since for some decades Westerners have also been seeking guidance on the Zen way in Japan, nowadays Japanese masters teach the dharma also in Europe and the United States, and there are already a number of Western dharma suc­cessors.

Esoterically regarded, Zen is not a religion but rather an indefinable, incommunicable root, free from all names, descrip­tions, and concepts, that can only be experi­enced by each individual for him- or herself. From expressed forms of this, all religions have sprung. In this sense Zen is not bound to any re­ligion, including Buddhism. It is the primordial perfection of everything existing, designated by the most various names, experienced by all great sages, saints, and founders of religions of all cul­tures and times. Buddhism has referred to it as the “identity of samsāra and nirvāna.” From this point of view zazen is not a “method” that brings people living in ignorance (avidyā) to the “goal” of liberation; rather it is the immediate expression and actualization of the perfection present in every person at every moment.