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Throughout Green Dharma Treasury, you may find words or phrases, particularly from Buddhist sources, scientific terminology, or freshly coined neologisms, with which you are unfamiliar, perhaps because they are new to you or because I am using them in novel ways. My hope is that this ‘discursive glossary’ will help give you a better sense of what I mean when I use these terms or phrases.  I suspect that some readers will find this glossary an interesting exploration in and of itself.  I will add to it as the site grows.

A

anapanasati – mindfulness or recollectedness of breathing, or more pointedly, entering the fullness of what is currently occuring using breathing as a support.  See “Breathing: The Natural Way to Meditate”  in PDF, or printed version.

Anapanasati Sutra –  the Buddha’s classic teaching on using mindfulness of breathing as a complete path of liberation.

autopoiesis – self creating. This is a term from biology. It was coined by Humberto Maturana who was looking for a word that would indicate the circular or recursive characteristic of living systems. The most basic unit of autopoiesis is a living cell in which the molecules and molecular reaction processes that compose it, link together in an integrated dynamic such that the activity gives rise to more of the component molecules which themselves are interacting in the  process that gives rise to themselves. Part of the structure of the cell is its semipermeable membrane which, depending on how it is composed, allows the transport of specific substances into and out from the cell. Thus the process of autopiesis could be said to go hand in hand with the appearance of a kind of proto-cognition, where the cell responds to its medium (it ‘cognises’ its medium) depending on the the particular functioning that defines such a cell. Autopoiesis is a circular process that has no discernible beginning or end as every part is necessary for it to be a living cell.

To vividly  illustrate this term, think of the famous sketch of “Drawing Hands” by M. C. Esher. One hand is holding a pencil and is drawing the wrist of the another hand that is holding a pencil that is drawing the wrist of the first hand. As with many of Esher’s drawings, there is a sense of impossibility while at the same time the detail of the drawing is absolutely clear. Shifting to biology, if we consider a single cell, the structure of the cell determines what kinds of functions the cell can engage in and yet, the functioning of the cell is to build and facilitate it’s structure. this circular self producing process is autopoiesis.  A wonderful introduction to this profound concept can be found in the book, “The Tree of Knowledge” by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela

B

biocracy – A human life could be characterised as a continuous apprenticeship with a timeless master called the vast expanse of collaborative creation-in-action.  This is biocracy manifest; a way of organising in which every participant is both a legitimate voice, and a responsive ear.  Democracy is sometimes described as governance by the people, for the people.  Even when it is practiced effectively it leaves out too much of the living world to be a health supporting way of organising our affairs.  In contrast, biocracy is governance by the inter-responding matrix of innumerable living systems which together are the evolving flowering of life that we are.

bodhisattva – This is one of those big words in Buddhism that has many meanings depending on how it is used. Bodhi means awakening. Sat is short for sati which means mindfulness or recollection and va is variously translated as air, wind and weaving. Together, sattva means a ‘being’ or ‘one in the process of becoming’. A bodhi-sattva is therefore ‘one in process of becoming awake’. Because all living beings are interconnected and interdependent, the process of anyone becoming awake is a process that affects everyone. A bodhisattva is someone who is actively waking up for the sake of all beings – who is waking up, with and for, all beings.

If we juggle the syllables of bodhisattva we can come up with a number of rich possiblities:
– an ongoing breathing recollection of awakening;
– an awakening weaving of mindfulness;
– being mindful awakening;
– an awakening mindfulness of how we – all the living creatures of the earth – are, together with the mountains and streams and the physical forces of the universe, weaving into being the fabric of existence.

As bodhisattvas, we are all co-participants; weavers, designers and appreciators of the weaving – each one of us. Bodhi or budh also means to blossom or bud, so the word bodhisattva points to someone who is a flowering, in other words a living process of beauty and fecundity unfolding – not a mindless machine!

Some texts translate bodhisattva in a grand and more specialized way. “Spiritual hero’ or ‘great being’ are not infrequent renderings, however, it is valuable to keep in mind that these great Buddhist archetypes represent characteristics of healthy, well functioning people. A spiritual hero in 2011 would be someone who has the courage and strength, borrowing words from Czech philosopher and writer (and bodhisattva) Vaclav Havel, to intentionally “live within the truth”. Such a being may be someone who feels deeply moved to turn away from the deceptions and lies of ‘modern life’, the consumerism, the extractive economy, the narrow vision of human chauvinism, and the tragic blindness that is unable to see life as a planet-wide ecology of becoming and all that this implies. It is through the ordinary acts of daily living that we find the quiet heroism of today’s bodhisattva; honouring the intelligence, the sentience and the ultimate unknowableness of each being that we meet, and continually engaging with life, however we find it, with attitudes of love, patience, active curiosity and an unforced tendency to engage with compassion.

See:
“This Day is for Living“
“A Life of Dharma”
“Bodhisattva Vow” found in “Daily Puja”

‘body of experience’ – I often use this phrase to point out a fullness or completeness of experience –– our total embodied experience. When we speak of a ‘body of knowledge’, we are referring to a collection of all the knowledges that make up a particular subject. Similarly, the body of experience is comprised of all the contributing factors that make up a moment of experience. Some of these factors would include, physical posture, feelings, sensations, mental states, understandings, memories, assumptions, attitudes and so forth. Our present moment of experience is being continuously woven into being by uncountable factors and processes.  All of these processes together comprise our body of experience.

body/brain/mind/community
Body => involves the dynamic physiological structure of cells, tissues and organs which themselves are co-ordinated processes of molecular/chemical functioning. The brain is made of cells, so from this perspective, it is obviously a contributing aspect of the body.

Brain => involves all nervous tissues and neuronal groupings and associated chemical secretions that modulate the functioning of body and its responses to the ‘outer’ world. Although the brain is a massing of neural tissue in the head, the brain/nervous system extends throughout the body.

Mind => (or as Kalu Rinpoché would sometimes say, “that which knows”) involves a sense of experience, a sense of knowing-in-action – a sense of an agent engaging with objects. This field of knowing/experience seems to emerge out of the functioning of the body/brain in its course of living and its activity covers many domains of experience, for example: thinking, remembering, feeling, emotioning, planning, conceiving, imagining, evaluating and so forth. We refer to this expanse of knowing that we are with the word ‘mind’ or more often with the phrase ‘my mind’.

Community => involves activities of both structural and functional coupling giving rise to a complex multi-leveled symbiosis of living entities and processes. You may treat me as a singularity but biologically, I am a community composed of trillions of cells functioning together as organs and tissues, together forming this skin encapsulated organism you refer to as Tarchin. Even a single cell could be seen as an evolving community of molecular organelles. This community that I am is continuously interlinking and inter-responding with communities beyond my skin; communities of families and societies and the entire evolving ecosphere. We body/brain/ mind/ communities are intimately engaged with myriad other body/brain/mind/communities – communities within communities within communities. We are a union or co-emergence of collaborative-diversity, and integrated wholeness.

In a mature human being these four are totally and seamlessly integrated in their functioning. Bodies, brains, minds and communities cannot exist in isolation. Considered separately, each of these four is continuously adjusting its collective functioning in response to the shifting functionings of the other three. Together they make a whole.

See: “Body/Brain/Mind/Community”

C

Chenrezi – Chenrezi, (Mahakarunika in Sanskrit) means Great Compassion and is the name of the most beloved, Bodhisattva in the Tibetan Tradition. Other names for Chenrezi are, Avalokitesvaro, Kwanyin and Kannon.

Chenrezi, when written in academic Tibetan Wylie transliterated script, is Spyan ras gzigs. Spyan is pronounced chen and literally means eye. The Tibetan word that is spelt ‘chen’, actually means great, large and powerful. Ras pronounced re or ray, is related to the idea of continuity, and gzigs, pronounced zig or zee, is a root for the verb ‘to see’. It also means to shine; brightness, clearness and splendor. Chenrezi, who embodies the realization of the union of Wisdom and Compassion, arises out of great continuum seeing, or seeing the continuum greatly, or greatly seeing the continuum. Compassion is ultimately based in deep seeing. From a perspective of profound contemplation, ‘great continuum seeing’ or ‘vast continuity of clarity’ is the very nature of mind and knowing itself.

D

dharma (Skt.) or dhamma (Pali) – a major term in Buddhism. It has many nuances of meaning, depending on the context in which it is used. It can mean law, or truth, or even phenomena, thing or process. The Dharma, with a capital ‘D’, often refers to the teachings given by the historic Buddha. Buddhadharma or buddhadhamma can also, more generally, refer to the teachings and processes of budding, of flowering, of unfolding or awakening. I sometimes find it useful to make a distinction between buddhadharma and ‘Buddhism-dharma’. In essence, buddhadharma is the process of life coming to know itself. These are universal dharmas and do not belong to, and were certainly not invented by, any religion or school of philosophy. ‘Buddhism-dharma’, on the other hand, are the teachings of Buddhism which unfortunately, can at times be quite sectarian and limited in nature. In a more universal sense it might be useful  to think of dharma or dhamma as the laws or processes of nature unfolding. With this in mind, the study of dharma becomes the study of how everything comes into being and passes away, including the intelligence, or mind, that is engaging in this study.

 Dhar derives from dhareti which means to hold, support, nourish or even cradle, while ma is the root for mother. In this sense, dharma is that which holds, supports and mothers us.  The phrase “life of dharma” refers to a way of living that deepens our understanding of that which holds and supports us, while simultaneously cultivating our skills in mothering and supporting others.

See my essay,  “A Life of Dharma”

doha (Tib.) – a spontaneous song of understanding or realization.

F

Five Paths, Stages or Phases
On the path of accumulation one gathers experience with the various aspects of life and living that appear to be collaboratively weaving one’s current experience of now. This stage is commonly dominated by intellectual understanding. On the path of preparation (also called the path of integration or joining) one deepens one’s conceptual understanding of all aspects of interbeing, particularly in terms of the interdependence of form and function, appearance and process, self and other, relative and absolute truth, and other major dualities. Compared to the first stage, this stage is becoming more experiential. On the path of seeing, there is a non-conceptual direct realization/experience of this seamless mandala of current experience. This marks the first ‘stage of the bodhisattva’. On the path of familiarization, this non-conceptual realization is refined through living the remaining nine stages of the bodhisattva. On the path of no more learning, or non-meditation, the entire universe – this ungraspable mystery – continuously evolves as spontaneous and ever fresh arising presence. This is the ultimate source of inspiration for the entire journey or process of awakening. It is also an endpoint of effortful practice for all who seek understanding. For more detail, read The Thirty-Seven Factors of Enlightenment and The Five Phases, Paths or Stages.

G

gatha (Skt.) – a phrase or saying, that is used to remind us to be more awake and compassionately engaged in the present moment. They are often repeated silently in time with our breathing.

guru (Skt) or lama (Tib) – literally means both heavy or weighty and, light or ephemeral. Heavy with wholesome qualities. Weighty with all the capabilities and capacities of wholeness – the total field of all events and meanings. Light in unwholesome qualities. Ephemeral in being ungraspable, unpindownable, unfathomable, no-thing-in-particularness. This ineffable union of heavy and light, the entirety of Being and it’s essential un-pin-downableness, is the very nature of reality. Since reality is the only thing that we learn from (through the act of intermingling with it), lama and guru became assiciated with the concept of teacher. Today the word has atrophied into a title or an indicater that a person has completed certain communally recognized trainings and practices and has been authorized to teach them.

Guru yoga or lama yoga involves cultivating whatever disciplines will facilitate conciously realizing life, the full richness of Being, to be a union of the profoundly weighty and the profoundly light – a great mystery.

H

honkyoku – a Japanese musical term meaning “original piece”. Honkyoku, originally grew from meditation practices of the Fuke Zen school of Japanese Buddhism which involved playing a shakuhachi bamboo flute. Although honkyuko usually consist of relatively simple sequences of notes, the focus of the meditation is not simply to play a tune but to bring forth a richness of feeling and spirit. Playing honkyoku demands tremendous concentration and mastery of breath. The great aspiration was that in the midst of this type of meditation practice, one would come to recognize the mystery from which, and within which, everything originates (nature of mind, or original ground) and hence it was called ‘original piece’. (See my book “Something Beautiful for the World”)

hwa-tou or hua t’ou (Chinese) – a living state of question; an active passion for enquiry and deepening understanding; an organism co-ordinating quality of attentive engagement which, in individual humans, manifests as an attitude of pervasive interest and curiosity; a non-verbal state of question flavoured with vivid openness and refined receptivity. The hwa-tou refers to a quality which is the essential heart of all insight meditation practice.

This term originated in the Buddhist Chan traditions of ancient China and continues today in Japanese Zen. The hwa-tou refers to an all-consuming state, or attitude, of question. This is much more than a verbal or conceptual expression of curiosity. It is not a specific question about a particular something. Hwa-tou is present when our whole being, an intermeshing of body/mind and environment, is vibrant with interest, extraordinarily receptive and exquisitely attentive within the immediacy of what is presently occurring. One could think of it as an omnipresent state of curiosity that flavours all our relationships.

In some translations of Chan texts, hwa-tou is rendered as the bundle of doubt. A practitioner is first of all encouraged to find or establish the ‘bundle of doubt’ and then to hold it continuously, until it breaks up of its own accord. Essentially, this means that the practitioner should first become profoundly energized by curiosity and active enquiry; to become a living embodiment of these qualities, to immerse him or herself in its mystery and implications, and then gradually, through this continuity of immersion, to refine and stabilize the hwa-tou until it becomes the very flavour of what they are, the way they engage in life and all its processes. At this point, the ‘bundle of doubt’ has entered every aspect of one’s life and so quietly vanishes from view. This is the ‘breaking up of its own accord.’

Koan is a term often related to hwa-tou. A koan is literally a ‘case history’, a specific example of how a particular meditator wrestled with and found peace within their own unique hwa-tou. In Zen, it has often been said, “The greater the question, the greater the awakening. No question, no awakening.” Today, our human society seems to be obsessively concerned with answers and solutions. It’s as if we have come to believe that the greater the answer, the greater the awakening! We have lost touch with the profundity and value of naked question; the state of aliveness that is present in the midst of wonderstruck responsive nowness.

What does it mean to be in a state of unconstrained, multi-leveled question? What does it mean to live with a vast degree of curiosity, a depth of contemplation that quietly flavours everything that we do? To find the hua-tou is to embody an attitude to the world that constantly enlivens us; the curiosity, the involvement, the blessing that can envelop us when we let go into a multi-leveled engagement in and with life.

K

koan (Japanese) – see hwa-tou

L

lama (Tib) – see guru

M

mahāmudrā – Mahāmudrā is a Sanskrit name given to the path and process of experientially realizing the true inter-being nature of everything. We could call it, ‘Natural Awakening-in-action’. Although often associated with Tibetan Buddhist teachings, mahāmudrā’s ancestry goes back to traditions of contemplative science and yoga found in ancient India. These traditions themselves drew inspiration from a diversity of religious sources which in turn grew from the multi billion year journey of evolving living systems – a planet wide ecology of life itself. Luminous with the recognition of the interdependence of all manifestation, mahāmudrā teaching utilizes many aspects of contemplative exploration – including investigations into mind, consciousness and perception – while at the same time encouraging skillful and compassionate ways of participating in the unfolding community of all life.

mandala (Skt.)– Mandala drives from mano, which means mind and dala, which conveys a sense of expansion. A mandala could be literally thought of as a mind expansion device.

The word mandala can be used in an outer sense and an inner sense. Outwardly, a mandala refers to a symmetrical painting or work of art that symbolizes an experience of wholeness by demonstrating how a diversity of factors combine into an integrated whole. Inwardly, mandala refers to an actual expanding or deepening understanding/experience of wholeness. The outer mandala is an attempt to point out, or possibly even trigger or invoke, this inner experience.

P

puja (Pali)– to honour, worship, respect, reverence, venerate,

There are many forms of puja ranging from elaborate ceremonies with prayers and recitations, through to moments of silent communion. To begin each day with a period of meaningful contemplation will help to reawaken a vibrant appreciation and sense of wonder, into the preciousness, the grace, the beauty and the extraordinary mystery of life. Making this an ongoing and regular part of each morning can help to set a positive tone for the rest of the day.

S

sadhana – In Buddhism, and particularly Tibetan Buddhism, sadhana refers to a spiritual practice. If we delve into the word, it reveals something much richer than an exercise to be repeated again and again until some pre-desired result is obtained. The Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary defines sadhana as: common property; possessing riches, wealthy, opulent. We could say that a sadhana is an intentional activity of body, speech and mind that leads us into a realisation of what we hold and share in common with everything and everyone. This is our (common) wealth, our health and our wholeness. Sa and su in Pali and Sanskrit allude to good, wholesome, synergistic, creative, affirmative and positive. Dhana is related to dana which means generosity, giving, magnanimity and supportive or nurturing outflowing. Giving also means flexing and bending. In a very broad sense, to practise a sadhana is to cultivate and engage in a flexible, generous, nurturing of wholesome goodness. What is your sadhana?

sharing the merit – A Buddhist practice, done at the completion of a session of meditation or a period of creative work in which one consciously shares the benefit of one’s explorations with all beings.  In its full grandeur, sharing the merit is a call to revolution – a call to recognize the great cycling of life and to participate richly and fully in this mystery we were born to.  See my short essay, Truth, Power and Sharing the Merit.

six realms; six paths; six destinies of rebirth – These six can be understood in different ways. A naive understanding is that the six refer to actual realms of existence: hell, hungry ghost, animal, human, titan and deva realms. These six are part of a cosmology that is common in many Eastern religious traditions. With this naive understanding, people believe that the actions, or karma, of this life will determine which of the six realms one would be re-born in, in the next life.

A more sophisticated understanding is that these realms symbolize, or indicate, psychological states of being. Hell realms are states of anger and ill-will. Hungry ghost or preta realms are states of insatiable greed and desire. Animal realms are states of dullness and limited ability to learn. Human realms are states of scepticism and desire. Titan realms are states of jealousy and compulsive competitiveness. Deva realms are states of privilege around which is a powerful sense of pride and superiority. Certain behaviours in our day to day lives will tend to propel us into experiences of these psychological states. In this more sophisticated understanding, one doesn’t have to believe in a re-birth after we die. Our physical, emotional and conceptual activities (karma) cause us to ‘die’ from one state and be ‘reborn’ in another. This is happening in a continuous stream; moment to moment to moment.

Yet another quite useful understanding is that these six refer to different paths of human life-experience. Animal, symbolizes the path of unconscious instinct/delusion. Preta or hungry ghost, symbolizes the path of greed/desire/delusion. Titan, symbolizes the path of ill-will/anger/delusion. Hell, symbolizes the path of the preceding three together: a catastrophic dose of delusion, greed and hatred. Human, symbolizes the path of social virtue or compassionate action. Deva symbolizes the path of refined abstract meditation.
See: “A Life of Dharma”

structural coupling – a term introduced by Maturana and Varela in their attempts to illustrate the biological roots of cognition. (See their book, “The Tree of Knowledge”.) Every living being is physically, structurally, linked at many levels, with its environment. This mutual linkage is both intimate and unavoidably necessary for life to function. Changes in the environment will trigger shifts in the functioning of the living organism. Shifts in the individual will provoke changes in its environment. What we normally call ‘environment’ is itself composed of a dense inter-weaving of structurally coupled organisms and so, although we think of ourselves as linked to an environment, we are actually dynamically linking with myriad other living beings. The fabric of life is essentially seamless. We might consider different levels of structural coupling.  Some are more transient such as what takes place when we have a conversation with someone.  Some are more durable such as the coupling of all the cells, tissues, organs and so forth that working together, are our living, functioning, body.

suchness  –  refers to ‘reality as it actually is’, ‘such as it is’, ‘magnificent and splendid as it is’ – a dynamic all inclusive continuously gestating systemic wholeness in the act of knowing itself. Suchness is buddha nature in action.
See: “Translating Suchness”

T

Tantra
In the ancient cultures of Tibet, India, parts of southeast Asia and China, there flourished various wisdom traditions known as tantra. Today, tantra is sometimes associated with attempted mergings of spirituality and sex, but originally it had the meaning of ‘fundamental continuity’, or ‘the great continuum’. To study tantra was to study and engage with the continuity of life and all the known processes that compose it. Click here for more.

Three Stages, Paths or Phases
The three are: intellectual understanding, experience, and realisation. In general, these correspond to the first three of the Five Paths:  accumulation, integration and seeing. Familiarization and non-meditation involve further refinements of seeing, or realisation.

W

whakapapa (pronounced faukapapa) – a Maori word meaning genealogy, family tree or cultural identity.  One might trace one’s whakapapa back through one’s ancestors, all the way back to the land and its biota, its drainage systems and catchments and even back to a mythological time. I sometimes use the term in perhaps a wider sense than the traditional Maori usage. We are composed of many evolving stories: molecular, cellular, ontological, sociological and ecological; many distinct but interweaving lineages, each of which is itself a weaving of myriad other life-lines of histories. The type of lineage I refer to will usually be indicated by the context of use.