Here’s a short primer on the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism and some of their key practices.
What Are the Three Minds?
Zen master Dogen wrote that someone working to benefit others should maintain three minds: magnanimous mind, parental mind, and joyful mind.
What Is the Threefold Training?
Buddhist training falls into three categories: sila (discipline or ethical living, samadhi (concentration), and prajna (insight or wisdom).
What Are the Four Brahmaviharas?
The brahmaviharas are four prized emotions or mindstates that give us a framework to cultivate positive behaviors and minimize harmful ones.
What Are the Five Powers?
The five powers are a set of qualities that work in a sequence to support awakening.
What Are the Five Skandhas?
According to Buddhism, people are made of five aggregates, or “heaps.” These are known in Sanskrit as the skandhas.
What Are the Three Poisons?
The three poisons are the energy of ego’s three basic attitudes—for me, against me, and don’t care.
What Is the Fourfold Sangha?
Sangha is one of the three jewels of Buddhism. Traditionally, the sangha is dividied into four categories, known as the fourfold sangha
The Three Doors of Liberation
The three marks of existence—impermanence, suffering, and no self—are the Buddha’s basic description of reality.
What Are the Twelve Nidanas?
The 12 nidanas, which are pictured as the outer circle in the Wheel of Life, describe the chain of causation by which the cycle of death and rebirth known as samsara is created.