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False Imagination Mere Consciousness System

A term coined by Yin-shun for the Yogācāra school of thought in Mahāyāna Buddhism. According to Yin-shun’s interpretation, the Buddha preached sūtras pertaining to this system as a skillful means to attract people who are unable to understand the difference between the doctrines that “all dharmas are empty of inherent nature” and that “nothing exists.” For more, see Yin-shun 1998, 307–15. (Compare with Empty Nature Mere Name system and Truly Eternal Mere Mind system.)

Five Methods of Stilling The Mind

(Chin: wu tingxin) The five methods designed to purify the mind of emotional turbulence and foster meditative calm (Sanskrit: samatha), eventually leading to the experience of samadhi, or meditative concentration. Different Buddhist texts sometimes give different versions of the five methods for stilling the mind. In the abhidharma, two techniques most frequently mentioned are mindful recollection of the breath, and meditation on impurity or decay. To these, meditation on the four boundless mentalities, meditation on causes and condition, and the contemplation of dharma categories are usually added, bringing the number of methods to five. Many Buddhist sources, especially those of the Mahayana, describe a variation of the five methods, giving special importance to mindful recollection of the Buddha as a method for purifying the mind and developing samadhi. Thus, it is not unusual to find versions of the five methods that replace the contemplation of dharma categories with buddha-mindfulness.•Klesa: Literally’ trouble,’ ‘affliction,’ or ‘passion.’ It refers to anything that clouds the mind and is the basis for all afflictions, unwholesome thoughts, speech, and actions, and hence, sentient beings’ suffering in samsara.

Four Fruits

On the Hīnayāna Buddhist path to liberation from sam . sāra, the four levels of attainment of a noble one. Liberation occurs with the fourth fruit, arhatship.

Four Methods of Inducement

Methods by which a bodhisattva wins the trust of others and is thereby in a position to guide them to walk on the Buddhist path, namely: giving, speaking lovingly, acting beneficially, and intermingling.

Four Kinds of Birth

Ancient Indian Buddhist way of classifying sentient beings based on the manner in which they were conceived to be born, namely (1) womb-born (táishēng 胎生): born live from the mother’s body (examples: various mammals, hungry ghosts), (2) egg-born (luˇanshēng 卵生): hatched out of eggs (examples: various birds), (3) moisture-born (shīshēng 濕生): born “oozing out” from the elements such as earth, etc. (examples: worms, bugs, butterflies), and (4) spontaneously-born (huàshēng 化生): born through metamorphosis, spontaneously (i.e., suddenly appearing, with all organs fully developed) through the power of karma from the previous life (examples: deities, hell-dwellers). Examples come from the Treasury of Abhidharma; for English, see Pruden 1988–1990, 380).

Fundamental Buddhism

A term coined by modern Japanese scholars, generally meaning one of the following: 1. Buddhism during the time when Śākyamun Buddha was alive. 2. Buddhism from the time of Śākyamuni Buddha until about thirty years after his passing away.