Māra, whose name literally means “death” or “maker of death,” is the embodiment of lust, greed, false views, delusion, and illusion. He is a virtually ubiquitous presence in Buddhist texts from the earliest accounts of the Buddha’s Enlightenment on: Māra stands as an active antagonist of the Buddha and his followers, as well as a powerful metaphor. Paradigmatically, Māra attempts to stop the Buddha in

We cannot say with assurance when pilgrimage first became a part of Buddhist tradition. However, the fact that the canonical collections of several early Buddhist schools include a Sūtra in which Gautama Buddha himself exhorts his followers to visit sites associated with his life indicates the centrality that pilgrimage came to have in the early centuries of the Buddhist movement. This passage occurs in the

Paradigmatic miracles occur in accounts of the life of the Buddha, well-known wherever Buddhism is practiced. As a Buddha Śākyamuni was believed to possess the standard set of supernormal powers accruing to those of high spiritual attainments, including - the power to know details of his previous lives, - the ability to see the past lives of others, - the power to read minds, the

Buddhist cosmology recognizes a hierarchy of Heavens (svarga) comprising - the 6 Heaven realms of the “world of the senses” (kāma loka) inhabited by their respective gods, - and the various Heavens of the pure form and formless worlds inhabited by the various classes of higher gods known as Brahmās. These Heavens are places where any being can potentially be reborn: Heavenly existence is not

Hells play an important part in virtually all Buddhist traditions, past and present: As the lowest of the 6 (or sometimes 5) paths of Rebirth, Hell is one of the most colourful parts of Buddhist Cosmology, mythological reflection, and practice. The Hells are the worst (and therefore the best) example of the fate that greets the unenlightened after Death, just as a pleasurable rebirth in

Devadatta is the paradigmatically wicked and evil personality in Buddhist tradition and literature. There are various major and minor legends about Devadatta’s actions against the Buddha and the Buddhist community: The 3 most serious acts leading to Devadatta’s fall into hell, are: 1. Causing the First Schism of the Buddhist order, 2. Wounding the Buddha, and 3. Killing a Buddhist nun named Utpalavarṇā.

The most common English theological meanings of the word Faith are the ones that have the most questionable similarity to historical Buddhist belief and practice. Buddhist notions tend to occupy a different centre in the semantic field: serene trust, confident belief that the practice of the dharma will bear the promised fruit, and joyful surrender to the presence or vision of one or many “ideal

It is difficult to overstate the centrality of generosity and gift giving (Dāna) in Buddhism. Dāna is a supreme virtue perfected by Bodhisattvas, a key practice of providing economic support to monks and nuns and the Buddhist establishment, and a means of generating religious merit. Dāna is first in the lists of the Pāramitā (Perfection) that a Bodhisattva cultivates through the many eons of lives

Desire is the “thirst that leads to repeated birth, is tied to delight and passion, desires now this now that. This is the thirst of sense desire, the thirst for existence, the thirst for cessation”. The central concept is not “desire” in its normal, restricted sense, but “desire” in the broad sense of the drive or impulse that makes us want to achieve or possess,