human personality - theravada

• Theravada Buddhism

  The oldest of the two major branches of Buddhism. Practiced mainly in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia, its beliefs are relatively conservative, holding close to the original teachings of the Buddha.
• The Buddha

  Enlightened one. A focus for worship, seen as a teacher (not a god).
• Ordination

  The action of ordaining or conferring holy orders on someone. Emphasised in Theravada Buddhist monasteries but primarily reserved for men.
• Skandhas

  The Five Aggregates.
• The Five Aggregates

  The five aspects that make up a person: form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness.
• Form

  Our bodies.
• Sensation


  Our feelings.
• Perception

  Our ways of interpreting and understanding things.
• Mental Formations

  Our thoughts.
• Consciousness


  Our general awareness of things.
• Arhat

  One who has become enlightened; the ideal type for Theravada Buddhism.
• Parinibbana

  Final and complete Nibbana at the passing away of a Buddha.
• Bodhisattva

  A person who has attained enlightenment but who has postponed nirvana in order to help others achieve enlightenment.
• Six perfections of a bodhisattva


  Generosity, morality, patience, energy, meditation, wisdom.
• Earthly Bodhisattvas

  Continue to be reborn into the world in order to help others.
• Transcendent Bodhisattvas


  Purely spiritual beings beyond space and time. Appear as different forms in the world to help others and lead people to enlightenment. They are prayed to in times of need.
• A Bodhisattva vow

  "However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to save them."