Human Personality and Destiny - 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.
• Consciousness 


  Our general awareness of things.
• 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:

  1. Generosity
  2. morality
  3. patience
  4. energy
  5. meditation
  6. 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."