Words to understand
Encyclopedia
The words, concepts and terms used in spirituality, explained simply and linked to traditions and to places where they become meaningful.
100 entries
Universal values
Kindness
A willingness to want the good of oneself, of others and of the world, and then to translate that intention into respectful attitudes and acts.
Universal values
Compassion
Recognize the suffering of a being and create the desire to respond to it with care, accuracy and discernment.
Universal values
Empathy
Understand or feel the experience of others while keeping the distinction between what he lives and what he lives.
Universal values
Gratitude
To consciously recognize what has been received, lived or made possible, and then to give it sincere value.
Universal values
Excuse me.
A possible process of liberation from resentment, distinct from forgetfulness, automatic excuse and compulsory reconciliation.
Universal values
Altruism
Acting for the good of others, sometimes at the cost of personal costs, without reducing the other to debt.
Universal values
Unconditional love
A form of love that does not depend entirely on the performance, utility or conformity of the other.
Internal development
Acceptance
To recognize a reality without a claim that it is desirable or a waiver of action.
Universal values
Humility
To recognize with accuracy his qualities, limitations and place among others, without diminishing or growing artificially.
Universal values
Generosity
Give time, attention, resources or skills with freedom, measurement and discernment.
Practices
Meditation
A set of practices that lead to attention, observation, contemplation or relationship to experience according to different traditions.
Practices
Mindfulness
To voluntarily pay attention to the present experience with openness, curiosity and a reduction of automatic judgment.
Practices
Conscious breathing
Observe or regulate your breathing voluntarily to stabilize your attention and better perceive your inner state.
Internal development
Presence
The ability to live the moment, the body and the relationship with available attention rather than automatic.
Practices
Silence
A relative absence of noise or speech that can promote rest, listening, contemplation and self-perception.
Internal development
Dropping
Release a control will that has become useless, without confusing this attitude with abandonment, indifference or passivity.
Internal development
Intuition
A quick understanding that appears without detailed conscious reasoning, often based on experience, but always falsifiable.
Practices
Visualization
Use mind images voluntarily to prepare an action, support attention or explore an inner experience.
Spiritual Concepts
Karma
In Indian traditions, karma refers to action and its consequences, with different interpretations according to Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
Spiritual Concepts
Dharma
A major term in Indian traditions that may refer to teaching, order, duty, truth, law or the way in a context.
Spiritual Concepts
Awakening
A term that refers to a profound transformation of understanding or consciousness, the meaning of which varies greatly according to traditions.
Spiritual Concepts
Consciousness
The ability to have subjective experience and, depending on the context, to perceive, reflect or make moral judgment.
Spiritual Concepts
Soul
A religious and philosophical notion, according to traditions, designating the principle of life, the deep identity or a spiritual reality distinct from the body.
Internal development
Ego
A term that may refer to psychological self, self-image or attachment to an identity, depending on contexts that must not be confused.
Spiritual Concepts
Spiritual energy
A symbolic or traditional language used to speak of vitality, inner transformation or so-called subtle experiences.
Spiritual Concepts
Aura
In some esoteric currents, a subtle field supposed to surround living beings; its objective existence is not scientifically established.
Spiritual Concepts
Chakras
Subtle centres described in several Indian traditions, whose number, function and representation vary according to the texts and schools.
Spiritual Concepts
Yin and Yang
Two interlinked polarities of Chinese thought describing complementary, changing and relative dynamics.
Internal development
Non-attachment
A more free relationship to possessions, ideas, identities and experiences, without indifference or refusal of commitment.
Internal development
Discernment
The ability to examine an idea, experience or decision with clarity, caution, method and context.
Universal values
Compliance
Recognize the dignity, rights, limits and singularity of others, even when their beliefs differ from ours.
Universal values
Listen.
Voluntary attention to the speech, silence and context of a person, without immediately preparing his own response.
Universal values
Tolerance
Accept the coexistence of different beliefs and lifestyles within the limits of the rights and security of each individual.
Universal values
Justice
The search for rules, decisions and relationships that recognize rights, redress wrongs and distribute fairly responsibilities and resources.
Internal development
Equanimity
An internal stability that allows you to meet pleasures, difficulties and uncertainties without being swept away by every reaction.
Universal values
Courage
The ability to act despite fear, when action appears fair and proportionate to the risks.
Internal development
Simplicity
Choose voluntarily what is essential to reduce material, mental or relational congestion.
Universal values
Hospitality
The art of welcoming the foreigner or visitor by offering him security, attention and place, without removing the host's boundaries.
Universal values
Solidarity
A shared responsibility that transforms compassion into concrete support, collective organization and the defence of common rights.
Internal development
Joy
An emotion or a positive disposition related to the encounter, fulfillment, gratitude or mere feeling alive.
Universal values
Hope
A direction towards a possible future that supports action without ensuring that the desired outcome will come.
Internal development
Resilience
A process of adaptation after a test, supported by personal, relational, cultural and material resources.
Internal development
Authenticity
A way of living and speaking in accordance with his experience and values, without pretending to have a fixed and transparent identity.
Internal development
Balance
A dynamic adjustment between needs, activities, relationships and constraints, rather than a perfect and still state.
Spiritual Concepts
Interdependence
The fact that beings, phenomena and living conditions exist through multiple relationships rather than absolute autonomy.
Internal development
Internal freedom
A margin of choice in how to understand and respond to experience, even when circumstances are not fully manageable.
Internal development
Vulnerability
The condition of a being who may be injured, affected or dependent on others, but also relate and receive support.
Internal development
Intention
The conscious orientation of an action towards a purpose or value, distinct from the result actually produced.
Internal development
Attention
Selection and maintenance of certain information in the field of consciousness, at the expense of other demands.
Practices
Concentration
Voluntary attention to a task or object for a given period.
Universal values
Wisdom
The ability to unite knowledge, experience, discernment and concern for good to guide action in complex situations.
Internal development
Discipline
Regular organization of effort to serve a practice or value, with adaptable rules and recovery times.
Spiritual Concepts
Memory
The ability to preserve and rebuild the past, individually and collectively, through memories, stories, rites and traces.
Internal development
Internal security
A relative sense of stability and protection that allows for rest, exploration and contact without constant vigilance.
Bases & Benchmarks
Values
Principles to which a person or community attaches importance and which guide his or her choices, judgments and priorities.
Bases & Benchmarks
Religion
An organized set of narratives, rites, practices, norms, institutions and relationships to a reality that is considered ultimate, sacred or transcendent.
Bases & Benchmarks
Spirituality
A way of seeking meaning, an inner transformation or a relationship to what exceeds the individual, in or out of an established religion.
Bases & Benchmarks
Sacred
What a community or person sets aside, honours and protects because of exceptional religious or symbolic value.
Bases & Benchmarks
Ritual
A sequence of repeated symbolic actions according to a shared framework to mark a time, relationship, belief or transition.
Bases & Benchmarks
Symbol
A form, image, gesture or narrative that makes a set of meanings present beyond its immediate appearance.
Practices
Prayer
A word, silence, song or gesture addressed to a divinity, to an ultimate reality or lived as a spiritual relationship.
Practices
Contemplation
Long, receptive, and non-utilitarian attention to a reality, text, nature, work or divine presence.
Bases & Benchmarks
Mystical
A set of ways and experiences oriented towards an immediate union, proximity or knowledge of the divine or ultimate.
Practices
Pilgrimage
A journey to a place recognized as sacred or significant, accomplished to pray, honor, ask, thank or transform.
Practices
Spiritual fast
A voluntary and temporary abstinence, often food, practiced in a religious setting of prayer, repentance, solidarity or self-control.
Practices
Rite of passage
A ritual that accompanies a change in status, age, responsibility or membership in a community.
Spiritual Concepts
Faith
Trust and commitment to God, revelation, path or promise, which are not limited to scientific opinion or evidence.
Spiritual Concepts
Grace
In Christian theologies, the free gift of God that saves, transforms or sustains the human being without being earned as a salary.
Universal values
Mercy
Active compassion for distress or fault, which seeks to raise up without denying responsibility or justice.
Practices
Meditation March
A slow or attentive walk where the sensations of the body, the pace of the steps and the environment become support of presence.
Buddhist concepts
Sasāra
The conditioned cycle of births, deaths and rebirths, marked by dissatisfaction, whose Indian traditions are seeking various liberation.
Buddhist concepts
Nirvā
In Buddhism, the extinction of greed, hatred and ignorance that put an end to the conditioned suffering and cycle of rebirths.
Buddhist concepts
Impermanence
The changing character of all the composite phenomena: body, emotions, relationships, institutions and conditions of the world.
Buddhist concepts
Dukkha
The unsatisfactory, unstable or painful nature of existence when seized with greed, aversion and ignorance.
Buddhist concepts
Anattā — non-self
Buddhist teaching that no phenomenon of experience constitutes a permanent, autonomous and mastery self.
Buddhist concepts
Mettā — loving kindness
The cultivated wish that beings know security and wellbeing, without possessivity or preference limited to its near circle.
Buddhist concepts
Bodhicitta
In Mahāyāna Buddhism, the awakening spirit that aspires to Buddhism in order to work for the liberation of all beings.
Buddhist concepts
Muditā — altruistic joy
The joy experienced in the face of the happiness, qualities or success of others, without envy or appropriation.
Concepts of India
Ahi
The principle of not harming living beings, interpreted with different demands in Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism and modern movements.
Concepts of India
Mok
In Hindu traditions, the liberation of the cycle of rebirths and ignorance, understood differently according to philosophical and devotional schools.
Concepts of India
Saskāra
A Sanskrit term, depending on the context, refers to fingerprints or mental formations, but also to rites that shape a person during life.
Concepts of India
Mantra
A sound or verbal form transmitted for recitation, meditation, rite or invocation in several traditions of India and Asia.
Concepts of India
Ma
A centered ritual configuration representing a sacred domain, cosmology or organized presence of deities in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
Concepts of India
Prā
In Indian traditions, the life-span and subtle functions that animate the body, without direct equivalence with oxygen or energy of physics.
Concepts of India
Ku
In some tantras and yogas, a power represented as loved at the base of the subtle body, whose awakening accompanies a process of transformation.
Concepts of India
Bhakti — devotion
A relationship of participation, love and devotion to a personal divinity, expressed by prayer, singing, service and narrative.
Concepts of India
Sevā — selfless service
Service to a community, person, master or divine, without making personal reward the primary purpose.
Concepts of India
Ātman
In several Hindu traditions, the person's deep self or principle, whose nature and relationship to the absolute vary according to the schools.
Concepts of India
Brahman
In Upanisad and Vedānta, the ultimate reality or absolute foundation, interpreted as undue, qualified or personal according to the schools.
East Asian Concepts
Dào — the Way
In Chinese traditions, the way, course or principle according to which beings and processes unfold; in Taoism, the ultimate Dao escapes fixed definitions.
East Asian Concepts
Wúwei — no action
An unforced mode of action, adjusted to the circumstances and skillful enough not to add unnecessary tension to the process.
East Asian Concepts
Qì — vital breath
In Chinese thoughts, a notion of breath, matter-energy or dynamism that participates in the transformations of the cosmos and the body.
East Asian Concepts
Zen
A Buddhist school family in East Asia focused on meditation, monastic discipline, transmission and direct realization of the awakened nature.
East Asian Concepts
Kami
In the shinto, powers or venerated presences linked to natural phenomena, places, ancestors, remarkable beings or mythical stories.
Abrahamic concepts
Tawsd — Oneness of God
The central affirmation of Islam that God is one, unique and unassociated, principle that guides belief, worship and understanding of the world.
Abrahamic concepts
Dhikr — God's Reminder
In Islam, the reminder or mention of God through recitation, prayer, praise formulas and attention of the heart.
Abrahamic concepts
Baraka — Blessing
In Islamic contexts, a divine blessing associated with people, times, places, words or acts, understood in varying ways according to currents.
Abrahamic concepts
Tikkun olam
A Jewish expression meaning "reparation of the world", whose meanings have evolved from rabbinic law to mystical and then modern social commitment.
Traditions & Cosmologies
Animism
A term d'anthropology used to describe worlds where humans, animals, plants, places or phenomena can be recognized as persons or partners of relationships.
Traditions & Cosmologies
Shamanism
A comparative category from the term evenki šaman, applied to ritual specialists who travel, care, guess or negotiate with spirits in specific traditions.