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is there a Buddhist dictionary for beginners?
jae
Veteran
Good morning.....I'm enjoying this new learning but at the mo I'm using a samsung tab and I have to keep finding translations of these new words...its time consuming (one finger typing that is!) 
...thats not the issue its the fact that once I've found the meaning I've forgotten what I was reading about!...help please 
...thats not the issue its the fact that once I've found the meaning I've forgotten what I was reading about!...help please 0
Comments
Theravada Buddhism uses Pali.
Mahayana Buddhism tends to use Sanskrit.....
@Jason will probably give you some wise direction - certainly on the Theravada route....
Maitri - Sanskrit.
Sutta - Pali
Sutra - Sanskrit
Dhamma - pali
Dharma - Sanskrit
Kamma - Pali
Karma - Sanskrit
Buddha - hell, that's everyone's guy!
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Shambhala-Dictionary-Buddhism-Zen/dp/0877735204
I can entirely relate to your desire to know, but honestly, as one who has walked your path, you really don't need a dictionary to know every single term...
Buddhanet is useful....
And this site will be useful for Pali terminology, (main site home page) but don't think you need to learn these by heart; even some of the most erudite and learned scholars of buddhism use English terminology to describe Buddhist terms....
Boddhisatva - Basic Buddha model, keen on being kind
Buddha - Non sleeping human
Buddhism - Still awaiting agreed definition
Emptiness - the space for awakening between ones ears
Impermanence - Dharma weathering
Karma - a form of wish and curse fulfilment
Paranirvana - a post death non event for Buddhas
Pureland - Quantum dimension for dead Buddhas
Meditation - sitting around as if it is hard
Nirvana - A state of being free from Buddhists and other suffering
Sangha - a flock of monks
Sutra - dogma, like 'gospel truth', Buddhist style
Tantra - Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
Zen - Autistic enlightenment
Hope that is helpful
@Lobster....great start merci
@robot.....excellent tres bien
FeDerica gave you a good link to that glossary of buddhist terms.
also this link "the list of buddhist lists" may be helpful in organizing a lot of the words you're starting to learn - http://www.leighb.com/listlist.htm .... or it may confuse you even more! lol
http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/index.php
I'm curious about something, you seem positively frantic to learn, do you have some sort of deadline? Enthusiasm is a good thing but the dharma is something one spends a lifetime, perhaps many lifetimes learning. What's the rush? Slow down and smell the lotus blossom.
Metta
1. Its the way I am (manic maybe!) And yes I want to slow down one day...
2. And prob more relevant at the moment I'm on my 6th day of abstinance from alcohol...my partner is currently sitting next to me with a beer ....learning...chatting...venting my spleen is giving me a better focus...that knot in my core (addiction) is gradually loosening but too often it squeezes my attention ....then I try to look at it contemplate it and it seems to take the pressure off...learning is good for me
It is already a real challenge that the Buddha used common Hindu words to describe his system, which to date has created a lot of argument about if the Buddha was just trying to be helpful (sort of the way a computer scientist might call a computer a brain, even though the computer-is-a-brain is at best a strained analogy)-- or was he trying to define Buddhism in contract to hinduism, or is Buddhism just a lightly modified version of hinduism (hinduism for export is a phrase that comes to my mind). Hinduism has the exact same words (dukka, moksha, etc) but uses them differently- imho, different enough as to not be the same. Add to that the fact that by 500-600 AD in India, Buddhism had borrowed just about everything else from Hinduism and it gets really hard to separate the two and how they are using common vocabulary.
And the Buddhist jargon has several layers of meaning-- Buddha meaning "awake (not sleeping)", but also in a jargon sense, "enlightened"-- Bikkhu means monk, but also, its just the ordinary word for beggar, like the one the city police round up every few days and throw in jail.
Ever consider a meditation retreat? Would give you a week or two of focus.
Metta
I have been thinking of how I would go about finding a retreat would love to do that...
http://www.dhamma.org/en/alphalist.shtml
Which do you think is Pali, and which is Sanskrit?
I speak a little french not as much as I would like to.... Guernsey was once French...all the road names are in French ....France is closer to us than UK...we even had our own dialect ...sadly not taught in our schools
I have used French as I'm getting bored with the English version and with all the help I'm getting its being well used....
AlsoI have a rather odd facination with learning how to say thank you in different languages! Drives my partner to distraction when we are shopping and I ask the person at the till what nationality they are...he normally legs it at that point
Shame about the dialect not being taught. Save it from dying as a language....
I lived in France (Near Dijon) for 7 years or so. loved it. Miss it, a bit, but not in all ways. (That's a whole different topic....)
I think learning other languages is more precious than anything. You inherit a whole new culture, cuisine, way of living through it.
Good job!
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html
http://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/dic_idx.html
Mahayana:
http://www.sutrasmantras.info/glossary.html
Tibetan tradition:
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/x/nav/n.html_2081523022.html