Prajñā

Prajñā is Buddhist wisdom that sees reality without the distortions of ignorance and attachment. It is cultivated through insight rather than acquired as information alone.

Avidyā: Avidyā is ignorance or misapprehension that obscures the nature of reality in Buddhist thought. Prajñā counteracts the misperception that Buddhist teachings identify as the root of suffering.
Noble Eightfold Path: The Noble Eightfold Path is the Buddhist path of ethical conduct, mental cultivation, and wisdom leading to the cessation of suffering. Prajñā is cultivated through the path’s wisdom factors, especially right view and right intention.
Prajñā (Hindu philosophy): In Hindu philosophical traditions, prajñā can denote higher discernment or consciousness, with meanings shaped by particular schools. The shared Sanskrit term carries meanings distinct from Buddhist wisdom about reality and non-self.
Prajñāpāramitā: Prajñāpāramitā is the Mahāyāna teaching and literature on the perfection of wisdom, especially insight into emptiness. It develops prajñā as wisdom that realizes the emptiness of phenomena.
Anātman: Anātman is the Buddhist teaching that persons lack a permanent, independent self. Seeing the absence of a fixed self is a central expression of prajñā.
Vipassanā: Vipassanā is a Buddhist meditation practice that develops insight into experience and its characteristics. It trains close observation through which insight into impermanence and non-self can arise.
Śraddhā: Śraddhā is confidence or trust in Buddhist teachings and the possibility of awakening. Confidence can support practice, but prajñā entails discerning insight rather than trust alone.
Heart Sutra: The Heart Sutra is a short Mahāyāna scripture teaching emptiness through the language of the five aggregates. Its famous account of form and emptiness presents prajñā in a concise scriptural form.
Dependent origination: Dependent origination is the Buddhist teaching that phenomena arise through conditions and relationships. Prajñā sees things as conditioned rather than independently existing.
Śamatha: Śamatha is a meditation practice that develops mental calm and stability. Concentration can steady the mind for discerning insight, though calm alone is not prajñā.

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