ABC
Religious texts
Religious schools and traditions
Heavenly beings and deities
Legendary and historical figures
Legendary and real places
Symbols and art
Doctrines and rituals
- Awakening
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- Om (mani padme hum)
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- Ritual
- Self
- Suffering
- Tales of rebirth
- Three Jewels
- Three-body doctrine
- Universal ruler
- Vesak
- Ye-dhamma formula
- Yoga
Yidam
Heavenly beings and deities
Yidam (Tib., Skt. sadhita) means ‘divinity within the heart’, and denotes a group of meditational deities. They embody certain qualities and aspects of spiritual awakening with which meditators identify during their practice (meditation). In Tibetan schools of Vajrayana Buddhism, the teacher selects an appropriate yidam for his student. The chosen yidam becomes the practitioner’s protective deity who helps to remove obstacles on the path to spiritual awakening. Yidams can appear in their peaceful or wrathful forms. Bodhisattvas or other deities can also be seen as personal meditational deities.