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
- Community
- Compassion
- Craving
- Dependent origination
- Dharma
- Eightfold Path
- Emptiness
- Five Precepts
- Four Noble Truths
- Happiness
- Heavens and hells
- Impermanence
- Karma
- Koan
- Kung fu
- Meditation
- Merit
- Mindfulness
- Nirvana
- Non-self
- Om (mani padme hum)
- Parinirvana
- Pilgrimage sites
- Prajnaparamita
- Puja
- Pure lands
- Realms of existence
- Rebirth
- Recitation
- Renunciation
- Ritual
- Self
- Suffering
- Tales of rebirth
- Three Jewels
- Three-body doctrine
- Universal ruler
- Vesak
- Ye-dhamma formula
- Yoga
Recitation
Doctrines and rituals
Recitation (Lat. recitatio, ‘reading aloud’) refers to the spoken rendering of a text. In Buddhism, the rhythmic rendering or chanting of a text, aloud or in silence, is an important ritual practice that serves various purposes. For instance, it is a way of learning a text by heart or passing it on by word of mouth. But recitation also serves as an exercise in meditation. Moreover, believers can ask the deities for support by reciting ritual invocations.