The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1156 page)

Jew
.

A person descended from a Jewish mother or who has formally converted to Judaism. According to the
halakhah
, Jewish descent is from the maternal line. Even an
apostate
is counted as a full Jew. Gentiles who wish to identify with Judaism have to undergo full ritual conversion, including
circumcision
for men, and
mikveh
.

 
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Jewel net of Indra
(image of the interconnectedness of all things)
:

see
HUA-YEN
.

 
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Jewel Ornament of Liberation
(Tibetan Buddhist text)
:

see
GAMPOPA
.

 
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Jewish Theological Seminary
(JTS)

The educational centre of
Conservative Judaism
. The Jewish Theological Seminary was founded in New York in 1887. Today the Seminary trains
rabbis
, cantors, teachers, and
synagogue
administrators.

 
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Jews’ College
.

Orthodox
rabbinical seminary in London. Jews’ College was founded in 1855 to train
rabbis
and teachers for the English-speaking world.

 
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(P
li, Skt., ‘meditation’, ‘absorption’; Chin.,
ch’an
; Jap.,
zen
). In traditional Buddhism, the scheme of meditational practice which leads to
sam
dhi;
the different stages within that scheme; any kind of mental concentration or effort.
The system of
meditation
known as Buddhist Jh
na is composed of eight successive steps, called jh
nas: the four lower jh
nas or ‘meditations on form’ (
r
pajjh
n
) and the four higher jh
nas or ‘meditations on the formless’ (
ar
pajjh
n
).
Meditation proceeds with the selection of a suitable object (
kasi
a
) upon which to fix one's gaze. This object (parikamma-
nimitta
, visual image) is then contemplated until one is capable of forming in the mind's eye a replica image as vivid as the sensation of the original object. The meditator continues to contemplate the idealized image until he finds that methods become a disturbance to him, and he eliminates them; by so doing he enters the second jh