Thanks everyone!!! You wont believe how much this has helped me already I go to a local buddhist centre and have done so off and on for a few years now... it is Tibetan buddhism - mahayana practice. I'm really enjoying it but just lately I got so confused because of the way the translator was translating - its almost like we need a translator for the translator (not disrespect to him of course) so how he was translating had me thinking all the stuff mentioned above - so I was beginning to think there was something wrong with me. So it has been a great help reading all this stuff... and it sinking in, without me feeling like an absolute dummy