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125-654: The Lotus Sūtra (Sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram , Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma, Chinese : 妙法蓮華經 ) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras . It is the main scripture on which the Tiantai along with its derivative schools, the Japanese Tendai and Nichiren , Korean Cheontae , and Vietnamese Thiên Thai schools of Buddhism were established. It

250-469: A nucleus that has a vowel (which can be a monophthong , diphthong , or even a triphthong in certain varieties), preceded by an onset (a single consonant , or consonant + glide ; a zero onset is also possible), and followed (optionally) by a coda consonant; a syllable also carries a tone . There are some instances where a vowel is not used as a nucleus. An example of this is in Cantonese, where

375-410: A spiritual warrior . Tibetan Buddhists maintain that there are two main ways to cultivate Bodhichitta, the "Seven Causes and Effects" that originates from Maitreya and was taught by Atisha, and "Exchanging Self and Others," taught by Shantideva and originally by Manjushri. According to Tsongkhapa the seven causes and effects are thus: According to Pabongka Rinpoche the second method consists of

500-457: A subject–verb–object word order , and like many other languages of East Asia, makes frequent use of the topic–comment construction to form sentences. Chinese also has an extensive system of classifiers and measure words , another trait shared with neighboring languages such as Japanese and Korean. Other notable grammatical features common to all the spoken varieties of Chinese include the use of serial verb construction , pronoun dropping , and

625-510: A Chinese character is the morpheme, as characters represent the smallest grammatical units with individual meanings in the Chinese language. Estimates of the total number of Chinese words and lexicalized phrases vary greatly. The Hanyu Da Zidian , a compendium of Chinese characters, includes 54,678 head entries for characters, including oracle bone versions. The Zhonghua Zihai (1994) contains 85,568 head entries for character definitions and

750-460: A Pure Land. The Buddha then opens the stupa. Thereafter Prabhūtaratna invites Shakyamuni to sit beside him in the jeweled stupa. This chapter reveals the existence of multiple Buddhas at the same time as well as the idea that Buddhas can live on for countless aeons. According to Donald Lopez "among the doctrinal revelations that this scene intimates is that a buddha does not die after he passes into nirvāna ." Chapter 12: Devadatta The Buddha tells

875-599: A Shanghai resident may speak both Standard Chinese and Shanghainese ; if they grew up elsewhere, they are also likely fluent in the dialect of their home region. In addition to Standard Chinese, a majority of Taiwanese people also speak Taiwanese Hokkien (also called 台語 ; 'Taiwanese' ), Hakka , or an Austronesian language . A speaker in Taiwan may mix pronunciations and vocabulary from Standard Chinese and other languages of Taiwan in everyday speech. In part due to traditional cultural ties with Guangdong , Cantonese

1000-525: A buddha for someone else." According to Reeves, the story of the little Dragon Girl promotes the idea that women can also become Buddhas just like monks. Reeves sees this as an inclusive message which "affirms the equality of everyone and seeks to provide an understanding of Buddha-dharma that excludes no one." Although the term buddha-nature ( buddhadhatu ) is not mentioned in the Lotus Sūtra , Japanese scholars Hajime Nakamura and Akira Hirakawa suggest that

1125-462: A central variety (i.e. prestige variety, such as Standard Mandarin), as the issue requires some careful handling when mutual intelligibility is inconsistent with language identity. The Chinese government's official Chinese designation for the major branches of Chinese is 方言 ; fāngyán ; 'regional speech', whereas the more closely related varieties within these are called 地点方言 ; 地點方言 ; dìdiǎn fāngyán ; 'local speech'. Because of

1250-615: A compromise between the pronunciations of different regions. The royal courts of the Ming and early Qing dynasties operated using a koiné language known as Guanhua , based on the Nanjing dialect of Mandarin. Standard Chinese is an official language of both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan), one of the four official languages of Singapore , and one of

1375-714: A corresponding increase in the number of homophones . As an example, the small Langenscheidt Pocket Chinese Dictionary lists six words that are commonly pronounced as shí in Standard Chinese: In modern spoken Mandarin, however, tremendous ambiguity would result if all of these words could be used as-is. The 20th century Yuen Ren Chao poem Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den exploits this, consisting of 92 characters all pronounced shi . As such, most of these words have been replaced in speech, if not in writing, with less ambiguous disyllabic compounds. Only

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1500-581: A drama consisting of several mythological scenes. According to British writer Sangharakshita , the Lotus uses the entire cosmos for its stage, employs a multitude of mythological beings as actors and "speaks almost exclusively in the language of images." According to Gene Reeves the first part of the sutra "elucidates a unifying truth of the universe (the One Vehicle of the Wonderful Dharma)",

1625-422: A gathering at Vulture Peak , Shakyamuni Buddha goes into a state of deep meditative absorption ( samadhi ), the earth shakes in six ways, and he brings forth a ray of light from the tuft of hair in between his eyebrows ( ūrṇākośa ) which illuminates thousands of buddha-fields in the east. Maitreya wonders what this means, and the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī states that he has seen this miracle long ago when he

1750-576: A millennium. The Four Commanderies of Han were established in northern Korea in the 1st century BCE but disintegrated in the following centuries. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE, and with it the study of scriptures and literature in Literary Chinese. Later, strong central governments modeled on Chinese institutions were established in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, with Literary Chinese serving as

1875-603: A mundane sense, or it can be a pāramitā if it is conjoined with bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is the primary positive factor to be cultivated. The Mahāyāna tradition provides specific methods for the intentional cultivation of both absolute and relative bodhicitta. This cultivation is considered to be a fundamental aspect of the path to Buddhahood . Practitioners of the Mahāyāna make it their primary goal to develop genuine uncontrived bodhicitta, which remains within their mindstreams continuously without having to rely on conscious effort. This

2000-542: A secure reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, the higher-level structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, but has not been convincingly demonstrated. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty . As the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have repeatedly sought to promulgate

2125-508: A sense of timelessness and the inconceivable, often using large numbers and measurements of space and time. Jacqueline Stone writes that the Lotus Sūtra affirms the view that the Buddha constantly abides in our present world. As the Lotus states in chapter 16, the Buddha remains "constantly dwelling in this Sahā world sphere, preaching the dharma, teaching and converting." According to Stone,

2250-508: A similar way to the use of Latin and Ancient Greek roots in European languages. Many new compounds, or new meanings for old phrases, were created in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to name Western concepts and artifacts. These coinages, written in shared Chinese characters, have then been borrowed freely between languages. They have even been accepted into Chinese, a language usually resistant to loanwords, because their foreign origin

2375-678: A single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family . Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese , of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin with 66%, or around 800 million speakers, followed by Min (75 million, e.g. Southern Min ), Wu (74 million, e.g. Shanghainese ), and Yue (68 million, e.g. Cantonese ). These branches are unintelligible to each other, and many of their subgroups are unintelligible with

2500-632: A story about how in a previous life he was a king who became the slave of a rishi just so he could hear the Lotus Sūtra . This rishi was none other than Devadatta, who is destined for Buddhahood in the future as the Buddha Devarāja. In another story, Mañjuśrī praises the nāga king Sāgara's daughter and says she can attain Buddhahood. The bodhisattva Prajñākūṭa is skeptical of this, and then the nāga princess appears. Śāriputra says that women cannot attain Buddhahood. The nāga princess makes an offering to

2625-547: A symbol of Buddha-nature. Zimmermann noted the similarity with the nine parables in the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra that illustrate how the indwelling Buddha in sentient beings is hidden by negative mental states . Chapter 9: Prophecies for the Learners and Adepts Ānanda , Rāhula , and two thousand bhikṣus aspire to get a prophecy, and the Buddha predicts their future Buddhahood. Chapters ten to twenty two expound

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2750-631: A unified standard. The earliest examples of Old Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones dated to c.  1250 BCE , during the Late Shang . The next attested stage came from inscriptions on bronze artifacts dating to the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE), the Classic of Poetry and portions of the Book of Documents and I Ching . Scholars have attempted to reconstruct

2875-413: A unity." Similarly, though there are said to be many Buddhas, they are all closely connected with Shakyamuni and they all teach the same thing. Another important teaching of the Lotus Sūtra is that all beings can become Buddhas. The sutra sees the awakening of a Buddha as the only and ultimate goal, and it claims that "of any who hear the dharma, none shall fail to achieve buddhahood." Numerous figures in

3000-575: A variety of Yue from a small coastal area around Taishan, Guangdong . In parts of South China, the dialect of a major city may be only marginally intelligible to its neighbors. For example, Wuzhou and Taishan are located approximately 260 km (160 mi) and 190 km (120 mi) away from Guangzhou respectively, but the Yue variety spoken in Wuzhou is more similar to the Guangzhou dialect than

3125-600: Is "the primordial essence of our mind, which in itself consists in the supreme bodhi." According to Zoketsu Norman Fischer , bodhicitta is a spontaneous wish to attain enlightenment motivated by great compassion for all sentient beings, accompanied by a falling away of the attachment to the illusion of an inherently existing self. Fischer adds that bodhicitta, along with the mind of great compassion ( mahakaruna ), motivates one to attain enlightenment Buddhahood , as quickly as possible and benefit infinite sentient beings through their emanations and other skillful means. Bodhicitta

3250-602: Is Taishanese. Wuzhou is located directly upstream from Guangzhou on the Pearl River , whereas Taishan is to Guangzhou's southwest, with the two cities separated by several river valleys. In parts of Fujian , the speech of some neighbouring counties or villages is mutually unintelligible. Local varieties of Chinese are conventionally classified into seven dialect groups, largely based on the different evolution of Middle Chinese voiced initials: Proportions of first-language speakers The classification of Li Rong , which

3375-602: Is a felt need to replace others' suffering with bliss. Since the ultimate end of suffering is nirvana , bodhicitta necessarily involves a motivation to help others to awaken (to find bodhi ). Mahayana Buddhist thinkers also developed different models which described different forms and levels of bodhicitta. According to the Bodhisattvabhumi, there are two main stages of the development of bodhicitta: Furthermore, according to Shantideva, there are two types of bodhicitta: A common Tibetan Buddhist distinction

3500-709: Is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in China , as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora . Approximately 1.35 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language . Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of

3625-615: Is also influential for other East Asian Buddhist schools, such as Zen . According to the British Buddhologist Paul Williams , "For many Buddhists in East Asia since early times, the Lotus Sūtra contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha —complete and sufficient for salvation." The American Buddhologist Donald S. Lopez Jr. writes that the Lotus Sūtra "is arguably the most famous of all Buddhist texts ," presenting "a radical re-vision of both

3750-455: Is assisted by numerous methods, contemplation, rituals and meditations, such as: relying on a spiritual friend , taking refuge in the three jewels , and contemplating the defects of samsara (cyclic existence), the benefits of arousing bodhicitta (as well as the downsides of abandoning it), and developing spiritual qualities such as faith ( sraddha ), mindfulness and wisdom ( prajña ). A common practice in various Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions

3875-490: Is called either 华语 ; 華語 ; Huáyǔ or 汉语 ; 漢語 ; Hànyǔ ). Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. The governments of both China and Taiwan intend for speakers of all Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore, it is used in government agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools. Diglossia is common among Chinese speakers. For example,

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4000-416: Is heard from within praising the Lotus Sūtra . The Buddha states that another Buddha resides in the stupa, Prabhūtaratna , who attained awakening through the Lotus Sūtra and made a vow to make an appearance to verify the truth of the Lotus Sūtra whenever it is preached. Countless manifestations of Shakyamuni Buddha in the ten directions are now summoned by the Buddha into this world, transforming it into

4125-773: Is immeasurable and that therefore, he did not really pass on into final Nirvana (he only appeared to do so as upāya ), but is still active teaching the Dharma . The earliest known Sanskrit title for the sūtra is the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra , which can be translated as "the Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma " or "The Discourse on the White Lotus of the True Doctrine." In English,

4250-558: Is none other than the myriad skillful means which are its expressions and modes. As the Buddha says in the sutra, "seek as you will in all ten directions, there is no other vehicle, apart from the upāyas of the buddhas." The One Vehicle is associated with the Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle"), which is a path that rejects the cutting off of rebirth (the individual nirvana or "extinction" of the Buddhist saint ) and seeks to heroically remain in

4375-603: Is often described as a 'monosyllabic' language. However, this is only partially correct. It is largely accurate when describing Old and Middle Chinese; in Classical Chinese, around 90% of words consist of a single character that corresponds one-to-one with a morpheme , the smallest unit of meaning in a language. In modern varieties, it usually remains the case that morphemes are monosyllabic—in contrast, English has many multi-syllable morphemes, both bound and free , such as 'seven', 'elephant', 'para-' and '-able'. Some of

4500-445: Is only about an eighth as many as English. All varieties of spoken Chinese use tones to distinguish words. A few dialects of north China may have as few as three tones, while some dialects in south China have up to 6 or 12 tones, depending on how one counts. One exception from this is Shanghainese which has reduced the set of tones to a two-toned pitch accent system much like modern Japanese. A very common example used to illustrate

4625-453: Is only one single vehicle to Buddhahood, i.e. the Mahāyāna. The sutra emphasizes that this is not a lie, but a compassionate salvific act. Chapter 4: Belief and Understanding Four senior disciples including Mahākāśyapa address the Buddha. They tell the parable of the poor son and his rich father (sometimes called the "prodigal son" parable). This man left home and became a beggar for 50 years while his father became incredibly rich. One day

4750-509: Is overjoyed. The senior disciples say that they are like the son, because initially they did not have the confidence to accept full Buddhahood, but today they are happy to accept their future Buddhahood. Chapter 5: The Parable of Medicinal Herbs This parable says that the Dharma is like a great monsoon rain that nourishes many different kinds of plants in accordance with their needs. The plants represent Śrāvakas , Pratyekabuddhas , and Bodhisattvas, and all beings which receive and respond to

4875-668: Is specifically meant. However, when one of the above words forms part of a compound, the disambiguating syllable is generally dropped and the resulting word is still disyllabic. For example, 石 ; shí alone, and not 石头 ; 石頭 ; shítou , appears in compounds as meaning 'stone' such as 石膏 ; shígāo ; 'plaster', 石灰 ; shíhuī ; 'lime', 石窟 ; shíkū ; 'grotto', 石英 ; 'quartz', and 石油 ; shíyóu ; 'petroleum'. Although many single-syllable morphemes ( 字 ; zì ) can stand alone as individual words, they more often than not form multi-syllable compounds known as 词 ; 詞 ; cí , which more closely resembles

5000-465: Is that between relative and absolute (or ultimate) bodhicitta. Relative bodhicitta is a state of mind in which the practitioner works for the good of all beings as if it were their own. Absolute bodhicitta is the wisdom of shunyata (śunyatā, a Sanskrit term often translated as "emptiness", though the alternatives "vast expanse" or "openness" or "spaciousness" probably convey the idea better to Westerners). In his book Words of My Perfect Teacher ,

5125-578: Is the defining quality of the Mahayana bodhisattva (a being striving towards Buddhahood ) and the act of giving rise to bodhicitta ( bodhicittotpāda) is what makes a bodhisattva a bodhisattva. The Daśabhūmika Sūtra explains that the arising of bodhicitta is the first step in the bodhisattva's career. Etymologically, the word is a combination of the Sanskrit words bodhi and citta . Bodhi means "awakening" or "enlightenment". Citta derives from

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5250-489: Is the largest reference work based purely on character and its literary variants. The CC-CEDICT project (2010) contains 97,404 contemporary entries including idioms, technology terms, and names of political figures, businesses, and products. The 2009 version of the Webster's Digital Chinese Dictionary (WDCD), based on CC-CEDICT, contains over 84,000 entries. The most comprehensive pure linguistic Chinese-language dictionary,

5375-480: Is the lofty motivation to "strive to bring a complete end to all the sufferings of others along with their own suffering...This bodhicitta results from deep compassion ( karuna ) for the suffering of others." According to the Bodhisattvabhumi , the bodhisattva who gives rise to bodhicitta thinks thus: O may I obtain supreme and perfect Enlightenment, promote the good of all beings, and establish them in

5500-592: Is to recite bodhisattva vows and aspiration prayers or chants which help give rise to bodhicitta. One popular chant in India and presently throughout the Mahayana world is the Bhadracaripraṇidhāna ( Vows of Good Conduct ) or Ārya-samantabhadra-caryā-praṇidhāna-rāja ( The Royal Vow to follow the Noble Course of Conduct of Samantabhadra ), a verse aspiration prayer which appears at the end of some versions of

5625-595: Is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it. There is also a bodhicitta mantra which is recited in some traditions of esoteric Buddhism. The Sanskrit mantra is: Oṃ Bodhicittam Utpādayāmi (Om I aspire to develop the Awakened mind). Among the many methods for developing uncontrived bodhicitta given in Tibetan Mahāyāna teachings are: In Lojong 's 59 slogans, Point Two: The main practice, which is training in absolute and relative bodhicitta. When only realizing Śūnyatā ,

5750-501: Is used as an everyday language in Hong Kong and Macau . The designation of various Chinese branches remains controversial. Some linguists and most ordinary Chinese people consider all the spoken varieties as one single language, as speakers share a common national identity and a common written form. Others instead argue that it is inappropriate to refer to major branches of Chinese such as Mandarin, Wu, and so on as "dialects" because

5875-500: Is used in education, media, formal speech, and everyday life—though Mandarin is increasingly taught in schools due to the mainland's growing influence. Historically, the Chinese language has spread to its neighbors through a variety of means. Northern Vietnam was incorporated into the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) in 111 BCE, marking the beginning of a period of Chinese control that ran almost continuously for

6000-552: Is used in the Language Atlas of China (1987), distinguishes three further groups: Some varieties remain unclassified, including the Danzhou dialect on Hainan , Waxianghua spoken in western Hunan , and Shaozhou Tuhua spoken in northern Guangdong . Standard Chinese is the standard language of China (where it is called 普通话 ; pǔtōnghuà ) and Taiwan, and one of the four official languages of Singapore (where it

6125-428: Is very complex, with a large number of consonants and vowels, but they are probably not all distinguished in any single dialect. Most linguists now believe it represents a diasystem encompassing 6th-century northern and southern standards for reading the classics. The complex relationship between spoken and written Chinese is an example of diglossia : as spoken, Chinese varieties have evolved at different rates, while

6250-665: The Avatamsaka sutra . This text, originally an independent set of verses, is cited in numerous sources and was known to figures like Bhavya , Śantideva , and Kamalaśīla . One short prayer for bodhicitta which is very popular in Tibetan Buddhism was composed by the Indian paṇḍita Dīpaṁkaraśrījñāna ( Atiśa ): In Sanskrit: buddhaṁ ca dharmaṁ ca gaṇottamaṁ ca yāvad dhi bodhiṁ śaraṇaṁ prayāmi dānādikr̥ tyaiś ca kr̥ tair mayaibhir buddho bhaveyaṁ jagato hitāya In

6375-753: The Qieyun rime dictionary (601 CE), and a late period in the 10th century, reflected by rhyme tables such as the Yunjing constructed by ancient Chinese philologists as a guide to the Qieyun system. These works define phonological categories but with little hint of what sounds they represent. Linguists have identified these sounds by comparing the categories with pronunciations in modern varieties of Chinese , borrowed Chinese words in Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, and transcription evidence. The resulting system

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6500-555: The Excellent Part to Omniscience: Vast Expanse Heart Essence . Invocation; Confession; Faith with Refuge : Mind Series Bodhichitta nature in the channels, inner air, and tigles ; Mandala of essence, nature, and compassion; Generation: Illusory perceptions like the moon reflecting in the water. Follow like Manjushree to dedicate with the aspiration to realize the innermost meaning and realize to attain Buddhahood as

6625-533: The Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese languages, and today comprise over half of their vocabularies. This massive influx led to changes in the phonological structure of the languages, contributing to the development of moraic structure in Japanese and the disruption of vowel harmony in Korean. Borrowed Chinese morphemes have been used extensively in all these languages to coin compound words for new concepts, in

6750-465: The Lotus is like digging a well and finding only dry earth, while a bodhisattva that knows the Lotus is like striking water. The Buddha also says that he will send emanations to protect the teachers of the sutra. Chapter 11: The Emergence of the Jeweled Stupa A massive jeweled stupa (a stylized Buddhist reliquary burial mound ) rises from the earth and floats in the air. Then a voice

6875-410: The Lotus Sūtra also teaches that the Buddha has many embodiments and these are the countless bodhisattva disciples. These bodhisattvas choose to remain in the world to save all beings and to keep the teaching alive. For Reeves "the fantastically long life of the Buddha, in other words, is at least partly a function of and dependent on his being embodied in others." The sutra is presented in the form of

7000-532: The Lotus Sūtra is the idea that the Buddha's lifespan is immeasurable and that he is still present in the world. The text states that the Buddha actually achieved Buddhahood innumerable eons ago, but remains in the world to help teach beings the Dharma time and again. The lifespan of the Buddha is said to be incalculable, beyond imagination, "ever enduring, never perishing." The biography and apparent death ( paranirvana , "final nirvana") of Sakyamuni Buddha (i.e.,

7125-596: The Lotus Sūtra : "Ever since I became a buddha, I have used a variety of causal explanations and a variety of parables to teach and preach, and countless skillful means to lead living beings." The Lotus Sūtra declares also all other teachings are subservient to, propagated by and in the service of the ultimate truth of the "One Buddha–Vehicle", a goal that is available to all. This can and has been interpreted by some figures in an exclusive and hierarchical sense, as meaning that all other Buddhist teachings are to be dispensed with. However, Reeves and other interpreters understand

7250-710: The May Fourth Movement beginning in 1919. After the fall of the Northern Song dynasty and subsequent reign of the Jurchen Jin and Mongol Yuan dynasties in northern China, a common speech (now called Old Mandarin ) developed based on the dialects of the North China Plain around the capital. The 1324 Zhongyuan Yinyun was a dictionary that codified the rhyming conventions of new sanqu verse form in this language. Together with

7375-595: The National Language Unification Commission finally settled on the Beijing dialect in 1932. The People's Republic founded in 1949 retained this standard but renamed it 普通话 ; 普通話 ; pǔtōnghuà ; 'common speech'. The national language is now used in education, the media, and formal situations in both mainland China and Taiwan. In Hong Kong and Macau , Cantonese is the dominant spoken language due to cultural influence from Guangdong immigrants and colonial-era policies, and

7500-522: The Tibetan practices of tonglen and lojong . Without the absolute, the relative can degenerate into pity and sentimentality, whereas the absolute without the relative can lead to nihilism and lack of desire to engage other sentient beings for their benefit. Mahāyāna Buddhist practice focuses on the Bodhisattva-ideal , which begins with the arousing of bodhicitta. Mahāyāna teaches that

7625-471: The Tibetan Buddhist teacher Patrul Rinpoche describes three degrees of bodhicitta: According to Patrul Rinpoche, the way of the shepherd bodhisattva is the best and highest way. Some bodhicitta practices emphasize the absolute (e.g. vipaśyanā ), while others emphasize the relative (e.g. metta ), but both aspects are seen in all Mahāyāna practice as essential to enlightenment, especially in

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7750-478: The oracle bone inscriptions created during the Shang dynasty c.  1250 BCE . The phonetic categories of Old Chinese can be reconstructed from the rhymes of ancient poetry. During the Northern and Southern period , Middle Chinese went through several sound changes and split into several varieties following prolonged geographic and political separation. The Qieyun , a rime dictionary , recorded

7875-596: The phonology of Old Chinese by comparing later varieties of Chinese with the rhyming practice of the Classic of Poetry and the phonetic elements found in the majority of Chinese characters. Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differs from Middle Chinese in lacking retroflex and palatal obstruents but having initial consonant clusters of some sort, and in having voiceless nasals and liquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe an atonal language with consonant clusters at

8000-497: The 1) preliminary practice, 2) main practice, and 3) concluding practice. The preliminary practice is training in the four boundless qualities. The main practice is arousing Bodhicitta and taking vows. The concluding practice is training in what to adopt and guarding without fail against what to avoid. The Ancient Tibetan school preliminary practice cycle in the Samantabhadra to Longchenpa to Jigme Lingpa 's lineage of

8125-631: The 12-volume Hanyu Da Cidian , records more than 23,000 head Chinese characters and gives over 370,000 definitions. The 1999 revised Cihai , a multi-volume encyclopedic dictionary reference work, gives 122,836 vocabulary entry definitions under 19,485 Chinese characters, including proper names, phrases, and common zoological, geographical, sociological, scientific, and technical terms. The 2016 edition of Xiandai Hanyu Cidian , an authoritative one-volume dictionary on modern standard Chinese language as used in mainland China, has 13,000 head characters and defines 70,000 words. Bodhicitta Bodhicitta

8250-666: The Buddha Gautama) are portrayed as an illusory manifestation, a skillful means meant to teach others. The idea that the physical death of a Buddha is the termination of their life is graphically refuted by the appearance of another Buddha, Prabhūtaratna , who has taught the Lotus countless aeons ago. The Lotus Sūtra indicates that not only can multiple Buddhas exist in the same time and place (which contrasts with earlier Indian views), but that there are countless streams of Buddhas extending throughout all of space and through unquantifiable eons of time. The Lotus Sūtra illustrates

8375-521: The Buddha of a precious jewel and then says she can reach Buddhahood faster than she made that offering. She then turns into a male bodhisattva and becomes a Buddha. Through these stories, the Buddha teaches that everyone can become enlightened – men, women, animals, and even the most sinful murderers. Chinese language Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 汉语 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ ; lit. ' Han language' or 中文 ; Zhōngwén ; 'Chinese writing')

8500-511: The Buddha vehicle ( buddhayāna ). This concept is set forth in detail in chapters 3–9, using parables , narratives of previous existences and prophecies of awakening. Chapter 2: Skillful Means Shakyamuni explains his use of skillful means to adapt his teachings according to the capacities of his audience. He also says that his ways are inconceivable. Śāriputra asks the Buddha to explain this and five thousand monks leave because they do not want to hear this teaching. The Buddha then reveals that

8625-553: The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Best among Assemblies, I go for refuge until awakening; by the good deeds of giving, etc., performed by me, may I become a Buddha In East Asian Buddhism, reciting Sramana Zhiyi's four-fold bodhisattva vow formula is a common method of developing bodhicitta, they are: Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them all; Afflictions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them all; Dharma doors are boundless, I vow to master them all; Buddhahood

8750-565: The Buddhist path and of the person of the Buddha ." Two central teachings of the Lotus Sūtra have been very influential for Mahāyāna Buddhism . The first is the doctrine of the One Vehicle , which says that all Buddhist paths and practices lead to Buddhahood and so they are all actually " skillful means " of reaching Buddhahood. The second is the idea that the lifespan of the Buddha

8875-565: The Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet . English words of Chinese origin include tea from Hokkien 茶 ( tê ), dim sum from Cantonese 點心 ( dim2 sam1 ), and kumquat from Cantonese 金橘 ( gam1 gwat1 ). The sinologist Jerry Norman has estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible varieties of Chinese. These varieties form a dialect continuum , in which differences in speech generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though

9000-523: The Sanskrit root cit , and means "that which is conscious" (i.e., mind or consciousness). Bodhicitta may be translated as "awakening mind" or "mind of enlightenment". It is also sometimes translated as "the thought of enlightenment." The term bodhicitta is defined and explained in different ways by different Mahayana Buddhist sources. According to Paul Williams, the basic meaning of bodhicitta in Indian sources (such as Atisha's Bodhipathapradipa )

9125-504: The assembly are confused. The Buddha responds with the parable of the burning house, in which a father (symbolizing the Buddha) uses the promise of various toy carts to get his children (sentient beings) out of a burning house (symbolizing samsara ). Once they are outside, he gives them all one large cart to travel in instead. This symbolizes how the Buddha uses the three vehicles , as skillful means to liberate all beings – even though there

9250-440: The broader motivation of achieving one's own enlightenment "in order to help all sentient beings" is the best possible motivation one can have for any action, whether it be working in one's vocation, teaching others, or even making an incense offering. The Six Perfections ( Pāramitās ) of Buddhism only become true "perfections" when they are done with the motivation of bodhicitta. Thus, the action of giving (Skt. dāna ) can be done in

9375-403: The concept is implicitly present in the text. An Indian commentary (attributed to Vasubandhu ), interprets the Lotus Sūtra as a teaching of buddha-nature and later East Asian commentaries tended to adopt this view. Chinese commentators pointed to the story of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging in chapter 20 as evidence that the Lotus taught buddha-nature implicitly. Another key concept introduced by

9500-613: The conducive causes and auspicious conditions should be complete for bodhicitta to properly arise. After continued training, these qualities can arise in the mind without contrivance. The two main traditions in taking the Bodhicitta vows are: 1) Nagarjuna 's profound view chariot and, 2) Asanga 's vast conduct chariot. After which this is guarded with what to avoid, and what to adopt. The practice can be divided into three parts: 1) mind training, 2) arousing bodhicitta, and 3) training in what to adopt and what to avoid. These can be called

9625-399: The different spoken dialects varies, but in general, there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more polysyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which

9750-484: The difficulties involved in determining the difference between language and dialect, other terms have been proposed. These include topolect , lect , vernacular , regional , and variety . Syllables in the Chinese languages have some unique characteristics. They are tightly related to the morphology and also to the characters of the writing system, and phonologically they are structured according to fixed rules. The structure of each syllable consists of

9875-576: The end of the syllable, developing into tone distinctions in Middle Chinese. Several derivational affixes have also been identified, but the language lacks inflection , and indicated grammatical relationships using word order and grammatical particles . Middle Chinese was the language used during Northern and Southern dynasties and the Sui , Tang , and Song dynasties (6th–10th centuries CE). It can be divided into an early period, reflected by

10000-542: The final and complete nirvana and in the Buddha-knowledge! Thus, according to the Bodhisattvabhumi , bodhicitta has two objects of thought or themes ( alambana ): bodhi and the good of the living beings ( sattv-ārtha ). Similarly, in the Ornament of Realization ( Abhisamayālaṁkāra ), bodhicitta is defined as follows: The arising of the mind [of awakening] is a desire for perfect, complete Bodhi, for

10125-413: The first one, 十 , normally appears in monosyllabic form in spoken Mandarin; the rest are normally used in the polysyllabic forms of respectively. In each, the homophone was disambiguated by the addition of another morpheme, typically either a near-synonym or some sort of generic word (e.g. 'head', 'thing'), the purpose of which is to indicate which of the possible meanings of the other, homophonic syllable

10250-481: The following meditations: The practice and realization of bodhicitta are independent of sectarian considerations, since they are fundamentally a part of the human experience. Bodhisattvas are not only recognized in the Theravāda school of Buddhism, but in all other religious traditions and among those of no formal religious tradition. The present fourteenth Dalai Lama , for instance, regarded Mother Teresa as one of

10375-491: The form of a word), to indicate a word's function within a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical inflections —it possesses no tenses , no voices , no grammatical number , and only a few articles . They make heavy use of grammatical particles to indicate aspect and mood . In Mandarin, this involves the use of particles such as 了 ; le ; ' PFV ', 还 ; 還 ; hái ; 'still', and 已经 ; 已經 ; yǐjīng ; 'already'. Chinese has

10500-618: The government of the People's Republic of China, with Singapore officially adopting them in 1976. Traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and among Chinese-speaking communities overseas . Linguists classify all varieties of Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language family , together with Burmese , Tibetan and many other languages spoken in the Himalayas and the Southeast Asian Massif . Although

10625-522: The hundreds of miseries of existence, who long to relieve creatures of their sorrows, who long to enjoy many hundreds of joys, must never abandon bodhicitta. When bodhicitta has arisen in him, a wretch, captive in the prison of existence, he is straightway hailed son of the Sugatas [the Buddhas], to be revered in the worlds of gods and men. According to Paul Williams , bodhicitta in early Mahāyāna works

10750-586: The language of administration and scholarship, a position it would retain until the late 19th century in Korea and (to a lesser extent) Japan, and the early 20th century in Vietnam. Scholars from different lands could communicate, albeit only in writing, using Literary Chinese. Although they used Chinese solely for written communication, each country had its own tradition of reading texts aloud using what are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations . Chinese words with these pronunciations were also extensively imported into

10875-528: The late 19th century. Today Japanese is written with a composite script using both Chinese characters called kanji , and kana. Korean is written exclusively with hangul in North Korea, although knowledge of the supplementary Chinese characters called hanja is still required, and hanja are increasingly rarely used in South Korea. As a result of its historical colonization by France, Vietnamese now uses

11000-540: The magic city represents the "Hinayana Nirvana", created merely as a rest stop by the Buddha, and the real treasure and ultimate goal is Buddhahood. Chapter 8: Prophecy for Five Hundred Disciples Pūrṇa Maitrāyaṇī­putra is declared by the Buddha to be the supreme teacher in his saṅgha and is given a prediction of future Buddhahood (his name will be Dharmaprabhāsa). The Buddha then gives prophecies of future Buddhahood to twelve hundred arhats. The five hundred arhats who had walked out before confess that they were ignorant in

11125-455: The more conservative modern varieties, usually found in the south, have largely monosyllabic words , especially with basic vocabulary. However, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs in modern Mandarin are disyllabic. A significant cause of this is phonetic erosion : sound changes over time have steadily reduced the number of possible syllables in the language's inventory. In modern Mandarin, there are only around 1,200 possible syllables, including

11250-425: The mutual unintelligibility between them is too great. However, calling major Chinese branches "languages" would also be wrong under the same criterion, since a branch such as Wu, itself contains many mutually unintelligible varieties, and could not be properly called a single language. There are also viewpoints pointing out that linguists often ignore mutual intelligibility when varieties share intelligibility with

11375-583: The nasal sonorant consonants /m/ and /ŋ/ can stand alone as their own syllable. In Mandarin much more than in other spoken varieties, most syllables tend to be open syllables, meaning they have no coda (assuming that a final glide is not analyzed as a coda), but syllables that do have codas are restricted to nasals /m/ , /n/ , /ŋ/ , the retroflex approximant /ɻ/ , and voiceless stops /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , or /ʔ/ . Some varieties allow most of these codas, whereas others, such as Standard Chinese, are limited to only /n/ , /ŋ/ , and /ɻ/ . The number of sounds in

11500-465: The needs of their disciples. This concept of Buddhist pedagogical strategies is often explained through parables or allegories . In the Lotus Sūtra , the many 'skillful' or 'expedient' practices and teachings taught by the Buddha (including the " three vehicles " to awakening) are revealed to all be part of the "One Vehicle" (Skt.: ekayāna , Ch.:一乘; yīchéng ), the supreme and all encompassing path that leads to Buddhahood. Moreover, this single vehicle

11625-420: The one vehicle in a more pluralist and inclusive sense which embraces and reconciles all Buddhist teachings and practices. Some have even applied this universalism to non-Buddhist teachings. Reeves also notes that the theme of unity and difference also includes other ideas besides the One Vehicle. According to Reeves "on more than one occasion, for example, the many worlds of the universe are brought together into

11750-538: The other varieties within the same branch (e.g. Southern Min). There are, however, transitional areas where varieties from different branches share enough features for some limited intelligibility, including New Xiang with Southwestern Mandarin , Xuanzhou Wu Chinese with Lower Yangtze Mandarin , Jin with Central Plains Mandarin and certain divergent dialects of Hakka with Gan . All varieties of Chinese are tonal at least to some degree, and are largely analytic . The earliest attested written Chinese consists of

11875-436: The past and attached to the inferior nirvana but now they are overjoyed since they have faith in their future Buddhahood. The arhats tell the parable of a man who has fallen asleep after drinking and whose friend sews a jewel into his garment. When he wakes up he continues a life of poverty without realizing he is really rich, he only discovers the jewel after meeting his old friend again. The hidden jewel has been interpreted as

12000-430: The practitioner might not benefit others, so the Mahayana path unites emptiness and compassion, this keeps from falling into the two limits and remaining on the middle way. Traditionally, Bodhisattvas practice meditative concentration at the beginning toward attaining the noble one's wisdom level, then the main practice becomes benefiting others spontaneously, unlike other paths that might discontinue benefiting others. All

12125-404: The rate of change varies immensely. Generally, mountainous South China exhibits more linguistic diversity than the North China Plain . Until the late 20th century, Chinese emigrants to Southeast Asia and North America came from southeast coastal areas, where Min, Hakka, and Yue dialects were spoken. Specifically, most Chinese immigrants to North America until the mid-20th century spoke Taishanese ,

12250-552: The related subject dropping . Although the grammars of the spoken varieties share many traits, they do possess differences. The entire Chinese character corpus since antiquity comprises well over 50,000 characters, of which only roughly 10,000 are in use and only about 3,000 are frequently used in Chinese media and newspapers. However, Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words. Because most Chinese words are made up of two or more characters, there are many more Chinese words than characters. A more accurate equivalent for

12375-509: The relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic . Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact. In addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach and are often also sensitive border zones. Without

12500-470: The request of his sixteen sons, he then taught the Lotus Sūtra for a hundred thousand eons. His sons proceeded to teach the sutra. The Buddha then says that these sons all became Buddhas and that he is one of these. The Buddha also teaches a parable about a group of people seeking a great treasure who are tired of their journey and wish to quit. Their guide creates a magical illusory city for them to rest in and then makes it disappear. The Buddha explains that

12625-415: The role of the bodhisattva and the concept of the immeasurable and inconceivable lifespan and omnipresence of the Buddha. The theme of propagating the Lotus Sūtra which starts in chapter 10, continues in the remaining chapters. Chapter 10: The Dharma teachers The Buddha states that whoever hears even just one line from the sūtra will attain Buddhahood. This chapter presents the practices of teaching

12750-520: The sake of others (Skt. cittotpādaḥ parārthāya samyaksambodhikāmatā) According to Indian sources, the bodhicitta aspiration provides incalculable merit (such as good rebirths , a weakening of the defilements , increased mindfulness and luck). Bodhicitta is what makes someone a Mahayana bodhisattva, a child of the Buddha. Thus, the Indian Buddhist author Shantideva (8th century) writes in his Bodhicaryavatara : Those who long to transcend

12875-575: The same One Vehicle in different forms. Chapter 6: Bestowal of Prophecy The Buddha prophesies the future Buddhahood of Mahākāśyapa , Mahā­maudgalyāyana , Subhūti , and Mahākātyāyana . Chapter 7: A Past Buddha and the Illusory City The Buddha tells a story about a past Buddha called Mahābhijñā­jñānābhibhū, who reached awakening after aeons under the Bodhi tree and then taught the four noble truths and dependent origination. At

13000-413: The second part "sheds light on the everlasting personal life of the Buddha (Everlasting Original Buddha); and the third part emphasizes the actual activities of human beings (the bodhisattva way)." The following chapter by chapter overview is based on the expanded Chinese version of Kumārajīva, the most widely translated version into other languages. Other versions have different chapter divisions. During

13125-551: The shortened form Lotus Sūtra is more common. Translations of this title into Asian languages include the following: The Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) regarded the title as the summary of the Lotus Sūtra 's teachings. The chanting of the title is the basic religious practice he advocated during his lifetime. The Lotus Sūtra is known for its extensive instruction on skillful means (Sanskrit: upāyakauśalya or upāya , Ch.: fangbian , Jp.: hōben ), which refers to how Buddhas teach in many ways adapted to

13250-496: The simplest forms of devotion will eventually reach Buddhahood. The Buddha also states that those who reject and insult the Lotus Sūtra (and those who teach it) will be reborn in hell. Chapter 3: The Parable of the Burning House The Buddha prophesies that in a future eon ( kalpa ) Śāriputra will become a Buddha called Padmaprabha. Śāriputra is happy to have heard this new teaching, but says that some in

13375-517: The six official languages of the United Nations . Standard Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and was first officially adopted in the 1930s. The language is written primarily using a logography of Chinese characters , largely shared by readers who may otherwise speak mutually unintelligible varieties. Since the 1950s, the use of simplified characters has been promoted by

13500-561: The slightly later Menggu Ziyun , this dictionary describes a language with many of the features characteristic of modern Mandarin dialects. Up to the early 20th century, most Chinese people only spoke their local variety. Thus, as a practical measure, officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties carried out the administration of the empire using a common language based on Mandarin varieties , known as 官话 ; 官話 ; Guānhuà ; 'language of officials'. For most of this period, this language

13625-403: The son arrives at the father's estate, but the son does not recognize his father and is afraid of such a powerful man. The father therefore sends low class people to offer him a menial job cleaning trash. For over 20 years, the father gradually leads his son to more important and better jobs, such as being the accountant for all the father's wealth. Then one day he announces his identity and the son

13750-663: The sutra receive predictions of future Buddhahood, including the ultimate Buddhist villain Devadatta . In chapter 10, the Buddha points out that all sorts of people will become Buddhas, including monks, nuns, laypeople, along with numerous non-human beings like nagas. Even those, who practice only simple forms of devotion, such as paying respect to the Buddha, or drawing a picture of the Buddha, are assured of their future Buddhahood . According to Gene Reeves, this teaching also encourages this potential for Buddhahood in all beings, even in enemies as well as "to realize our own capacity to be

13875-415: The sutra which includes accepting, embracing, reading, reciting, copying, explaining, propagating it, and living in accordance with its teachings. The teachers of the Dharma ( dharmabhāṇaka ) are praised as the messengers of the Buddha. The Buddha states that they should be honored as if they were Buddhas and that stupas should be built wherever the sutra is taught, recited or written. Someone who does not know

14000-460: The sūtra has also been interpreted as promoting the idea that the Buddha's realm ( buddhakṣetra ) "is in some sense immanent in the present world, although radically different from our ordinary experience of being free from decay, danger and suffering." In this view, which is very influential in Tiantai and Japanese Buddhism , "this world and the pure land are not, ultimately, separate places but are in fact non dual ." According to Gene Reeves,

14125-461: The teachings according to their respective capacities. Some versions of the sutra also contain other parables, such as one which compares the Dharma to the light of the Sun and moon, which shine equally on all. Just like that, the Buddha's wisdom shines on everyone equally. Another parable found in some versions says that just like a potter makes different types of pots from the same clay, the Buddha teaches

14250-455: The three vehicles ( yānas ) are really just skillful means, and that they are in reality the One Vehicle ( ekayāna ). He says that the ultimate purpose of the Buddhas is to cause sentient beings "to obtain the insight of the Buddha" and "to enter the way into the insight of the Buddha." The Buddha also states the various benefits for those who preserve the sutra, and that those who perform even

14375-623: The tonal distinctions, compared with about 5,000 in Vietnamese (still a largely monosyllabic language), and over 8,000 in English. Most modern varieties tend to form new words through polysyllabic compounds . In some cases, monosyllabic words have become disyllabic formed from different characters without the use of compounding, as in 窟窿 ; kūlong from 孔 ; kǒng ; this is especially common in Jin varieties. This phonological collapse has led to

14500-547: The traditional Western notion of a word. A Chinese cí can consist of more than one character–morpheme, usually two, but there can be three or more. Examples of Chinese words of more than two syllables include 汉堡包 ; 漢堡包 ; hànbǎobāo ; 'hamburger', 守门员 ; 守門員 ; shǒuményuán ; 'goalkeeper', and 电子邮件 ; 電子郵件 ; diànzǐyóujiàn ; 'e-mail'. All varieties of modern Chinese are analytic languages : they depend on syntax (word order and sentence structure), rather than inflectional morphology (changes in

14625-512: The use of tones in Chinese is the application of the four tones of Standard Chinese, along with the neutral tone, to the syllable ma . The tones are exemplified by the following five Chinese words: In contrast, Standard Cantonese has six tones. Historically, finals that end in a stop consonant were considered to be " checked tones " and thus counted separately for a total of nine tones. However, they are considered to be duplicates in modern linguistics and are no longer counted as such: Chinese

14750-439: The welfare of all sentient beings and to attain buddhahood for their sake - is really the distilled essence, the squeeze juice, of all the Buddha's teachings, because ultimately, the Buddha's intention is to lead all sentient beings to perfect enlightenment. Some modern East Asian authors on Buddhism, such as D.T. Suzuki and M. Anesaki , define bodhicitta as an immanent inner awakening. For example, Anesaki writes that bodhicitta

14875-452: The words in newspapers, and 60% of the words in science magazines. Vietnam, Korea, and Japan each developed writing systems for their own languages, initially based on Chinese characters , but later replaced with the hangul alphabet for Korean and supplemented with kana syllabaries for Japanese, while Vietnamese continued to be written with the complex chữ Nôm script. However, these were limited to popular literature until

15000-399: The world of suffering to help others attain awakening , all while working towards complete Buddhahood. In the Lotus Sūtra , the One Vehicle encompasses many different and seemingly contradictory teachings because the Buddha's great compassion and wish to save all beings ( bodhicitta ) led him to adapt the teaching to suit many different kinds of people and contexts. As the Buddha states in

15125-517: The written language used throughout China changed comparatively little, crystallizing into a prestige form known as Classical or Literary Chinese . Literature written distinctly in the Classical form began to emerge during the Spring and Autumn period . Its use in writing remained nearly universal until the late 19th century, culminating with the widespread adoption of written vernacular Chinese with

15250-453: Was a koiné based on dialects spoken in the Nanjing area, though not identical to any single dialect. By the middle of the 19th century, the Beijing dialect had become dominant and was essential for any business with the imperial court. In the 1930s, a standard national language ( 国语 ; 國語 ; Guóyǔ ), was adopted. After much dispute between proponents of northern and southern dialects and an abortive attempt at an artificial pronunciation,

15375-551: Was a student of the Buddha Candrasūryapradīpa. He then says that the Buddha is about to expound his ultimate teaching, The White Lotus of the Good Dharma . In fact, Mañjuśrī says this sutra was taught by other Buddhas innumerable times in the past. Modern scholars suggest that chapters 2–9 contain the original form of the text. In Chapter 2 the Buddha declares that there ultimately exists only one path, one vehicle,

15500-485: Was hidden by their written form. Often different compounds for the same concept were in circulation for some time before a winner emerged, and sometimes the final choice differed between countries. The proportion of vocabulary of Chinese origin thus tends to be greater in technical, abstract, or formal language. For example, in Japan, Sino-Japanese words account for about 35% of the words in entertainment magazines, over half

15625-464: Was less well defined and meant a "certain state of mind" characteristic of a bodhisattva. According to Ulrich Pagel, numerous Mahāyāna sūtras, like the Bodhisattvapiṭaka , see the arising of bodhicitta ( bodhicittotpāda ) as an ongoing process which must be constantly refurbished (rather than as a static event). According to the 14th Dalai Lama , bodhicitta is: the aspiration to bring about

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