There are 2 total results for your houben search.
| Characters | Pronunciation Romanization |
Simple Dictionary Definition |
放免 see styles |
houmen; houben / homen; hoben ほうめん; ほうべん |
(noun, transitive verb) release (from custody); discharge; liberation; setting free; letting go; letting off; acquittal |
方便 see styles |
fāng biàn fang1 bian4 fang pien houben / hoben ほうべん |
convenient; suitable; to facilitate; to make things easy; having money to spare; (euphemism) to relieve oneself (1) means; expedient; instrument; (2) {Buddh} upaya (skillful means, methods of teaching); (surname) Houben upāya. Convenient to the place, or situation, suited to the condition, opportune, appropriate; but 方 is interpreted as 方法 method, mode, plan, and 便 as 便用 convenient for use, i. e. a convenient or expedient method; also 方 as 方正 and 便 as 巧妙, which implies strategically correct. It is also intp. as 權道智 partial, temporary, or relative (teaching of) knowledge of reality, in contrast with 般若智 prajñā, and 眞實 absolute truth, or reality instead of the seeming. The term is a translation of 傴和 upāya, a mode of approach, an expedient, stratagem, device. The meaning is— teaching according to the capacity of the hearer, by any suitable method, including that of device or stratagem, but expedience beneficial to the recipient is understood. Mahāyāna claims that the Buddha used this expedient or partial method in his teaching until near the end of his days, when he enlarged it to the revelation of reality, or the preaching of his final and complete truth; Hīnayāna with reason denies this, and it is evident that the Mahāyāna claim has no foundation, for the whole of its 方等 or 方廣 scriptures are of later invention. Tiantai speaks of the 三乘 q. v. or Three Vehicles as 方便 expedient or partial revelations, and of its 一乘 or One Vehicle as the complete revelation of universal Buddhahood. This is the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, which itself contains 方便 teaching to lead up to the full revelation; hence the terms 體内 (or 同體 ) 方便, i. e. expedient or partial truths within the full revelation, meaning the expedient part of the Lotus, and 體外方便 the expedient or partial truths of the teaching which preceded the Lotus; see the 方便品 of that work, also the second chapter of the 維摩經. 方便 is also the seventh of the ten pāramitās. |
Information about this dictionary:
Apparently, we were the first ones who were crazy enough to think that western people might want a combined Chinese, Japanese, and Buddhist dictionary.
A lot of westerners can't tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese - and there is a reason for that. Chinese characters and even whole words were borrowed by Japan from the Chinese language in the 5th century. Much of the time, if a word or character is used in both languages, it will have the same or a similar meaning. However, this is not always true. Language evolves, and meanings independently change in each language.
Example: The Chinese character 湯 for soup (hot water) has come to mean bath (hot water) in Japanese. They have the same root meaning of "hot water", but a 湯屋 sign on a bathhouse in Japan would lead a Chinese person to think it was a "soup house" or a place to get a bowl of soup. See this: Japanese Bath House
This dictionary uses the EDICT and CC-CEDICT dictionary files.
EDICT data is the property of the Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, and is used in conformance with the Group's
license.
Chinese Buddhist terms come from Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms by William Edward Soothill and Lewis Hodous. This is commonly referred to as "Soothill's'". It was first published in 1937 (and is now off copyright so we can use it here). Some of these definitions may be misleading, incomplete, or dated, but 95% of it is good information. Every professor who teaches Buddhism or Eastern Religion has a copy of this on their bookshelf. We incorporated these 16,850 entries into our dictionary database ourselves (it was lot of work).
Combined, these cover 1,007,753 Japanese, Chinese, and Buddhist characters, words, idioms, names, placenames, and short phrases.
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