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四威儀

Pronunciations

Basic Meaning: four postures

Senses:

  • Walking 行, standing 住, sitting 坐 (especially in a cross-legged, or meditative posture), and lying down 臥 (see: 行住坐臥) (Skt. catur-vidhacāra, catur-vidhā īryā-pathāḥ; Pāli cattāro iriyā-pathā ; Tib. spyod pa rnam pa bzhi). These four postures, or four means of comportment are said to circumscribe all human activity, especially with regard to monastic practice. If one walks, stands, sits and even sleeps (lies down) in accord with the Vinaya, (i.e. is acting in accord with the Vinaya at all times) then that person is fully undertaking 具備 his monastic vows. In this sense, it is said that "proper comportment 威儀 is none other than 卽 the Buddha-dharma 佛法"  威儀卽佛法. One common formulation for these is that one ought to "Walk like the wind, sit like a bell, stand like a pine tree, and sleep like a bow." 行如風、坐如鐘、立如松、臥如弓. From these four, the details of how monastics are to behave, the 'three thousand types of deportment'  三千威儀 as well as 'eighty-thousand details of practice' " 八萬細行, are derived. [Thomas Newhall; source(s): Nakamura, JEBD, Yokoi, Hirakawa, YBh-Ind,Iwanami]
  • The maintenance of correct deportment while in any of the four postures. [Charles Muller]
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    [Dictionary References]

    Bukkyō jiten (Ui) 392

    Zengaku daijiten (Komazawa U.) 414b

    Iwanami bukkyō jiten 336

    A Glossary of Zen Terms (Inagaki) 334, 335

    Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) 277b/305

    Japanese-English Zen Buddhist Dictionary (Yokoi) 639

    Bukkyōgo daijiten (Nakamura) 574b → , 507d

    Fo Guang Dictionary 1728

    Ding Fubao

    Bukkyō daijiten (Mochizuki) (v.1-6)1714b,107c

    Bukkyō daijiten (Oda) 859-2*1855-2

    (Soothill's) Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms 174

    Copyright provisions

    The rights to textual segments (nodes) of the DDB are owned by the author indicated in the brackets next to each segment. For rights regarding the compilation as a whole, please contact Charles Muller. Please do not reproduce without permission. And please do not copy into Wikipedia without proper citation!

    Entry created: 1993-09-01

    Updated: 2013-01-25