Affiliation Character
In place of a biological generation, the character could be used as an indicator of seniority and peer groups in religious lineages. Thus, in the lay Buddhist circles of Song and Yuan times, it could be Dào (道 ‘Dharma’), Zhì (智 ‘wisdom’), Yuán (圆 ‘Complete/All-embracing’), Pǔ (普 ‘universal’), Jué (觉 ‘Enlightenment’), Shàn (善 ‘Skilful/Virtuous’). The characters demonstrated belonging to a devotionalist group with a social status close to the family one. The affiliation character Miào (妙 ‘Profound/Marvellous’) usually was used by women, relating them to Guanyin, as Miàoshàn (妙善) was her name at birth.
In a same way, taking the monastic vows meant the break with the family lineage, which was shown by application of the surname Shì (释, Thích in Vietnam) in one's Dharma name, the first character of the Shakyamuni Buddha's name in Chinese, Shìjiāmóuní (释迦牟尼).
Read more about this topic: Generation Name
Famous quotes containing the words affiliation and/or character:
“Men seem more bound to the wheel of success than women do. That women are trained to get satisfaction from affiliation rather than achievement has tended to keep them from great achievement. But it has also freed them from unreasonable expectations about the satisfactions that professional achievement brings.”
—Phyllis Rose (b. 1942)
“When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has, moreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom,—it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)