Buddhist Lay Persons
In Buddhism, a layperson is known as an upasaka (masc.) or upasika (fem.). Buddhist laypeople take refuge in the Triple Gem (the Buddha, his teaching, and his community of noble disciples) and accept the Five Precepts (or the Eight Precepts) as rules for conduct. Laymen and laywomen are two of the "four assemblies" that comprise the Buddha's "Community of Disciples."
In Chinese Buddhism, there are usually laypersons, who are depicted wearing a black robe and sometimes a brown sash, denoting that they received the five precepts.
Read more about this topic: Laywoman
Famous quotes containing the words lay and/or persons:
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
—Unknown. Now I Lay Me Down to Take My Sleep (l. 1–4)
“In our Mechanics’ Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenter’s planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments,—rain-gauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who note the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)