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空门 (kōng mén) — (Buddhism) the gate of emptiness; the Buddhist path or monastic life

Definition

空门 refers to the Buddhist monastic life — someone who 'enters 空门' becomes a monk or nun and leaves secular life behind. Read this meaning only with the Buddhism sense, not with the unrelated everyday word 空 (empty).

noun
(Buddhism) the gate of emptinessthe Buddhist path or monastic life

Examples

  • ，空门。
    Tā kàn pò hóng chén, zuì hòu dùn rù le kōng mén.
    He saw through the vanity of the world and finally entered the monastic life.
  • 空门。
    kōng mén Shì fó jiào zhōng zhòng yào de gài niàn zhī yī.
    The gate of emptiness is one of the important concepts in Buddhism.
  • 空门。
    Zhè bù xiǎo shuō miáo xiě le yí wèi sēng rén cóng kōng mén dào shì sú de zhuǎn biàn.
    This novel describes a monk's transition from the monastic life to the secular world.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

空kōngemptiness
门méngate

The 空 emptiness 门 gate names the Buddhist path as entering a gate of unreality.

Characters in this word

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
穴穴xuécave, hole
Sound part声符shēngfú
工
工gōng空kōng
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

空 is built from 穴, a cave or hole, and 工, which gives the sound.

Open 空 →

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 門; 门 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 門 pictures a gate as two door shapes side by side; the simplified 门 is a later shorthand.

Open 门 →
Appears in
Religion & Belief

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