慈悲为本 — Chinese idiom
慈悲为本
cí bēi wéi běn
Traditional: 慈悲為本
Meaning
- mercy as the guiding principle ; the Buddhist teaching that nothing is valid except compassion
Character by character
- 慈cígentle, humane, kind, merciful
- 悲bēisorrow, sadness, grief; to be sorry
- 为wéito do, to act; to handle, to govern; to be
- 本běnroot, origin, source; basis
Idioms sharing a character
- 大发慈悲 dà fā cí bēi
- 心慈手软 xīn cí shǒu ruǎn
- 慈眉善目 cí méi shàn mù
- 父慈子孝 fù cí zǐ xiào
- 兔死狐悲 tù sǐ hú bēi
- 大放悲声 dà fàng bēi shēng
- 悲不自胜 bēi bù zì shèng
- 悲歌当哭 bēi gē dàng kū
- 悲痛欲绝 bēi tòng yù jué
- 悲声载道 bēi shēng zài dào
Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.