The way The "goal" Background Chinese texts Classical Post-classical Contemporary Zen in Japan Seon in Korea Thiền in Vietnam Western Zen The term "先生", read sensei in Japanese, hsien sheng/xiansheng in Chinese, seonsaeng in Korean, and tiên sinh in Vietnamese, is an honorific used in the Sinosphere.
The two characters that make up the term can be directly translated as "born before" and imply one who teaches based on wisdom from age and experience.
[5] The word prefaced by the adjective 大, pronounced "dai" (or "ō"), which means "great" or "large", is often translated "grand master".
[citation needed] Traditional physicians in the Malay Peninsular and Singapore are addressed among locals with the Hokkien variant sinseh.
However, other schools of Buddhism in Japan use the term for any priest regardless of seniority; for example, the title is also used for Jōdo Shinshū ministers in the United States, whether they are ethnically Japanese or not.