法 fǎ = 氵 (shuǐ, water) + 去 (qù, to go). The simplified and traditional forms are identical here; the modern shape is the streamlined version of a longer archaic graph. The water radical on the left is the key to the old meaning. A water surface always settles dead level, and that level is the natural emblem of fairness: the law as the line everyone is measured against, with no side standing higher than another. The right element 去 carries the sense of going forth, the law flowing out evenly to all. So the character pairs water as a standard of levelness with 去 as the going-out of that standard.

From this image of level, flowing measure, four senses spread across thousands of words:

1. Law, statute. The rule that binds everyone equally: 法律 fǎlǜ (law), 法院 fǎyuàn (court of law), 合法 héfǎ (lawful), 违法 wéifǎ (to break the law).
2. Method, way of doing. The settled procedure for a task: 方法 fāngfǎ (method), 办法 bànfǎ (a way; a solution), 用法 yòngfǎ (usage; how a thing is used).
3. The Buddhist Dharma. The teaching and the truth it points to: 佛法 Fófǎ (the Buddhist teaching), 法师 fǎshī (a Dharma master).
4. France, in proper names. Chosen for its sound: 法国 Fǎguó (France), 法语 Fǎyǔ (the French language).

The thread running through every sense is a fixed standard you measure against. Whether the standard is the statute, the proven method, or the Dharma, 法 is the level line that water finds on its own, the rule that holds true wherever it is laid.

When Buddhism crossed into China, translators reached for 法 to render the Sanskrit dharma, and the fit was natural. Dharma means at once the teaching of the Buddha and the underlying truth or law of how things are, so the Chinese 法 with its sense of a fixed, impartial standard carried the idea cleanly. 佛法 Fófǎ is the body of Buddhist teaching; 说法 shuōfǎ is to expound the Dharma (and in everyday speech, a way of putting something); 法师 fǎshī is a master of the Dharma, a respectful title for a learned monk.

So the single glyph 法 spans a remarkable range. In a courtroom it is the statute. In a workshop it is the proven method. In a temple it is the cosmic law the Buddha awakened to. The common thread is the same standard that the water radical first set down: a truth that holds level and even, whether written in a legal code or realized in meditation.

Picture a still pool of water finding its own level, flat and even from edge to edge. That level surface is the heart of 法: a standard that holds true the same for everyone, with no side raised above another. The water radical 氵 on the left is the pool; the 去 on the right is that levelness going forth into the world.

From the one image, follow the senses out. Lay the level over a society and it becomes the law (法律), enforced in the court (法院). Lay it over a task and it becomes the proven method (方法), the way that reliably works. Lay it over the cosmos and it becomes the Dharma (佛法), the truth a Buddha awakens to. Whenever you meet 法, look for the standard being measured against, and you will find the level water beneath it.