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Kuan Yin, Hearer-of-Cries
Apr. 22nd, 2014 11:27 amI am of the nature to become ill, and so am snugged up on the sofa under a blanket with my laptop and John Blofield's 1978 book Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin. The book places great emphasis on the difference between Kuan Yin the folk goddess, worshipped by illiterate peasants, and Kuan Yin the celestial Bodhisattva, the subject of erudite study. And of course status, education, circumstances and so on are always going to make a difference in different peoples' approaches to what is ostensibly the same religion; but the smugness about simple folks' quaint, uncomplicated beliefs is unmissable. (ETA: Though on the other hand: "All such mental attitudes, though one may think of them as 'higher' or 'lower' in the sense of exhibiting more or less wisdom and understanding, are probably so far from the ultimate truth that differences in one's level of wisdom becomes negligible.")
Despite my aspirations to being a "book-perfume man", as one of Blofield's informants calls scholars, I can't help feeling the enormous appeal of the peasant's approach: that you don't need all these fancy sutras, the faith and devotion to Kuan Yin, absolutely compassionate and absolutely capable, is enough. Facing her statue at Nan Tien temple last week - with ten thousand eyes, ten thousand hands, a bevy of weapons for sorting out evil influences, and a smile of complete confidence and ease - I found myself becoming completely calm. It's not so much the feeling that nothing bad can happen to you; it's the feeling that, whatever happens, you'll be able to deal with it. The Egyptian demon-slayer gods, like Tutu, have some of this quality as well - responding swiftly to their worshipper's pleas for help, and arriving heavily armed - as does Durga, who dispatches the demon with her armloads of weaponry without breaking a sweat. No wonder I'm a Pagan. I need all the help I can get!
ETA: Or perhaps a preference for help in a concrete, relatable form reflects what Blofeld calls "the streams of compassion energy becoming more tangible with distance from the source."
On a side note, I'm terribly glad of the Buddhist monks offering prayers from the shore towards the South Korean ferry, the Sewol, which has sunk with the loss of hundreds of lives. As hope for finding any more survivors has diminished, the fact that the dead - many of them high school students - are being cared for no less than the living is deeply comforting.
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Blofeld, John. Bodhisattva of compassion : the mystical tradition of Kuan Yin. Boulder Colo. : Shambhala, 1978.
Despite my aspirations to being a "book-perfume man", as one of Blofield's informants calls scholars, I can't help feeling the enormous appeal of the peasant's approach: that you don't need all these fancy sutras, the faith and devotion to Kuan Yin, absolutely compassionate and absolutely capable, is enough. Facing her statue at Nan Tien temple last week - with ten thousand eyes, ten thousand hands, a bevy of weapons for sorting out evil influences, and a smile of complete confidence and ease - I found myself becoming completely calm. It's not so much the feeling that nothing bad can happen to you; it's the feeling that, whatever happens, you'll be able to deal with it. The Egyptian demon-slayer gods, like Tutu, have some of this quality as well - responding swiftly to their worshipper's pleas for help, and arriving heavily armed - as does Durga, who dispatches the demon with her armloads of weaponry without breaking a sweat. No wonder I'm a Pagan. I need all the help I can get!
ETA: Or perhaps a preference for help in a concrete, relatable form reflects what Blofeld calls "the streams of compassion energy becoming more tangible with distance from the source."
On a side note, I'm terribly glad of the Buddhist monks offering prayers from the shore towards the South Korean ferry, the Sewol, which has sunk with the loss of hundreds of lives. As hope for finding any more survivors has diminished, the fact that the dead - many of them high school students - are being cared for no less than the living is deeply comforting.
__
Blofeld, John. Bodhisattva of compassion : the mystical tradition of Kuan Yin. Boulder Colo. : Shambhala, 1978.
