Kwan Yin Quotes

My sister Kwan believes she has yin eyes.

What people need to remember is they are eternal beings and that they never die."~Kuan Yin

We’re allowed to have the Great Mother in our spiritual paradigm if she is docile and tame like Mary, or as the Goddess that saves women in childbirth or men from bombs and typhoons. But would patriarchy have us reclaim the full meaning of the Queen Mother of Compassion, or any Goddess, if it meant embodying her might bring our world into balance and emulating her caused women to no longer serve the status quo? I think looking more deeply at Goddesses like Kwan Yin/Kannon might make the patriarchy very nervous.

To the ancients, bears symbolized resurrection. The creature goes to sleep for a long time, its heartbeat decreases to almost nothing. The male often impregnates the female right before hibernation, but miraculously, egg and sperm do not unite right away. They float separately in her uterine broth until much later. Near the end of hibernation, the egg and sperm unite and cell division begins, so that the cubs will be born in the spring when the mother is awakening, just in time to care for and teach her new offspring. Not only by reason of awakening from hibernation as though from death, but much more so because the she-bear awakens with new young, this creature is a profound metaphor for our lives, for return and increase coming from something that seemed deadened. The bear is associated with many huntress Goddesses: Artemis and Diana in Greece and Rome, and Muerte and Hecoteptl, mud women deities in the Latina cultures. These Goddesses bestowed upon women the power of tracking, knowing, 'digging out' the psychic aspects of all things. To the Japanese the bear is the symbol of loyalty, wisdom, and strength. In northern Japan where the Ainu tribe lives, the bear is one who can talk to God directly and bring messages back for humans. The cresent moon bear is considered a sacred being, one who was given the white mark on his throat by the Buddhist Goddess Kwan-Yin, whose emblem is the crescent moon. Kwan-Yin is the Goddess of Deep Compassion and the bear is her emissary. "In the psyche, the bear can be understood as the ability to regulate one's life, especially one's feeling life. Bearish power is the ability to move in cycles, be fully alert, or quiet down into a hibernative sleep that renews one's energy for the next cycle. The bear image teaches that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressure gauge for one's emotional life, and most especially that one can be fierce and generous at the same time. One can be reticent and valuable. One can protect one's territory, make one's boundaries clear, shake the sky if need be, yet be available, accessible, engendering all the same.

We can rejoice that our world does have many bodhisattvas who can be found on every path of return, sowing seeds of faith, resolve, and confidence. Kwan Yin, for example, always finds ways to be with those who are suffering. She fears nothing, and uses whatever means are appropriate to the circumstance. She takes on whatever form is needed— monk, politician, merchant, scholar, woman, child, god, or demon. Can we listen deeply like Kwan Yin? Using every form and means possible in the spirit of Kwan Yin, we will bring help to our world.

Kwan Yin is the goddess depicted on the front. It is said that when she died and reached the gates of paradise, she paused and heard the cries of anguish from the human world below and could not leave it. She remained to give aid to mortals, when they cannot aid themselves. She is the comfort of all suffering hearts.” “A

Never will I seek nor receive private, individual happiness; never will I enter into final peace alone; but forever, and everywhere, will I live and strive for the happiness of every creature throughout the world. ~Adapted from Kwan-Yin

Peace is at the heart of all because Avalokiteśvara–Kwan Yin, the mighty Bodhisattva, Boundless Love, includes, regards, and dwells within (without exception) every sentient being. The perfection of the delicate wings of an insect, broken in the passage of time, he regards — and he himself is both their perfection and their disintegration. The perennial agony of man, self-torturing, deluded, tangled in the net of his own tenuous delirium, frustrated, yet having within himself, undiscovered, absolutely unutilized, the secret of release: this too he regards — and is. Serene above man, the angels; below man, the demons and unhappy dead: these all are drawn to the Bodhisattva by the rays of his jewel hands, and they are he, as he is they. The bounded, shackled centers of consciousness, myriad-fold, on every plane of existence (not only in this present universe, limited by the Milky Way, but beyond, into the reaches of space), galaxy beyond galaxy, world beyond world of universes, coming into being out of the timeless pool of the void, bursting into life, and like a bubble therewith vanishing: time and time again: lives by the multitude: all suffering: each bounded in the tenuous, tight circle of itself — lashing, killing, hating, and desiring peace beyond victory: these all are the children, the mad figures of the transitory yet inexhaustible, long world dream of the All-Regarding, whose essence is the essence of Emptiness: “The Lord Looking Down in Pity.” But the name means also: “The Lord Who Is Seen Within.”* We are all reflexes of the image of the Bodhisattva. The sufferer within us is that divine being. We and that protecting father are one. This is the redeeming insight. That protecting father is every man we meet. And so it must be known that, though this ignorant, limited, self-defending, suffering body may regard itself as threatened by some other — the enemy — that one too is the God. The ogre breaks us, but the hero, the fit candidate, undergoes the initiation “like a man”; and behold, it was the father: we in Him and He in us.[

Do you hear our sacred roar? We are coming armed with ideals of the Sacred Feminine. We are carrying with us the archetypes of not just Mary and Kwan Yin but Kali, the Morrighan, Libertas and Sekhmet. We’re tired of waiting for you to evolve and do the right thing. No more will we tolerate a world of injustice and inequality. No more will we allow the destruction of Mother Earth. No more will we sit quietly and obediently as our dignity is stripped from us and our futures stolen. No more will our sexuality and reproductive rights be in the hands of religious zealots and their handmaidens. We want partnership. We want accountability. We want dignity and freedom. We want reverence for the earth and all of humanity. We want a world of compassion and empathy where we recognize our interconnection and practice caring and sharing for the 99%. There is enough for all of us if it is equitably distributed.

There’s only one activity that stimulates the brain to produce all seven at the same time, and that’s the ecstatic state of flow. The shortest way there is deep, alpha-driven meditation. When you blend all seven into a single cocktail, the result is euphoria. Let’s see: What might a combination of the first letters of each drug look like? Serotonin, Oxytocin, Norepinephrine, Dopamine, Anandamide, Nitric oxide, and Beta-endorphin? Just for fun, let’s combine them, and call our cocktail’s special blend SONDANoBe. This is the magic formula that, produced inside our own bodies in the proper ratios, bathes the brain in the chemicals of ecstasy. GETTING HIGH ON YOUR OWN SUPPLY When I meditate, I can feel the moment when each drug in the cocktail kicks in. First, I use EFT tapping and release any and every negative thought, emotion, and energy. This drops my level of cortisol, along with suppressing the high beta brain waves of stress. I now have a molecular substrate in my brain upon which I can build a deep and focused meditative experience. Next, I close my eyes and focus. Dopamine kicks in as I anticipate the delicious hormone and neurotransmitter drug cocktail I’m about to be rewarded with. The dopaminergic reward system of my brain fires up and the “body learning” of how to meditate—stored in my basal ganglia, which memorize frequently performed actions—comes online. Ingredient one. My mind starts to wander. My email inbox. The morning’s first meeting. The laugh line of the movie I watched last night. An overdue deadline. Damn, I’m way out of the zone already, cortisol rising, and I haven’t been meditating more than 5 minutes. Dopamine brings me back to focus, aided by norepinephrine. I’m motivated. I want Bliss Brain more than I want an endless loop of the Me Show. I return to center. Cortisol drops. Ahhh, I’m back. Norepinephrine stimulates my attention. Ingredient two. Then I realize that my body is uncomfortable. I have a twinge in my right knee. My lower back hurts. My tummy’s rumbling because it’s empty. I consciously shift my wandering mind back into focus. Back in sync, my neurons secrete beta-endorphin, which masks the pain. The discomfort drops away, and being in a body feels wonderful. Ingredient three. I tune in to each of the archetypal strands that guide me. Mother Mary. Kwan Yin. Healing. Strength. Beauty. Wisdom. I imagine myself meditating in a field of a million saints. I’m lost in Bliss Brain, as serotonin, the satisfaction drug, kicks in. Ingredient four. I feel one with the universe. Oxytocin starts to flow, as I bond with everything. Ingredient five. That releases nitric oxide and anandamide. Ingredients six and seven.

I know that calling to my teachers, or to wisdom figures like Kwan Yin or Avalokiteshvara, is really opening myself to a source of blessings inseparable from my own basic nature.

Today, and each dawn, Elsa lights a candle and burns incense before the ivory porcelain statue of Kwan Yin, Chinese Goddess of Wisdom and Compassion. She builds a fire in the stone fireplace beneath Ella Young's enchanting face, and sits in the curved chair. The cat, Lady Tiki, purrs on her lap. They gaze out the window at the "dancing dryads," madrone, bay laurel, live oak. Rose-lipped fuschias nod at them through the glass. Elsa's beautiful bright eyes watch the flames. She begins to write. Abigail Hemstreet San Anselmo, CA April 1982

The following spirits are safe for everyone: • Archangels Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael • Bodhisattvas Jizo and Kwan Yin • Orisha Obatala • Taoist spirit Miao Shan