Kuan Yin is God
During this week I have been following the spectacle of
violence in the Middle East as Israelis and Palestinians, Jews
and Muslims, battle for control of their sacred sites. They hate
each other for many reasons, and I am not even going to attempt
to say who is in the right or who has been more grievously
wronged. But it has struck me that one of the things that drive
them into a frenzy of hatred is their differing ideas about who
God is and what God expects from us. So this sparked the
following reflections that I would like to share with you today.
Who is God? What is He like? And what does He want from us? These
are the questions that people in our culture often wonder about.
These are the questions that strike at the heart of our hopes and
our fears. I, at least, grew up wondering about these questions,
and now that I have embraced the Buddha, the Dharma and the
Sangha, I have found a very different perspective from those I
had growing up.
Who is God? Those who grew up in a Judeo-Christian or Islamic
environment understand that this is a question about the Creator,
the one who brought all of this into existence and who, to one
extent or another, directs our lives in fulfillment of His divine
plan. I say “He” deliberately by the way, because our
culture is still very patriarchal and of course masculinity is
considered the privileged, powerful, normative and authoritative
sex and these are the qualities that Western theology attributes
to God. God, in Judeo-Christian and Islamic cultures is the
powerful creator and ruler of the universe, the father of us all.
He is the dignified and stern gentleman with the gray beard of
wisdom and the spotless toga of the Roman emperors as portrayed
on the Sistine Chapel. Now, I will point out here that this is
not the God of Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides, or Averrhoes,
the greatest theologians of Christianity, Judaeism, and Islam
respectively. But it is the image that most people have because
it is the image they grew up with since childhood and the one
that is reinforced by the arts, TV and the movies. Isn’t
this the God whose deep voice bellows at Charleton Heston in the
Ten Commandments and whose fiery fingers inscribed the laws of
Western civilization in stone?
Now, again, I am not concerned with what the Bible or the
theologians actually teach. What I am concerned about here is the
God that most people seem to believe in and the God that I grew
up believing. This God was a person like my father or
grandfather. But unlike my own father, God seemed to be much more
stern and aloof. God demanded and expected perfection and the
best behavior at all times -- no excuses. He was always ready to
forgive, but only providing we were very sorry and would agree to
play by the rules and accept the deal that He offered for our
salvation. No questions asked and no reading the fine print! To
question or have doubts is to show a lack of respect and
acceptance of that deal. So this was a God who demanded
perfection knowing we could not live up to it, and who expected
our unthinking obedience and belief in His religion if we were to
be saved. On top of that, this was a God who would only save
those who were fortunate enough to be able to believe in the
religion that He revealed. Consequently, I spent a good part of
my life trying to figure out exactly what God wanted me to
believe so that I could get on His good side.
But this image of God is one that I have long since abandoned. It
took me a little longer to grow out of this Hollywood and Sunday
School image of God, but eventually this God joined Santa Claus
and the Easter Bunny and other childhood ideas and fantasies. In
the meantime, I had embraced the Buddha Dharma -- the teachings
of Shakyamuni Buddha who had awakened from delusion to the
ultimate truth about our lives.
What does Buddhism tell us about God then? What did it tell me
about God? Did becoming a Buddhist leave me in a universe without
a God? In a way, yes, but in another way not at all. I say yes,
because if God is the Creator, then there can not be a God in
Buddhism because there is no such thing as a one-time creation or
a final apocalyptic end. The universe is an open-ended and
interdependent process, and so are our lives. The idea that there
are definitive beginnings and endings or absolute boundaries
between things or beings is viewed by Buddhism as part of the
delusion that reinforces our selfishness and sense of alienation
from all that exists. So we can not talk of a supreme creator in
Buddhism because there is no creation -- there is only reality
just as it is, beyond words or concepts. This reality we must see
for ourselves and deal with directly and not through a fog of
creation myths or metaphysical speculations.
So is this reality an impersonal absolute? Is it a mystic void?
Or perhaps it is like the Force in Star Wars? But these are also
speculations and cold abstractions. None of them can describe the
living reality which Buddhism helps us to awaken to. I think,
however, that the best way of putting it is that while Buddhism
does not view the ultimate reality as a person, it nevertheless
views it as very personal. In other words, the ultimate reality
is not a cosmic grandfather with a flowing beard, a toga and the
proper genitalia, but is something that defies any category while
still being the source of loving-kindness, compassion, joy and
the peace that surpasses understanding. One who awakens to this
reality (which is what the word Buddha means: “Awakened
One”) awakens to that which is the pure, blissful, eternal
and true nature of all life.
This reality becomes known, or makes itself known, through the
lives and teachings of the buddhas and bodhisattvas. In other
words, those who awaken to this reality realize that they are
this reality and they are the ones who embody this reality in a
way that allows others to awaken to it. Ultimate reality may be
the source of compassion and wisdom, but it only becomes actual
compassion and wisdom in the lives of those who awaken to it.
Buddhas are the ones who are fully enlightened to this and they
invite us to come and learn from them. The bodhisattvas, on the
other hand, are the more active aspect of this awakening.
Motivated by compassion, the bodhisattvas remain involved in the
world over innumerable lifetimes to help lead people to the
buddhas and to their own buddhahood.
One of these you have all seen many times -- Kuan Yin
Bodhisattva, whose name means Regarder of the Cries of the
World. She is the graceful figure I am sure many of you have
seen decorating some restaurants or being sold in tourist shops
in Chinatown. She is the one who is dressed in simple robes and
is either holding a vase or sometimes a child. She almost seems
to be the Asian equivalent of the Virgin Mary and in some ways
she is. But she is actually more than that. In the 25th chapter
of the Lotus Sutra, she is shown to be one of the most
exalted of all the bodhisattvas, whose compassion reaches
throughout the universe and whose assists all those who call on
her name. The 25th chapter also tells us that she is not really a
“she” at all, or a “he” either. Kuan Yin is
formless but able to take on any form that will best help others.
Of the 33 forms that chapter 25 lists, one of those is Isvara,
the Indian name for the personal God who is the creator and
savior of humankind. The Lotus Sutra is actually saying
that God is our perception of Kuan Yin Bodhisattva, the Regarder
of the Cries of the World.
Now let’s be sure we understand what the sutra is really
trying to tell us. It is not saying that God is actually a
Chinese goddess or a Buddhist bodhisattva. It is saying that our
image or concept of God rests upon a deeper reality, and that
deeper reality is compassion and wisdom which is formless but
which can take on any form to inspire and assist us. In order to
teach us this, the sutra describes Kuan Yin Bodhisattva who
personifies the true nature of reality and embodies the
compassion which springs from it. This universal and
compassionate activity is perceived as the presence of God. In
other words, according to Buddhism, what we call the presence of
God is actually the universally compassionate activity of the
true nature of reality.
The most important thing about the chapter on Kuan Yin
Bodhisattva in the Lotus Sutra is that when the other
bodhisattvas try to give her offerings she refuses. When she does
finally accept, after the Buddha asks her to, she splits the
offering between Shakyamuni Buddha and the stupa of Many
Treasures Tathagata. This is important because it unequivocally
shows that the bodhisattvas, those who embody the compassion of
the ultimate reality, do not want us to worship them. The point
of their compassion is not to win our praise, but to direct us to
the source of compassion and wisdom represented by the Eternal
Shakyamuni Buddha and the stupa of Many Treasures Tathagata.
So who is God? What is He like? And what does He want? According
to my understanding of the Lotus Sutra, God is one way
of perceiving the compassionate activity that flows out of the
ultimate reality which transcends our images and concepts. This
ultimate reality is not a person, but is the very personal source
of compassion and wisdom. The whole purpose of our lives is to
discover this ultimate reality as the true nature of our lives so
that we can join the buddhas and bodhisattvas in embodying its
wisdom and compassion for others.
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