Guanyin

Early on I became enchanted with the figure of the celestial bodhisattva (one who refuses to pass into eternal nirvana in order to to save mortal beings) Guanshiyin.  Although originally exclusively male in representation, Guanyin (whose full name means "Regarder of the Cries of the World") is now regarded by half of Asia (and, increasingly, in the West) as female, though not unambiguously so.  In the transition from male to female there was a period when Guanyin was pictured with feminine facial features and a mustache.  And even without the mustache, Guanyin was rarely pictured with breasts, except in Chinese folk (as opposed to Buddhist monastic) art.

I have images and statues and jewelry with the image of Guanyin (also spelled Kuan Yin, Kwan Yin, Quan Yin) all over my house in every room except the bathrooms.  My favorite icon was fashioned for me by my prayer partner Tanya Sydney who, if you ask nicely and pay a few extra bucks, will lay glitter and rhinestones expertly on key lines and points of a classic art print.  This image is unabashedly fabulous.  When it catches the light it is magical.

Guanyin's glitter and flat-chested androgyny suggest an early middle-aged auntie, the sort of gay man many of us remember from before the days of liberation:  the soft, pudgy, feminine man who was at home in caftans, muumuus, or turbans, and who, at his/her best, could be turned to for warm advice born out of bittersweet experience.  The Guanyin of my icon is regally dressed with a tiara, soft and indeed slightly pudgy, and with just the hint of a cookie duster on her upper lip.

A transvestite archangel might seem an odd choice as a tutelary spirit, but she has been with me in this way for 40 years.  I talk with her, I pray with her, I exchange joy with her.  I find words from Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali apropos of our prismatic relationship:

Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.

In the Lotus Sutra, Guanyin's chief role is to assume whatever persona is necessary to bring people to the Dharma (the truth of the world as it is: impermanent, without enduring substance, interdependent).  She does so by relieving one's life's dramas so as to free us to understand how life really is.  This she does by her supreme gift of abhaya (non-fear).  What keeps us from seeing the world as impermanent, without enduring substance, and interdependent, is the fear of loss of all we hold close and dear to prevent this realization:  our intransigence, craving, avarice, envy, ignorance, hatred, delusion, and pride, among others.  Guanyin works to dislodge these fears (as so understood in Buddhism) so we can experience life in its fearless fullness.

Is Guanyin 'real' or merely a metaphor, a pious fiction, an imaginary friend?  In the end it matters only if a relationship with her is fruitful or not.  Returning to my prayer from my last blog post, whatever healing (which is not to say curing) occurs from my actions on my own behalf is Guanyin's response.  She is the nurturing, life-affirming, and compassionate impulses amidst the destructive, murderous, and selfish actions of the many.

I take refuge with she who hears our fears.

Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

Poem 57, 1913