Guanyin and the Thousand Arms
"One Buddhist legend presents Guan Yin as vowing to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from samsara, reincarnation. Despite strenuous effort, she realized that still many unhappy beings were yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, her head split into eleven pieces. Amitabha Buddha, seeing her plight, gave her eleven heads with which to hear the cries of the suffering. Upon hearing these cries and comprehending them, Avalokitesvara attempted to reach out to all those who needed aid, but found that her two arms shattered into pieces. Once more, Amitabha came to her aid and appointed her a thousand arms with which to aid the many. Many Himalayan versions of the tale include eight arms with which Avalokitesvara skillfully upholds the Dharma, each possessing its own particular implement, while more Chinese-specific versions give varying accounts of this number."
Quan Yin came into existence about the same time that the Nestorian Christians entered into Tibet and China. she is such a departure from the Buddhist way of obtaining enlightenment that some believe she is the vision of God's Grace, Jesus in a syncretic form. If she is, is she as much the way to God as Jesus is in the West?
8 comments:
I can just barely wrap my feeble mind around the concept of Wisdom-Sophia-Logos-Jesus, man.
Since the delightful Cyril of Alexandria was involved in all this, it appears it would have behooved Hypatia to skiddadle eastwards with ol Nestorius. :)
ER, keep wrapping.
How very interesting. For some reason a phrase from an old hymn "He hears our faintest cry" comes to mind.
I firmly believe that Jesus is the Way and Gatekeeper to God. I just as firmly believe that He gets to choose who comes to God, not ME.
Perhaps God honors this path, only He knows, I do not. Very interesting.
The Way, yes.
I'll have to think about "Gatekeeper." ... No, I don't. To me, anyway, a gatekeeper is someone who keeps people out of a place. Jesus is like the guy walking around outside a restaurant offering samples, inviting people IN. ... Seems like there's a parable to that effect.
DrLobo! Buy "The Shack" and read it. You'll dig it. ...
Jesus as a "gatekeeper" is an interesting image. Very Calvinist in a way, LDS even. Kuan Yin is imaged as having stood in the gate to heaven, delaying her own entry, to keep it from closing thus keeping it an open way to those on earth. That sounds more like Jesus.
I too am not worried about who God "saves" and who he does not for like the early Christians I believe he will "save" everyone in their own time. I do worry about their refusal to live in the light of grace and extend that to others.
Every Christian should be an "arm" of Christ to reach out to those suffering. But instead of Quan Yin of a thousand arms it would be Christ of millions of arms. The same vision but a different scale, but then in 300 A.D. a "thousand" was almost an inconceivable volume so maybe not a different vision.
bb-idaho said: "Since the delightful Cyril of Alexandria was involved in all this, it appears it would have behooved Hypatia to skiddadle eastwards with ol Nestorius. :)"
I had to ruminate on this one a while.
You know, I have come to understand over my decades that the geographic cure never really rids us of the "Cyrils". They just keep popping up out of the soil itself just like toadstools no matter where we flee to. Also the longer it takes them to get their way with things the meaner they get until they go over the edge. Sometimes, I even think maybe there is some Cyril in me. Maybe we just take him with us.
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