Best Of

This thread actually brought me back to a discussion I started here about six years ago, called Advice on adding ritual to practice. It is interesting to read it now because I can see how much my practice has changed since then.

At the time, I was looking for ways to add ritual and devotion to what had largely been a philosophical and meditation-oriented Buddhist practice. I was considering Nembutsu, huatou, Silent Illumination, and eventually the Eight Great Bodhisattvas and various Dharma protectors. I initially thought I needed to find a place for several Bodhisattvas in my practice.

Looking back, I don't think I was trying to “collect” practices. I simply had the feeling that I wasn't doing enough. I thought that if my practice felt incomplete, perhaps the answer was to add something else; another Bodhisattva, another practice, another form of devotion.

What eventually became clear to me was that I didn't actually need more. I needed to go deeper into what was already there.

And in that process, something rather unexpected happened.

I had originally been looking for ways to incorporate multiple Bodhisattvas into my practice. Instead, I found that I needed one.

For me, that became Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara).

She has gradually become much more than an object of devotion or an image representing compassion. She has become the central orientation of my practice. The important distinction for me is that I don't think of Guanyin as someone who is going to save me. Rather, she represents the direction in which I am trying to train my own mind and conduct: learning to listen, to notice suffering, and to respond with compassion.

My practice has consequently become fairly simple at its core, although it is an amalgamation of influences from Chan, Theravada, Tibetan (Vajrayana), and Pureland. Over time, I have drawn practices and teachings from these different traditions that have spoken to the same direction of practice for me.

Sati — awareness.
I cultivate mindfulness and presence, beginning with the breath and extending into ordinary life. The point isn't simply to become more attentive, but to become less lost in habitual thought and reactivity.

Mettā — kindness.
Awareness without kindness can become rather dry. So I deliberately cultivate loving-kindness toward myself and others, and try to carry that into relationships and ordinary interactions.

Karuṇā — compassionate response.
This is where Guanyin becomes particularly important. Compassion isn't simply feeling sorry for someone. It means allowing what I hear and perceive to actually affect how I respond.

And then there is Guanyin herself as the thread running through all of it.

Her name and imagery remind me to listen. The Huatou question “Who is listening?” gives me one way of turning attention inward, while listening to sound gives me a way of turning that same attention outward. In that sense, listening becomes both meditation and ethical practice. The connection isn't something I invented retrospectively; the practices I follow draw on the Buddhist tradition of Guanyin as the one who hears the cries of the world, including practices centered on hearing itself.

So I suppose my answer to the original question is that Bodhisattvas are extremely important to my practice; but I don't really approach them as a collection of supernatural beings I need to incorporate.

I found that one was enough.

Guanyin gives me an image, a practice, an aspiration, and a constant question: Am I actually listening?

And perhaps that is the biggest difference between where I was six years ago and where I am now. Back then I was asking, “What else should I add to my practice?”

Now I'm much more interested in asking, “How deeply can I actually practice what I've already been given?”

The ritual is still there. The prostrations, recitation, imagery and devotional elements didn't disappear. But they became means of embodying the practice, and became connected to one cohesive theme, rather than being separate things I was collecting.