# Chapter 13: Compassion Guan Yin has 10,000 hands that extend from her torso out into a round circumference. Her hands represent the hands of humanity. If the mind could conceive of infinity, or better yet represent it in a finite space, then Guan Yin would have infinite hands—but 10,000 should get the point across. > [!insight] The Meaning of 10,000 Hands > Each hand is connected, stemming from the same torso. While we all have our own two hands, our hands all belong to the hands of the earth, the hands of the universe. We all stem from the same world like flowers sprouted from the ground. Thich Nhat Hanh says, in his commentary on *The Diamond Sutra*: "When the right hand is injured, the left hand puts a bandage on it without differentiating between left or right, but taking care of it as it is the same self." Imagine that perspective, but instead of hands, persons. And instead of persons, all beings in existence. If one of us is hurt or hungry, we take care of them not seeing other, but seeing self. --- ## Unity and Oneness This perception of unity and oneness is what Buddhism and most spiritual lineages strive to transmit. When you take all the conceptual understandings and embody it in a deity such as Guan Yin, our visual minds get a different, more robust realization. Humans seem to be creatures who learn well through symbols and imagery. > [!note] Who Is Guan Yin? > Guan Yin, the one who contemplates the sounds of the world, is the embodiment of compassion. If there is an invisible force of love, of listening, of caring, that invisible force we feel is Guan Yin. > > It's more than just feeling it—we also create it by putting out the energy of love and compassion into the world through our actions, thoughts, and intentions. And so, by chanting her name we conjure up that energy inside ourselves, sharing and expressing it with others. In that way, we actualize Guan Yin and bring our ideals of a better, more loving world, into reality. --- ## First Morning The first morning at the City was cool and damp. I woke up at 6am. My roommate was already getting dressed. He was a young man with a wide face and jet black hair. Judging by the softness of his skin, I assumed he was a few years younger than me. "Hey, good morning. I'm Justin." He walked over to shake my hand. I was a bit embarrassed still being in my boxers, but I popped up anyway to greet him. "I'm Mike." "Three-step bow ceremony is happening in a few minutes. Are you going to go?" I didn't know anything about the three-step bow ceremony, but my attitude was open to anything these Buddhist monks wanted to throw my way. "Sure. What do we do?" I asked. "It's the ceremony that kicks off the Guan Yin Recitation week. The entire order of monks, nuns, and lay people walk three steps and bow from the entrance of the gate all the way to the entrance of the Dharma Hall." "Oh, okay. Yeah, let's do it." I never bowed down in my life yet. Something inside me was craving to do so. --- ## The Three-Step Bow Ceremony When we got to the front gates, we saw everyone lined up like a marching band. The head monk was holding a tray of incense while the nun next to him was holding a small bell. There were about 75-100 of us lined up in rows of ten. The monks were wearing brownish robes, some with white sashes. The lay people were in the back rows wearing casual clothes which clashed with the uniformity of the monastics. The monks started chanting heartfully in Chinese. Then we started walking. One step, two step, three step, and bow. I looked around and watched the others drop to their knees and kiss their foreheads to the asphalt. I was hesitant to drop so willingly to the ground. *I might hurt my knees,* I thought. The others around me seemed less concerned as they went about the motions with complete surrender. So I went for it. --- ## Surrendering Dropping my knees to the floor as softly as I could and then pressing my head gently into the asphalt, I bowed. Little bits of gravel chewed into my forehead. I continued three-step bowing while the rest of the assembly chanted in Chinese. > [!transformation] Letting Go > After a while, I felt my resistance lessen, and I was dropping to my knees with less reservation. Each time my forehead hit the floor—I surrendered—I let go of worrying about my body, about doing it right, or about my pride. > > And in the melodic formation we had created, I submitted to the practice. There was a higher purpose than the simple act of bowing. It was a physical expression acknowledging Guan Yin. By bowing, I was submitting to the grace and divinity of love. I had no choice but to shed my ego—my isolated concept of self—and drop my head to the gravel, acknowledging a greater force of benevolence, a divine love willing to serve, as long as I could relinquish trying so hard to desperately control my life. --- ## Entering the Hall It took two hours before we reached the front of the Dharma Hall. My knees and forehead were red with bits of pebbles still stuck to my skin. We entered the hall with the assembly still chanting. To my astonishment, there were literally 10,000 golden buddhas sitting in boxed shelving throughout the entire auditorium. The rest of the walls and carpet were red. On the main altar in front of the room was a large golden statue of Guan Yin with close to a hundred hands reaching out from its center. Each hand was perfect in detail, some held auspicious objects. A strong smell of earthly incense filled the room. We each took a seat and a ceremony commenced. --- ## In the Holy Land I had arrived in some holy land, and the reverence was refreshingly real and genuine. I picked up a prayer book, which was entirely in Chinese with English subtext. We all chanted fast, and bowed in intervals. The procession was invigorating and caused me to expel a lot of physical energy into chanting, bowing, and standing. The Chinese syllables rolled out of our mouths like percussion, and after a while I began to really enjoy chanting in the foreign language, making new noises in unique and proper rhythms. By the end of the opening ceremony, everyone was excited. The seven-day recitation had begun. I was feeling energized and hungry. Next stop on the schedule was breakfast. --- ## The Demographics I looked around and noticed I was amongst a 9-10 ratio of Chinese to American people. The few Westerners huddled in the back rows. I got a sense that some of the Chinese lay families came to the City like I used to go to St. Patrick's church. It was a religious obligation that was handed down to them through the generations. In other words, they weren't seeking what I and the other Westerners in the room were most likely in attendance for. Maybe because they already had it. Or maybe because Buddhism was obligation. > [!reflection] Why We Were There > But I, and the other Westerners in the room, weren't there because it was the religion we grew up on. We traveled far and wide to be in that hall, surrounded by the eyes of ten-thousand golden buddhas. > > We were looking to understand the universe in a different way than the dominated perspective of Christianity and Western Science that we grew up on. We wanted to learn what the Buddha realized 2,500 years ago sitting under a Bodhi tree in Jetavana. We wanted to learn how to develop enlightenment through our own experience, through meditation, chanting, and bowing. > > I wanted to taste God on the palette of my tongue, and fall in love with her. --- *Next: [[Ch 14 - Dharma Revelations]]