In Place 36

36

Atop her desk, "one who listens
to the cries of the world" rests
in emptiness, yet serves to salve
inner and outer wounds





A friend donated a statuette of Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin (Jp. Kannon), the bodhisattva who “hears the cries of the world.” It’s evidently a mass market copy of the great (2m height) Song Dynasty Guanyin currently on display in the National Museum of China, Beijing. The pose is Royal Ease, and Guanyin appears to be teaching while holding a lotus-flower wish-fulfillment jewel. Above the statuette on the wall there is a framed copy of the Heart Sutra; to the left there is a framed enso or empty circle from one of the series of the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures (Ox and Ox-Herd Both Gone Out of Sight)." To the right is a framed photograph of the memorial statue of Mugai Nyodai (1223-1298), first abbess in Japanese Zen, who is said to have burned her face with a hot iron in order to be accepted to live and study among male monks.

With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear.
-- Avalokiteshvara in the Heart Sutra.