Both ~ the Principle of the Bodhisattva.
We are now in the presence of the yin and yang of our existence. “Both” has a multitude of expressions: experience and understanding, unconscious and conscious, outer and inner, Body and Mind. Where any two meet, a whole is created. Perceiving Truth in your everyday life, gives the state and content of your consciousness context. Context is the whole picture.
Where Avalokitesvara’s compassion and Kuan Yin’s love meet, perception is born.
The union of Light and Love allows for new understandings in consciousness. Light is a function of the aggressive principle of creation. Radiant, emanating from the Source, light bestows upon its progenitor the power of sight. Avalokitesvara, “he who observes the sounds of the world”, embodies the awareness that springs from light. Love is a function of the receptive principle of creation. The animating life force pervading All that Is. Holding all life, love fuels connectivity, kindling sensitivity through the power of listening. Kuan Yin, “one who hears the sounds of the world”, embodies the spirituality that only love allows.
Theirs is the conscious union of Self and a Bodhisattva comes into being.
Everything that moves and breathes lives in the Self.
He is the source of love and can only be found with real and pure love, but not with thought.
The Lord of Love is the goal for our lives. Walk this spiritual path and find Him.
The shining Self dwells deep in the heart. Everything in the world lives in the Self. The Lord of Love is the source of life and truth.
–Mundaka Upanishad
The Lotus Sutra reveals this dual nature of the Bodhisattva when describing the shape-shifting power of Guanshi Yin. Whoever calls upon Guanshi Yin will be heard and rescued. The secret to her power is the ability to take any form needed. The ability to move in and out of forms is characteristic of our natural state of being.
We were not created to become caught up in the finite world. We were created in the likeness and image of the Creator of a Universe. Our consciousness is fashioned to create worlds through harmonizing the whole Mind with What Is present. When united with Avalokitesvara, the two practice the art of creation.
When Light and Love exist in the same space, a sequence of events occurs in thought. This sequence leads to transcendence, through absolving, dissolving, and resolving whatever exists. Each time you rest your mind upon a Kuan Yin Verse, you set this sequence into motion in your own consciousness.
You claim a three-fold power to mold your thinking at will.
This power is fixed for it is driven by the seed idea of your choosing.
This power is cardinal for it initiates a shift in thinking.
This power is mutable, the capacity to move in and out of forms.
This three-fold power is the product of Neither and Either,– Both.
The interaction between Avalokitesvara and Kuan Yin is the catalyst for this entrainment of your Mind. The Aggressive and Receptive Principles of Creation are pressed into service, acting on your behalf. The synergy produces an alignment that invites the presence of your Inner Teacher. This “going within” is the first bardo, or intermediary state, in crossing over from the physical Tomb World to the spiritual Pure Land.
Most people wait to explore this reality until they face their own mortality. Those who explore consciousness, inviting the richness of its experience through dreams in the day and in the night, embrace this reality. Separating from the sensory read of the outside world – eyes closed in meditation, for instance – immediately alters the brain waves because the thinker’s experience is now in the inside world, within. As a thinker in an animal body, I receive stimuli through that body – beautiful sunsets, fragrant flowers, the Divine tea at the Pearl Cafe. A state of consciousness arises in response: am I satisfied or discontent, relaxed or tense, focused or scattered, cool or warm, up or down, high or low? The polarities, natural to the physical world, give me a read on where I am in the present moment.
Next, comes content, the reflection. What do I think about being too cool? Should I turn up the heat? Content drives me to make choices, to change conditions around me so the sensory read is more to my liking. The ego is born and becomes the driving force for change in this dual dance between state of consciousness and content of consciousness. This can be a slow dance where little spiritual progress is made. When the mind is restless and emotions polarized, consciousness can remain mired, a prisoner in the Body and its senses. The physical identity and the genetic makeup rule, dictating the consciousness. This is the kind of thinking that produces the Tomb World.
What kind of thinking produces Pure Land?
If you are asking this question, it is time to BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY……