Who Is Quan Yin?

The one who hears

Quan Yin, in Chinese Guanyin and in Japanese Kannon, is the bodhisattva of compassion, honoured across East Asia and loved far beyond it. Her full Chinese name, Guanshiyin, means she who perceives the sounds of the world.

She is the East Asian form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion in Mahayana Buddhism, whose vow is to free all beings from suffering.

The Universal Gate

Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, often called the Universal Gate chapter, tells that whoever calls her name in danger — fire, flood, storm, the sword, chains — will be heard.

It tells, too, that she takes whatever form a being needs in order to be reached: a monk, a queen, a child, a woman. She meets each one where they are.

How she came to be seen as a woman

In India and Tibet, Avalokiteshvara is usually shown in male form. In China, over many centuries, the bodhisattva came more and more to be seen as a woman: the white-robed Guanyin who holds a willow branch and a vase of pure water, pouring mercy on the world.

A beloved Chinese legend tells of Princess Miaoshan, who refused the marriage her father ordered, chose the spiritual life, and later gave her own eyes and arms to heal him. Her devotees know her as Guanyin.

A thousand arms

In one of her great forms she has a thousand arms, and in the palm of each hand an eye. She sees every sorrow, and she has a hand for each.

Compassion that stays

Quan Yin’s compassion is not a passing kindness. She stays. She does not need you to be calm before she will come, or your pain to be tidy. She hears it as it is.

Her devotees call on her with Namo Guanshiyin Pusa, and many recite the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, Om Mani Padme Hum.