Sunday, February 19, 2012

What color hair does Guanyin have?

That's the question my five-year-old daughter asked me last week. She has a 16-inch statue of Guanyin--Kwan Seum Bosal, Avalokiteshvara, or whatever you want to call the Bodhisattva of compassion--in her bedroom. Beneath the seated Guanyin, the "Heart sutra" is inscribed in Chinese.

I think it's a great question, maybe even a koan. It captures an essential Buddhist principle.

Bodhisattvas represent our innate perfection by embodying wisdom, compassion, and other Buddhist virtues. They are personifications of our inherent purity of mind, body, and action.

But how do you tell that to a five-year-old?

So I looked her in eyes and said....

Come on!, you didn't really expect me to tell you, did you?

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