Avalokiteśvara
She who hears the cries of the world
I recall her from my youth
White flowing robes
Cradling a baby in her arms
Like the many statues
Of Buddhas and bodhisattvas
That I grew up with around me
You could not quite tell if she was female or male
Many a time I bowed down to her
Because that’s what you do in temples
I did not know who she was
Or what she stood for
Avalokiteśvara
The Goddess of Mercy
She goes by many names
Padmapani, Lokanat
Natha, Chenrezig
Kannon, Gwaneum
Quan Am, Guan Yin
Revered over half a continent
For close to two millenia
From Ancient India to
Modern Myanmar
Sri Lanka, Tibet
Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China
Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
And that place I sometimes call home
Singapura
Avalokiteśvara
Attendant to the Buddha Amitābha
Here, in this Pure Land to the West
She is unrecognized, barely heard of
Perhaps it is because the people here are so
Enlightened
So enamored with Light and Truth
That they see no need for
Strange deities from foreign lands
Forced into hiding when
In 1942 they took the Japanese away
Their sutras buried for fear of discovery
Their monks incarcerated
Their statues carved while living in camps
From carrots and desert wood
A history forgotten
So much for mindfulness
Which in Pali means to recollect
So much for meditation
Without learning a word of dharma
So much for awakening
Without a drop of loving-kindness
Avalokiteśvara
The Great Compassionate One
Like all bodhisattvas
She gave up Nirvana
Staying in this endless cycle of suffering
Vowing not to leave until
The day all sentient beings are liberated too
Once, she descended into the Eighteen Realms of Hell
Saving every being she met
Until eventually the hells stood empty
And all within were freed
Thinking her mission accomplished
She took a moment to rest
But then she looked back
Only to see that once again
The hells were filled to the brim
Millions of suffering beings
Reborn there as a result of their karma
Filled with sorrow
Her head split apart
And her arms shattered
She wept
How would she ever accomplish her vow?
Soon, however, she recovered
Re-focusing her determination
Her split head coalesced into eleven new ones
Her shattered arms reformed into a thousand more
Able now to hear cries of suffering in all directions
And to respond in a myriad ways more
She pulled up her thousand sleeves
Set her eleven jaws
And got back to work
Avalokiteśvara
Transgender Bodhisattva
She takes many forms
In Tibet and the countries of the Theravada
He is a man
In China, Korea, Japan, their colonies and diasporas
She is a woman
But often ambiguous as well
Neither, and both
In the Lotus Sūtra it is said
That she manifests as a woman
So that she might better alleviate
The suffering of others
Gender liberation
As liberation for all
In my headcanon she is
The Goddess from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra
Deconstructing gender
Eighteen centuries before Judith Butler
Puzzled by her appearance
The Reverend Monk Śāriputra asked her
“If you’re so enlightened,
Why do you not transform your female body
Into that of a man’s?”
She replied
“Why should I transform it?
It is as if a magician conjured up a woman.
If someone asked her,
‘Why do you not transform your female body?’
Would that someone’s question be proper?”
Said Śāriputra,
“It would not.
Conjured and without fixed characteristics—
What would there be to transform?
The Goddess said,
“All phenomena are likewise like this,
Without fixed characteristics.
So why do you ask why
When I do not transform my female body?”
Then with her divine penetrating power
She transformed Śāriputra’s body to be as hers
And her own body to be as Śāriputra’s
And asked
“Why do you not transform your female body?”
Śāriputra, in the Goddess’s form, answered
“I do not know how I have transformed.”
Said the Goddess,
“Śāriputra, if you were able to transform this female body,
Then all women would be able to transform as well.
Just as Śāriputra is not female
But manifests a female body
So are all women likewise
Although they manifest female bodies
They are not female.
Therefore, the Buddha has explained
That all phenomena are neither female nor male.”
The Goddess then withdrew her divine power
And Śāriputra’s body returned to as it was before
She asked Śāriputra
“Now, where is the characteristic of the female body?”
Śāriputra understood now
“The characteristic of the female body
Is without existence and without non-existence”
Said the Goddess,
“All phenomena are likewise like this
Without existence and without non-existence
This is as the Buddha has explained.”
Avalokiteśvara
Of the Prajñā Pāramitā Heart Sūtra
Once while in a practice of deep wisdom
She clearly saw emptiness
Of all Five Aggregates of the Self
Thus completely relieving misfortune and pain
Said she to Śāriputra
Form is none other than emptiness
Emptiness none other than form
Form is exactly emptiness
Emptiness exactly form
Sensation, conception, volition, awareness
Are likewise like this
If this is the Self
It and its aggregates both
Utterly empty and utterly real
Devoid of internal coherence
Yet existent by convention
Empty because they cannot explain themselves
Real because the empty is all there is
Then what more need be said
About sex and gender
Woman and man?
Avalokiteśvara
The All-Gendered One
To her I devote these words
As a child I knew her not
Yet a seed she left inside me
As it blossomed
I saw her true form in mine
That seed I plant here now
In this land that barely knows her
And hope it will fruit with time
May she hear this land’s cries
Like once she heard mine
And give us the gift of compassion
May she heal all our ills
Our false dichotomies and delusions
And so bring us all
To great joy
