Avalokiteshvara — “the Lord Who Looks Down” in compassion upon the suffering of the world — is the great bodhisattva of compassion, the most beloved and widely venerated of all the bodhisattvas: the embodiment of the boundless mercy of all the Buddhas, who hears the cries of every suffering being and comes to their aid. Across Asia, in many forms and many names, this is the divine compassion to which countless millions turn.
The One Who Hears the Cries of the World
Avalokiteshvara’s name is understood as “the lord who looks down” or “the lord who perceives the sounds of the world” — for he hears the cry of every being in distress and turns his compassionate regard upon them. He is the bodhisattva who has vowed to delay his own final Buddhahood until all sentient beings are freed from suffering, the very personification of karuna, compassion, the cardinal virtue of the Mahayana. He is closely associated with the Buddha [amitabha], in whose western Pure Land he serves and whose compassion he extends into the world.
The Thousand Arms
The most famous image of Avalokiteshvara expresses the boundlessness of his compassion: the thousand-armed, thousand-eyed form. The legend tells that, beholding the immensity of the world’s suffering, the bodhisattva strove so hard to help all beings that his head shattered into pieces — and Amitabha restored him with eleven heads to hear all cries, and a thousand arms, an eye in the palm of each hand, to see and reach every suffering being. He holds in his many hands the implements of salvation, and he manifests in whatever form a being needs to be saved.
Guanyin, Kannon, and the Many Forms
Avalokiteshvara’s compassion took on countless forms across Asia. In China, the bodhisattva came to be venerated as the beloved Guanyin (Kannon in Japan), the “Goddess of Mercy,” most often in female form — the gentle, all-merciful mother to whom the suffering, the desperate, and women seeking children turn, one of the most worshipped deities in all of East Asia. In Tibet, Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig) is the patron of the land, and the Dalai Lamas are held to be his emanations; his mantra, Om mani padme hum, is the most recited in the world. In Avalokiteshvara, Buddhism gave form to compassion itself — the bodhisattva who hears every cry, who shattered and was remade to help all beings, who appears as Guanyin and Kannon and Chenrezig, the boundless mercy of the enlightened mind reaching out to a suffering world.