Kuan Yin - Always Helpful Protectress

My paternal grandmother was a closet Buddhist. I know she would disagree with this statement because she was Catholic in appearance and practice, but our home told a different story.

Like every good Catholic, my grandmother had an altar for Mary in a corner of the dining room but ten statues of Kuan-shi Yin, Hearer-of-Cries, Always Helpful Protectress, the Goddess of Compassion. These delicate, porcelain statues of Kuan-shi Yin ( also spelled Guan Yin) were on display in her glass cabinets. Some were all-white and gilded, others were red and yellow. And, it was my job to clean and dust them all every Friday after school. 

I loved this Goddess with the countenance of a gentle moonbeam. I would gaze at Her and feel a flow of loving kindness. The majority of statues depicted Kuan-shi Yin with her right hand raised in benediction while in her left hand she held a jar.  One showed her standing on a lotus, another was of the Goddess and child. 

Each gesture and item is deeply symbolic. The vase contains the nectar of life and in the Goddess’s raised hand she carries a willow sprig, a symbol of flexibility and unbreakable strength which she uses to sprinkle the nectar on her devout followers. 

A few of these statues had delicate removable hands and I worried that I would misplace them.  At the time I didn’t wonder about those hands. In fact I didn’t wonder about this beautiful, kind-looking Asian Goddess at all because I accepted her as one of our Great Mother’s many incarnations. I only learned years later that the removable hand conveyed the idea that the Goddess would “lend her hand”. 

In Chinese Buddhism, Kuan-shi Yin is synonymous with Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. A bodhisattva is someone who is on the path towards bodhi (awakening) but has renounced their own salvation and entry into Nirvana so they can devote themselves to easing the suffering in the world.  

The Buddhist saint Miao Shan, the Chinese princess who lived in 700 B.C is believed to be an incarnation of Kuan-shi Yin and her story goes a long way in explaining what it means to be a bodhisattva.

There are many versions of this legend. This is one of them. 

Miao Shan’s father, a king of a kingdom near Fragrant Mountain, decided on a husband for his beautiful daughter. He chose a wealthy man. 

But Miao Shan did not want to marry. She told her father that she wished to heal humanity of all suffering which included putting an end to elitism and sexism. 

If her marriage would not ease these misfortunes she said, her father must allow her to retire to a life of religious service. Since the husband he had selected for Miao Shan was not a doctor or healer, her father grew angry with her. He decided to punish her. He gave her his permission to enter a temple to become a nun but asked the monks to be especially harsh with her. And so it was that Miao Shan worked day and night to complete chores.  However because she was so good, animals would come to her assistance and this only served to infuriate her father more. One day he decided to burn down the temple, but Miao Shan put out the fire with her bare hands and suffered no burns.

Struck with fear, her father ordered her execution but just as the blade was to cut her neck a supernatural tiger took her to a hell-like realm of the dead.There Miao Shan played music to the demons and flowers bloomed around her. The head demon was both annoyed and surprised that Miao Shen had transformed his realm into paradise and finding this whole situation unacceptable, returned her to Fragrant Mountain.

It is said that to this day, Miao Shan sits in meditation on that mountain and assists those who call on her for help.