We begin this chapter by introducing Endless-Intent Bodhisattva as the person asking a question of the Buddha about the origin of World-Voice-Perceiver’s name. This is a fairly straight forward question and response. It almost is tempting to gloss over and get to all the wonderful and fantastic things which can be resolved by calling out to World-Voice-Perceiver. Yet in so doing we have skipped over the title of the chapter which hopefully you are curious about.
Notice the chapter doesn’t begin with the “Universal Gate” as the title does. So why is it in the title and then not in the chapter? What is the meaning of this universal gate phrase? Well since an explanation is lacking in the text I think it is open to speculation. Your speculation may be different from mine, and that’s the beauty of speculating, there is room for many possible ideas.
As I read it and read the chapter what I don’t see is any restriction to the benefit of calling out to World-Voice-Perceiver. So the gate to the benefit is open to anyone, at any time, in any circumstance. There is no barrier to receiving the promise of alleviation from suffering. All that is required is for a person to enter into the gate by calling or thinking of the name of this Bodhisattva, World-Voice-Perceiver. From that perspective the gate is universally open to anyone in the universe.
Simple enough right? Yet I can’t help but draw a connection to the way the sutra is broken into two parts and often referred to as two gates. Then there is the passage where the Buddha says the purpose of all Buddhas is to open the gate and cause us to enter. So there are other images of the gate. The sutra being divided into two gates and then the universal gate of World-Voice-Perceiver implying only one singular gate of entry or access. The entry or access is universal yet it is still a gate one must enter into. And then the gate the Buddha opens to make accessible the benefit of all Buddhas, and this gate too of World-Voice-Perceiver is also open and accessible, though there is no indication of it needing to be opened other than invoking the name of World-Voice-Perceiver.
Perhaps there is not connection. Perhaps the mystery is clouded in simply how it get translated. So let’s look at how others have translated the title to this chapter. We may not use them but we owe it to ourselves to be curious and take advantage of resources. Sadly all of my copies of the various translations are still packed away in boxes awaiting a solution to how to install shelves on walls of dubious strength and composition with no ability to detect studs due to chicken wire being used throughout the house and lathes for plaster. It is a puzzle and one which must be solved before putting 50 or so pounds of books on a wall.
Fortunately I do have a Kindle and access to the Reeves translation, having purchased it a long time ago. Dr. Reeves translates the title as “Universal Gateway of the Bodhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the World” which is both longer and much more visual in my mind. Also Endless-Intent is translated as Inexhaustible Mind, which also conjures up a different meaning, or different images. In both translations the promise is the same and the effort required to receive the promise is identical. Without regard anyone who calls out to this Bodhisattva, regardless of which translated name you use or if you use Kanon, or Kanzeon, or Kuan Yin, Kwan Yin, Guanyin, or what have you, you shall find release from your suffering.
In the future once I locate the other translation I’ll update this and post a new blog entry. For now let us move along shall we, he asks in a rhetorical fashion.
Going back to roughly about he 5th or 6th Century Common Era and looking at Buddhism in China and the artifacts that have come to us especially from the many caves along the Silk Road there is a brief window of art celebrating the Lotus Sutra. The time is very short perhaps roughly a hundred or so years. Then it seems the cult of the Lotus Sutra passed into obscurity and was replaced by the cult of Guanyin. From that time continuing on for centuries there is a wealth of art celebrating this Bodhisattva. Interesting there is a whole study or icons and forms use in these representations. I had the good fortune to take a course in Chinese Buddhist Art History which specialized in the 5th to 9th centuries. The language of the painters in depicting Guanyin is vast and complex. In some cases only by knowing the artistic conventions are you able to actually tell the art is depicting this Bodhisattva, and the stories are so complex that no two depictions are quite telling the same thing. There are meaning beneath meanings and stories of multiple layers.
In some ways we can say that Quanyin, Kanzeon, is perhaps the most widely known and identifiable personage outside the Buddha by ordinary people, even if they are unaware of who exactly Quanyin is. I find that interesting and certainly an open door for us to help educate our friends or others. And in some ways perhaps Kanzeon’s greatest accomplishment is the expediency of creating an environment suitable for us to talk about Buddhism. That alone in my book qualifies as a universal hearing of the cries of suffering throughout the world and providing a path to alleviating that suffering by introducing people to Buddhism.
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