Day 29

Day 29 covers all of Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.

Having last month heard the question: Who is World Voice Perceiver, we consider some of the many ways he helps those in trouble.

“If anyone calls the name of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva when he is about to be killed, the sword or stick raised against him will suddenly break asunder, and he will be saved. If as many yakṣas and rākṣasas as to fill one thousand million Sumeru worlds hear a person call the name of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva when they come to him with the intention of killing him, those devils will not be able even to see him with their malicious eyes, and needless to say, kill him. If anyone, guilty or not, calls the name of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva when he is bound up in manacles, fetters, pillories or chains, those things [in which he is bound up] will break asunder, and he will be saved. Suppose the chief of a party of merchants is leading his party carrying invaluable treasures along a dangerous road haunted by as many bandits as to fill one thousand million Sumeru-worlds, and suppose one of the members of the party says [to others], ‘Good men! Do not be afraid! Call the name of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva with all your hearts! This Bodhisattva gives fearlessness to all living beings. If you call his name, you will be saved from [the attacks of] these bandits.’ If the other members of the party hear this and say simultaneously, ‘Namas to World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva,’ all of them will be saved because of their calling of his name. Endless-Intent! The supernatural powers of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva-mahāsattva are as great as previously stated.

The Daily Dharma from March 26, 2019, offers this:

If anyone, guilty or not, calls the name of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva when he is bound up in manacles, fetters, pillories or chains, those things [in which he is bound up] will break asunder, and he will be saved.

The Buddha gives this description of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva (Kannon, Kanzeon, Kuan Yin, Avalokitesvara) to Endless-Intent Bodhisattva in Chapter Twenty-Five of the Lotus Sūtra. The bonds of ignorance and delusion in which we find ourselves are not the result of our personal inadequacy, and neither do they come entirely from the circumstances of the world around us. But these bonds are real, and in our struggles to escape we often just make them worse. When we remember World-Voice Perceiver, the embodiment of compassion, and call on her for help, then we awaken compassion within ourselves and others in the world, and break the bonds of delusion for everyone.

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