Day 29

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


Having last month considered more ways in which World-Voice-Perceiver will save all living beings, we conclude Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva.

His precepts out of his loving-kindness brace us up as thunderbolts.
His wishes out of his compassion are as wonderful as large clouds.
He pours the rain of the Dharma as sweet as nectar,
And extinguishes the fire of illusions.

Suppose you are in a law-court for a suit,
Or on a battlefield, and are seized with fear.
If you think of the power of World-Voice-Perceiver,
All your enemies will flee away.

His wonderful voice [comes from] his perceiving the voice of the world.
It is like the voice of Brahman, like the sound of a tidal wave.
It excels all the other voices of the world.
Therefore, think of him constantly!

Do not doubt him even at a moment’s thought!
The Pure Saint World-Voice-Perceiver is reliable
When you suffer, and when you are confronted
With the calamity of death.

By all these merits, he sees
All living beings with his compassionate eyes.
The ocean of his accumulated merits is boundless.
Therefore, bow before him!

Thereupon Earth-Holding Bodhisattva rose from his seat, proceeded to the Buddha, and said to him:

“World-Honored One! Those who hear of his supernatural powers by which he opened the universal gate without hindrance, and which are expounded in this chapter of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva, know this, will be able to obtain not a few merits.”

When the Buddha expounded this chapter of the Universal Gate, the eighty-four thousand living beings in the congregation began to aspire for the unparalleled Anuttara-samyak-saṃbodhi.

The Daily Dharma from Nov. 26, 2022, offers this:

His precepts out of his loving-kindness brace us up as thunderbolts.
His wishes out of his compassion are as wonderful as large clouds.
He pours the rain of the Dharma as sweet as nectar,
And extinguishes the fire of illusions.

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. This Bodhisattva is the embodiment of compassion. As we cultivate our own nature as Bodhisattvas, we find that the only thing that separates us from the happiness of others is our attachment and delusion. When we allow our compassion to grow, we come to see the world as it is.

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