Kuan Yin or compassion meditation.
Sometimes when you see statues of Kuan Yin,
She's holding one hand up in the air and that hand is receiving all the joys and all the cries and sorrows.
And then the other hand is often carrying a vessel that's pouring water onto the earth.
And this image often represents this idea that we're listening to the sorrows of the world and then we're letting it move down through that hand,
Through the heart.
And the listening with the heart purifies and creates water out of the salty tears.
It creates fresh water to nurture and pour onto the earth.
So in some ways Kuan Yin is the personification of transformation,
Transforming the cries and sorrows into something that feeds the earth and helps the earth.
And she's a great example of just the act of bearing witness,
Just the act of listening has tremendous power.
Kuan Yin is not like Shiva,
She doesn't have seven arms to help people.
Kuan Yin is just listening,
Not moving often,
Not doing anything.
And the very act of listening and bearing witness can make such a big difference.
And to trust that just the listening alone is enough and you can do that.
You can just listen with the ear of your heart and that will transform everyone and everything around you.
Sometimes the literal translation of Kuan Yin is listening,
Listening itself,
Not actually compassion or action,
But just a quiet listening to the sufferings and the joys of the world,
Of bearing witness.
And for you to trust that that's enough.
They even know now in science that in experiments if you're watching an experiment,
If you're observing it,
Just listening,
Just watching,
It has an effect on the results.
So in this way when you're just being your Kuan Yin self,
You don't have to do a lot,
You're dropping into that ear of the heart that bears witness to the sorrows,
To the sufferings,
Others and your own,
It also includes your own.
That's plenty.
And let yourself just doing that now for a short meditation.
Letting the world coming through your heart,
Listening with the ear of your heart and letting the listening itself transform,
Purify,
Change whatever you hear or whatever you bear witness to.
Giving yourself permission to be this quiet listening as your practice,
As your life.
Be that.
And if you want to drop in even further,
You can take away the idea of a you that listens.
Being the essence of pure listening,
Primordial awareness.
This active witnessing that has always been you and yet goes beyond our individuality.
Not you the listener,
But the listening,
The pure act of listening itself,
Just happening now and now.
Deeply.
And when you feel ready to finish the meditation,
Opening your eyes.
