Genuine Recitation of Kuan Yin Boddhisattva's Name

By Venerable Master Hsuan Hua

"Recite the name of Kuan Yin Boddhisattva and you'll be able to down your thoughts of greed and desire, your defiled thoughts and your ignorant thoughts. Recite 'Namo Kuan Shih Yin Boddhisattva' and you will be able to break through ignorance and realize genuine wisdom. If you prefer wisdom to your present state, you should recite 'Namo Kuan Shih Yin Boddhisattva'. Constantly recite Kuan Yin's name and your thoughts of greed and desire will gradually melt away and you won't even know it happened."

Reciting Kuan Shih Yin Boddhisattva'name is a Dharmadoor which is perfectly fused without obstruction. If you can recite Kuan Yin's Boddhisattva's name, you will enlarge your Boddhi-heart. In the future you can be reborn in the Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Some people say, "Kuan Yin Boddhisattva is just you, yourself."

Other people say, "Kuan Yin Boddhisattva is simply Kuan Yin Boddhisattva. There is a Boddhisattva with that name."

If you recognize that you, yourself are Kuan Yin Boddhisattva, then your attachment to self has not been emptied. If you recognize that outwardly there is a Kuan Yin Boddhisattva, then your attachment to dharmas has not been emptied. Since you have an attachment to self and an attachment to dharmas, then "people" have not been emptied and dharmas have not been emptied.

When people and dharmas have not been emptied, your recitation plants good roots and develops your Boddhi-heart, but itis still not genuine recitation of Kuan Yin Boddhosattva. With true recitation of Kuan Yin Boddhisattva, inside you view no self and outside you no Boddhisattva; there is no self and there is no Boddhisattva.

You say, "If there is no Boddhisattva then how can I recite Boddhisattva'name?"

There doesn't necessarily have to be a Boddhasattva in order for you to recite a Boddhisattva's name. If you can arrive at the state where you recite and yet not recite, then you can recite Kuan Yin Biddhisattva's name without even realizing that you are reciting Kuan Yin Boddhisattva's name. And when you are not reciting Kuan Yin Boddhisattva's name, it recites itself. You may want to stop, but you can't. It's like flowing water; you can't stop it even if you want to.

So, you recite and yet do not recite; you do not recite and yet you recite. This is genuine recitation of Kuan Yin Boddhisattva's name.

By not reciting and yet reciting, you get rid of the attachment to self. By reciting and yet not reciting, you get rid of the attachment to dharmas. Thus, people are empty, and dharmas are empty.

When you get to this state then you are truly, genuinely reciting Kuan Yin Boddhisattva. You are not saying, "Where is this "self"? If you have an "I", you have a lot of trouble, a lot of problems. Without a self, an "I", there is no trouble. Pigeons think about eating all day long because they can't put down the self, the "I".

If they had put down the self, the "I", then why would they run around looking for food? Have you put it down? Not necessarily. If you wait a while, it will return. Why will it return? Because the self hasn't really been renounced.

If you put down the self, the "I", then it's all the sama thing whether you eat or not. In reciting Kuan Yin Boddhisattva, you recite to "people empty and dharma empty" and at that point, you fuse into a unity with the whole universe.

And so you can say it is great, since there's nothing greater than it. Or, you can say it is tiny, since there is nothing smaller than it. This is the genuine state of reciting Kuan Yin Boddhisattva.