The title of Chapter 26 of the Lotus Sutra, “Dharani” means “holding fast to.” Dharanis are words or phrases that hold great powers of insight and transformation. Just by reciting a dharani mindfully, often repeated three times, we invoke the power of the syllables, the sacred sounds that are produced when our body, speech, and mind are in harmony, unified, in a state of samadhi. With the energy of concentration, the sound of a dharani can in and of itself bring about transformation.

The practice of reciting dharanis aims at reestablishing communication and understanding with the great beings, the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, in order to receive their spiritual energy. We do not walk the spiritual path alone; we walk in the footsteps of our teachers, friends, fellow practitioners, and all those who have practiced before us, our spiritual ancestors. So the practice of the dharanis is a Dharma door that opens up and allows us to receive the energy of those who support us in our practice.

Fully endowed with all the merits,
His benevolent eye beholding the beings,
He is happiness accumulated, a sea incalculable.
For this reason one must bow one’s head to him.

This is the concluding verse of [Chapter 25, The Universal Gate of World-Voice-Perceiver Bodhisattva]. The bodhisattva of compassion is equipped with all kinds of merits (sattva punya), acquired during countless lifetimes of manifesting understanding and compassion. He is able to regard all beings with love and compassion. I think this is the most beautiful sentence in the entire sutra: “The bodhisattva regards all beings with the eyes of love.” You too have the eyes of compassion and love. The Buddha eye has been transmitted to you. The question is whether you will choose to make use of those eyes to look deeply.

Looking deeply, listening carefully, you understand the suffering of the other person, you accept him or her, and naturally your love and compassion flow freely. This is the most beautiful practice, the most powerful method of bringing about transformation and healing. Happiness is not described here in terms of weights or measures, but as a vast, incalculable ocean.

Happiness is made of one substance – compassion. If you don’t have compassion in your heart you cannot be happy. Cultivating compassion for others, you create happiness for yourself and for the world. And because Avalokiteśvara is the embodiment of this practice, the Sutra says that we pay respect to him by bowing and touching our foreheads to the ground. This is an ancient Indian practice, a gesture of deep respect to one’s teacher.

From moment to moment conceive no doubts,
For the pure saint Who Observes the Sounds of the World
In the discomforts of pain, agony, and death
Can be a point of reliance.

Dwell in mindfulness every moment, without any doubt about the power of compassion and understanding. With great confidence and faith in Avalokiteśvara, every moment is a moment of mindfulness with compassion and understanding as its object. The symbol of compassion becomes the object of your mindfulness, the object of your recollection. And even in a situation of danger, “of pain, agony, and death,” you maintain this awareness and recollection.

Avalokiteśvara is a holy person, but holiness is not something we find only in certain persons. Everywhere that there is mindfulness, concentration, and insight, there is the element of holiness. So when we take the qualities of Avalokiteśvara as the object of our mindfulness, then the element of holiness arises in us too. With Avalokiteśvara as our refuge and protection, we reach the shore of non-fear, no longer afraid of danger or suffering, no longer in fear of death.
Peaceful Action, Open Heart, p199

O you of the true gaze, of the pure gaze,
Of the gaze of broad and great wisdom,
Of the compassionate gaze and the gaze of goodwill!

This verse describes the five kinds of gazes of Avalokiteśvara. First is the contemplation of the true nature of things, satya. When you are calm, when you are lucid, you have the capacity to recognize the ultimate dimension. It’s followed by the contemplation on purification, visuddhi vimala. We need the practice of self-purification, just as the cloud in the sky has to become pure rain for the sake of the world. Third is the contemplation on great wisdom, mahaprajn͂ā. This is not mere knowledge but the realization of true wisdom, mahaprajn͂āpāramitā – the great wisdom that has the power to bring you to the other shore, the shore of safety, the shore of non-fear, the shore of liberation. Fourth is the contemplation on compassion, karuna. Fifth is the contemplation on loving kindness, maitri. Like Avalokiteśvara, we should practice mindfulness of and reverence for these five qualities.

The verses in Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra describe how Avalokiteśvara’s understanding and compassion bring about transformation and healing:

The beings suffer embarrassment and discomfort;
Incalculable woes press in upon them.
The Sound-Observer, by virtue of his unblemished knowledge,
Can rescue the world from its woes.

There is so much suffering in the world. Through the understanding and knowledge gained by closely observing the sounds of the world, Avalokiteśvara helps not just in one way but many ways to alleviate suffering and bring living beings to the shore of liberation.

He is fully endowed with the power of supernatural Penetration
And broadly cultivates wisdom and expedient devices.
In the lands of all ten quarters
There is no ksetra where he does not display his body.

Avalokiteśvara’s wisdom and his capacity to use skillful means are immense. Through his great wisdom, he invents various skillful means in order to help in as many ways and as many forms as needed. He manifests himself in innumerable emanation bodies in many places, many lands, everywhere. We too can also be present in many places at one time, through our transformation bodies. You can be practicing in a Sangha and at the same time be somewhere else, performing some action, in the form of a friend or a student, or in something you have written, created, or offered. Your hands can reach very far.

I know a nun and a monk in Vietnam, former students of mine, who were arrested because of their work on behalf of human rights. … The nun … spent a long time in prison, and she continued her practice of walking and sitting meditation in her small cell. Thanks to the practice she remained relaxed, calm, and cheerful. Anger and despair were not able to take root in her, and she was able to help the other prisoners, many of whom were very hostile toward the prison guards. The guards treated her kindly—not because she is a nun but because she embodies mindfulness of compassion. She did not let herself become a victim of anger and craving, and so she was able to make very good use of her time in prison. It became a kind of retreat – she didn’t have to do anything, just enjoy the practice. Instead of experiencing prison as a pit of fire, she transformed it into a cool lotus pond through the practice of mindfulness, compassion, and understanding.

If we find ourselves in a situation like this, and if we know how to practice the universal gate, mindfulness of compassion, we won’t suffer and we can even help others who are in the same situation – not just fellow prisoners but those on the “other side,” the prison administrators, the guards, and so on.

Buddhism speaks of the four skillful means of a bodhisattva. The first skillful means is making the three kinds of offerings: material gifts, the gift of the Dharma, and the gift of non-fear. When you offer good things to people, they have sympathy with you, they regard you favorably, and their hearts are open. Giving someone a book on the Dharma, or a CD of some beautiful music that can help them relax – this is the practice of giving, dana. But the offerings of a bodhisattva should not be only material things or Dharma teachings. The best, most precious gift we can give someone is the gift of non-fear, abhaya.

People live in fear of death; they are afraid of losing their selfhood, their identity, of disappearing and becoming nonexistent. So when you offer the kind of teaching, practice, and insight that helps someone touch their ultimate dimension and get free of the fear of being and nonbeing, that is the greatest gift you can offer them.

The second skillful means of the bodhisattva is to practice loving speech. You can be very firm and uncompromising, but you can still use loving speech. You don’t have to shout or become hostile to get your idea across. Loving speech can convey your feeling and idea to the other person in a way they are able to hear it and take it in more fully. The third skillful means is to always act to benefit others. You do whatever you can to help the other person in any situation. That is the action of the bodhisattva. The fourth skillful means is the practice of “doing the same thing.” This has to do with the bodhisattva’s ability to take on the appropriate form in order to be able to approach others and help them. You look like them, dress like them, do exactly what they do, you become one of them so that they will trust and accept you and have the opportunity to learn the path of understanding and love. These are the four skillful means by which the bodhisattva embraces and serves living beings.

Now the Lotus Sutra describes Avalokiteśvara’s marvelous power to redeem:

Even if someone whose thoughts are malicious
Should push one into a great pit of fire,
By virtue of the constant mindfulness of Sound-Observer
The pit of fire would turn into a pool.

How can we understand this verse? Even if we are pushed into a pit of fire, when we know how to be mindful, how to practice the recollection of the powerful energy of Avalokiteśvara, the fire will be transformed into a cool lotus pond.

The word “fire” in this verse represents anger. Not only individuals are subject to the afflictions of anger and fear – they also occur on the levels of communities, societies, and nations. Sometimes an entire country can be plunged into a pit of fire. The September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., triggered a huge sea of anger, despair, and fear, and the whole United States was in danger of plunging into that pit of fire. Many Americans were looking at their televisions, listening to the inflammatory rhetoric of the politicians, and desiring revenge and retaliation. They were not able to stop and cultivate the mindfulness to look deeply into the situation in the weeks and months after the devastating event.

Yet not all Americans participated in this upwelling of anger, fear, and despair. I was in New York at the time, with friends, and we shared the insight that we cannot respond effectively to anger with anger. Violence should not be used to counter violence; we must practice looking deeply to see the situation clearly and act with wisdom and compassion. Many people contacted me in the days immediately after the attacks, people who were practicing in order to help the nation remain calm. An angry, violent reaction could trigger a war. I began a fast, and invited friends in Europe, America, and elsewhere to join me in the fast in order to practice calming and looking deeply. I contacted congresspeople, politicians, and others, including Ambassador Andrew Young (who sat with me during interviews), who shared the view that we should not attack out of anger. Over 2,000 people attended the talk I gave at the Riverside Church soon after the attacks, and over a thousand were turned away for lack of space.

Some politicians publicly expressed the desire to support this view, but in the political climate of retaliation, they felt unable to do so. And there were many others who shared this view but did not have enough courage to speak out. The wisdom was there, the compassion was there, but the environment was not favorable for the expression of that wisdom and compassion. Yet not all Americans shared the viewpoint of the president or supported the government’s retaliatory action. We must always remember, especially in times of great turmoil or suppression, that we have more friends with us than we may think.

The message of Buddhism is very clear – all violence is injustice. Escalation of anger and violence leads only to more anger and violence, and in the end to total destruction. Violence and hatred can only be neutralized by compassion and loving kindness. When you find yourself in a difficult situation, when you are about to fall into a pit of fire, if you know how to practice mindfulness of compassion and invoke the embodiment of compassion, Avalokiteśvara, then you will be able to stop, calm yourself, and look more deeply and clearly into your situation. Anger and the desire for retaliation and revenge will subside and you will be able to find the better way to respond. Understanding that we inter-are, and that any violence done to another is ultimately violence done to ourselves, we practice mindfulness of compassion so as not to cause more suffering to ourselves, our own people, or those on the so-called other side.

The ocean of fire, the pit of suffering, fear, and anger is a reality. The suffering and despair of the world is enormous, and the desire to punish those who harm us, to retaliate out of our fear and anger, is very strong in us. All of this causes the pit of fire to grow larger and it threatens to consume us all. We can turn the ocean of fire into a cool lake by practicing mindfulness of love and invoking the messenger of love, Avalokiteśvara. As the Lotus Sutra tells us, the bodhisattva of compassion has many aspects and can manifest in many forms and with many names. This bodhisattva is the universal gateway to the path of compassion and reconciliation, and through mindfulness of love, understanding, and compassion the ocean of fire is transformed into a cool, refreshing lotus pond.

Just as the practice of Never Disparaging Bodhisattva had a specific function, to remind people of their inherent Buddha nature and potential Buddhahood, Medicine King represents another aspect of practice – the practice of devotion, dedication, and love. Without devotion and constancy you cannot go very far or deep. Without this kind of affection and dedication it is quite difficult to gain insight. This is why it is very important to establish good relationships with our Sangha brothers and sisters and our teachers. We should not underestimate the practice of devotion, but devotion alone is not enough – it must go together with the practice of meditation, of looking deeply, and the practice of compassion in action. The great bodhisattvas presented in the action dimension of the Lotus Sutra offer us examples of the many ways and forms of practice through which we can become the hands and arms of the Buddha in the world.