Kwan-yin is not only a symbol of compassion, she is compassion, so that wherever compassion can be seen, Kwan-yin can be seen. Kwan-yin is not some god looking down at the world from a distance but the Buddha’s compassion embodied in the actual world of quite ordinary men and women.

Tradition also says that we should understand that we ourselves should embody Kwan-yin, that if, for example, we concentrate on Kwan-yin or recite the Kwan-yin chapter, we can open ourselves to compassion, not to some abstract compassion from a distance, but to actually embodying compassion by being compassionate in our own lives and behavior.