[Buddha-l] Is Guanyin Catholic?

[Piya Tan]

Jon,

Whatever it may be, I think that the Bodhisattva Guanyin hypostasizes all
that is good in (including whatever good is missing from) Chinese society.
Understandably Guanyin is androgynous or better "suprasexual" as compassion
is beyond sexuality. Perhaps one could say that Guanyin is a sort of
"disembodied metta" (to use a term from Ajahn Brahm's latest book,
"Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond" [p71].

A good read in this connection is this:

(2)   *Barbara E Reed*. "The gender symbolism of Kuan-yin Bodhisattva." In
José Ignacio Cabezón (ed), *Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender,* Albany, NY:
State Univ of New York, 1992:159-180 (ch 7).

Metta,

Piya

On 9/30/06, jkirk <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:
>
>
> Twenty years ago, I read a book (exact title forgotten) about Chinese
> river
> & spring  goddesses and their iconography fusing with the incoming
> bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara to become Guanyin. For example, Guanyin is
> depicted pouring out the waters of mercy from a vessel, but
> Avalokiteshvara
> is not shown with a vessel as I recall. She is also shown holding a pearl
> of
> immortality, which is an attribute of water dragons. Guanyin's clothes
> flow
> like the garments of cloud maidens and water spirits.
>
> I also wonder whether Guanyin is definitively female or rather ambiguous.
> I
> remember a student of mine in Taiwan embarrassingly trying to explain that
> Guanyin was not female or male, no one was really sure. Of course, Western
> languages don't allow for gender-ambiguous pronouns.
>
> With metta, Jon Weaver
> ====================
> Sounds like a very interesting book-------if you think of the title please
> post.
> In addition re Guanyin, 'her' icons do not show a womanly figure with
> breasts,
> an attribute that is not missing from many other female deities.
> Joanna
>
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20060930/41e6b59f/attachment.html