Discovering Kwan Yin, Buddhist Goddess of Compassion

Discovering Kwan Yin, Buddhist Goddess of Compassion
by Sandy Boucher

Discovering Kwan Yin, Buddhist Goddess of Compassion
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Book Summary Information

Author: Sandy Boucher
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-05-12
ISBN: 0807013412
Number of pages: 132
Publisher: Beacon Press

Book Reviews of Discovering Kwan Yin, Buddhist Goddess of Compassion

Book Review: The key word is "discovering"
Summary: 5 Stars

If Sandy Boucher had presented this book as an academic text, a philosophical treatise, or a spiritual training guide, I would have rated this book much lower. But the key word is "discovering." As a communications professional and educator, as well as a Buddhist, I think you must evaluate a book in terms of it's intended audience and purpose.

When institutions lose sight of universal compassion as a living principle, when tradition is monopolozed by an aristocracy of scholars and clerics indifferent to the suffering of everyday people, then people rediscover Kwan Yin - "she who hears the crying of the world." Sandy Boucher has gathered the stories of several women who have "discovered" Kwan Yin in their own lives, in their own ways, for their own reasons.

Sandy Boucher steps back and does not impose an aggressive point-of-view of her own. She is non-judgemental, not because she is a flake, but because her main purpose is to tell the stories of a few women, and let those stories speak for themselves. The "discovery" of Kwan Yin is the discovery of how, in a multitude of ways, compassion becomes a living reality in the lives of these women, based on THEIR experience of Kwan Yin. A more scholarly, critical, or polemical approach would have weakened -- not strengthened -- this book.

Try reading it with a beginner's mind.

Summary of Discovering Kwan Yin, Buddhist Goddess of Compassion

In this lovely illustrated volume, the author recounts stories of the goddes Kwan Yin, a bodhisattva (one who delays her own full enlightenment to work for the liberation of all beings), and explains Kwan Yin's role in Buddhism. At the same time, Boucher provides meditations, chants, and prayers devised by the Buddhist devotees of Asian and Western heritage so that all readers can participate in and even create their own rituals.
On one end of the spectrum of Western Buddhism, we have the likes of Stephen Batchelor and his Buddhism Without Beliefs. On the other end, some people choose to preserve the gods of the East. Sandy Boucher, author of Opening the Lotus and Turning the Wheel, turns her attention to the phenomenon of Kwan Yin (also known as: Guanyin, Kannon, Kwan Um, Chenrezig, Avalokitesvara), bodhisattva of compassion. Kwan Yin as comforter, healer, and female exemplar has been adopted as a personal deity by a growing number of Western women, whether Buddhists or not. In Discovering Kwan Yin, Boucher meets up with many of them, evoking stories of profound encounters, life-saving rescues, and long-term guidance. The wide-open spiritualism of Boucher's search leads her to a diversity of images, places, people, and experiences: Asian-American immigrants, a Chinese island, an extravagant tattoo, a Fulbright poet, a pagan goddess mass. For those seeking a divine presence in their lives, and a female one at that, Discovering Kwan Yin is a powerful initiation into a centuries-old tradition of soulful devotion. --Brian Bruya

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