Hearing the Cries of the World

For someone like me, who is definitely not a Buddhist, I have been writing a lot about the wonderful aspects of Buddhism lately, especially the concept of the bodhisattva. Although the term can be interpreted in various ways, the underlying idea is that the bodhisattva is someone who has either attained Buddhahood – or is very close to it – but who forgoes this great blessing in order to stay in the world to help alleviate suffering. In much of the Buddhist world, QuanYin (or Guanyin) has become the feminine symbol of this compassion. 

Her roots are in an early bodhisattva named Avalokiteśvara. (It’s easier to say than it looks: Ava-lokit-ish-vara.) It means, literally, “the Lord who looks down” or “the Lord who regards”. But due to a misinterpretation of the original Sanskrit, the name has historically been rendered as “the Lord who hears the cries of the world.”

Isn’t that what a lot of us are doing today? Hearing the cries of the world? We hear, and we ache for all the suffering we see – from children starving in Gaza and innocents being bombed in the Ukraine to the citizens of a great country who are ignoring the breakdown of the constitutional laws that made that country great in the first place. 

So what do we do about it? I find myself weeping every time I think about any of this, especially in the morning if I read a newspaper or listen to the news. Does this mean we should stop getting the news? For some, this is the solution. But I don’t think it is a truly viable one. Not knowing what is going on weakens us; it leaves us unable fix anything. Still, living in a black cloud of despair, doesn’t help either. 

The only thing that seems to help is DOING something. So, get out and do it. If you are a parent of young kids you may not have a lot of time. But you know how much time you have. So, whether it is as infrequent as occasionally driving a senior to a medical appointment or as time-intensive as serving food at a shelter a few times a week, just do it. 

You will feel better. What’s more, you will grow – both emotionally and spiritually.