22/03/2022
🧚♀️ K U A N • Y I N 🧚♀️
🧚♀️ Today, on the 19th day of the 2nd lunar month, we celebrate the first of three yearly birthdays associated with Kuan Yin - the goddess of compassion and mercy. This first birthday is associated with her actual birth, while the second represents her renunciation and finally the third representing her passing this world to attain Bodhisattvaship.
🧚♀️ Her title is actually shortened from Kuan Shi Yin, which roughly translates to "One who perceives the sound of the world". And although she is represented by a woman, she can take on any gender or identity (even beyond human form).
🧚♀️ "She is a little like an ideal friend or imaginary family member. She suggests alternatives to despising oneself. She knows that benevolence towards others has to begin with self-acceptance. Her kindly eyes smile and have a habit of making one cry - for as we know, the moment one breaks down isn't always or even mostly when one if facing overt hostility, rather when, after a period of hardship, one finally encounters kindness and space to admit to the difficulties one has been labouring with in stoic lonely silence for too long. One can be weak with Guan Yin, she isn't impressed by the normal wordly criteria of success, there is no shame in crying in front of her and admitting the scale of one's distress."
