“She is at the brink of never being hurt again
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but pauses to say, All of us. Every blade of grass.”
– Laura Fargas
In Mahayana Buddhism there is a figure called Kuan Yin or Avalokiteshvara who is a godhead of compassion within the tradition. Sometimes depicted as male and sometimes as female, Kuan Yin is the archetype of a Bodhisattva, whose primary activity is to put the liberation of all beings before her own and to relieve everybody from their own suffering. Laura Fargas’ beautiful ode to the Bodhisattva of Compassion casts her as a person in the world, as someone we might come across in our day to day lives, as someone who is not one, but many, if only we know how and where to look.
Kuan Yin
Of the many buddhas I love best the girl
who will not leave the cycle of pain before anyone else.
It is not the captain declining to be saved
on the sinking ship, who may just want to ride his shame
out of sight. She is at the brink of never being hurt again
but pauses to say, All of us. Every blade of grass.
She chooses to live in the tumble of souls through time.
Perhaps she sees spring in every country,
talks quietly with farm women while helping to lay seed.
Our hearts are a storm she trembles at. I picture her
leaning on a tree or humming or joining a volleyball game
on Santa Monica beach. Her skin shines with sweat.
The others may not know how to notice what she does to them.
She is not a fish or a bee; it is not pity or thirst;
she could go, but here she is.
Laura Fargas
From: An Animal of the Sixth Day
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