The story of Avalokiteshvara

Avalokiteshvara was the earnest being who through lifetimes beyond number had meditated upon the Dharma and the transgression into Nirvana. Reincarnated as a lovely young boy, gentle, sweet, attractive—usually seen barechested sitting on a rock in a garden by a stream— he was kind and lovable and was loved by everyone.

As he was about to achieve Nirvana and pass beyond all possibility of rebirth, he heard a groan rise all around him. All of creation let out a sigh: the birds, the rocks, the plants, the stars, the beings born and  unborn. He came out of his penultimate meditation to ask “Why, O Universe, this sigh of sadness?”

All of nature answered in unison: Oh Avalokiteshvara, we are so happy for you that you are about to achieve your goal of lifetimes upon lifetimes. But life is hard and we all love you so. Your presence is what’s given us the strength to go on. And so we’re happy for you, but we groan for ourselves, we cry out for it will take us so many eons for us all to be with you again.

Upon contemplation, Avalokiteshvara proclaimed “Well, then I will not go. I will stay in the round of creation and rebirth until all sentient beings achieve Nirvana. Indeed, I’ll renounce enlightenment until all are enlightened. Better that one should suffer than that all.”

Many Buddhist thinkers believe that Avalokiteshvara was instantly transmuted into a Bodhisattva at the utterance of his vow, realizing metamorphic abilities and steeped with Upayic means so that he could take the form most appropriate to help each being upon their path.

Another interpretation is that all sentient beings were leveraged into Nirvana at that very moment by Avalokiteshvara’s generosity and the merit gained by his self-sacrifice. That all beings went into Nirvana, leaving Avalokiteshvara alone behind to live out their karmic debts for them as he wades through illusory Samsara. So the Bodhisattva is the ONLY BEING who is reincarnating and that we are all incarnations of Avalokiteshvara. Though we may perceive of ourselves as separate, competing individuals, we’re really all just one One Being again and again and again.

“However countless sentient beings are, I vow to save them.
However inexhaustible the resistance, I vow to relinquish it.
However many the doors of incarnation, I vow to enter them all.
However incomparable the highest perspective,
I vow to attain it.”

“Avalokiteshvara,
Perceiver of the cries of the world,
takes refuge in Buddha,
will be a Buddha,
helps all to be Buddhas,
is not separate from Buddha, Dharma, Sangha—
being eternal, intimate, pure and joyful.
In the morning, be one with Avalokiteshvara,
In the evening, be one with Avalokiteshvara,
whose heart, moment by moment, arises,
whose heart, moment by moment, remains!”