What is Revealed

Glimpses of Avalokiteshvara

Reading time: About 5 minutes

Thubten Chödrön’s sadhana of Chenrezig includes a very clear guide to understanding the practice of visualization¹. She points out that we tend to complicate visualizations, thinking we have to picture some fully-formed, extremely detailed version of the deity we are practicing with. But, she goes on to explain, a visualization is simply the image that comes to mind when we hear a particular word. She then says “pizza” and says that whatever came to mind for you upon hearing that is an example of a visualization. It is doubtful anyone pictures a pizza in great detail when they hear the word, rather, you get a general idea of it. A vibe, if you will.

This guidance was immensely helpful to me as I approached drawing a figure as complex as the Thousand-Armed Chenrezig.² As I work on this piece I do not feel like I am creating the figure so much as the figure is being revealed to me. Through visualization, flashes of the figure come to forth, one aspect at a time. Each session spent with Avalokiteshvara is guided by these flashes and thus, through my thangka practice, a full figure is formed.

Early on, two arms in the front of the figure came together over the heart. More traditionally they are palm to palm or holding a single dharma seed, but after a conversation with a dharma sibling,³ I knew this version would be holding a pomegranate to represent ripening karma as well as abundant seeds of wisdom.

Pencil outline of the core figure from the ribs up. Avalokiteshvara looks at the viewer, their gaze both peircing and serene.

The face came so fast and intensely it overwhelmed me. The day I drew it I genuinely wasn’t expecting to. The eyes, when finished, seem to be watching with a piercing yet soft gaze. Even as just a pencil drawing, I can feel how powerful this face will be.

Almost immediately after, I knew it was time to add Amitabha atop Gwanseeum’s⁴ head, and Vajrapani atop that.⁵ Both came just as easily as the face of the main figure, simultaneously part of Avalokiteshvara’s body and beings unto themselves. And there, atop all three, Shakyamuni seated in meditation.

The time came to begin the inner thirty-two arms, each of which hold a sacred object either in the lineage of dharma, or in the lineage of movements for liberation.

Here, during this session, a set of hands appears either side of the face, the fingers curl inward, wrapped around what? In the right hand, a string of mala beads, but what is the other hand holding? This will reveal itself during the next session. In the mean time, knowing Chenrezig wears three necklaces, I suddenly realised that one of them has a conch shell at its centre. Oh yes, and because Green Tara is born from a tear of Avalokiteshvara, there will be a jade tear drop in the centre of their forehead, just above their bold eyebrows.

The more contemporary symbols come after research and reflection. A list in a journal grows—symbols of resistance, of uprising, of liberation, to go alongside the more traditional Buddhist items. My patron mentions visiting a museum where tea and coffee cups are installed around the grounds, representing sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. I add a cup to the hand opposite the one holding a pink triangle in representation of ACT UP. The next day I realise a hand on the right, on the side of Amitabha, will hold an orange t-shirt, representing the love and care of bringing home every child taken and forced into residential schools by colonial governments. The hand opposite, on the side of Akshobya, holds a red dress, as representation of the fierce protection, love, and rage felt for every missing and murdered Indigenous woman, girl, and two-spirit person.

Five progress photos of the blue lotus in a hand to the left of Chenrezig’s face, from pencil sketch to fully coloured using blue and green pencil crayon.

That hand drawn to the left of the face, opposite the mala beads, will hold a lotus flower, partially opened. Eventually it will be blue, representing the absolute pure compassion of the Bodhisattvas. It is interesting to me that this symbol of compassion resides in the East, the side of wrathful deities.

In another hand there is a dharma wheel, which makes me think of the eight auspicious symbols.⁶ Obviously the lotus is already there, and the conch shell, but what of the rest? That night I dreamt of gold fish as earrings and a few days after I’ve added these, I pictured the vase in the lower set of hands, opposite a bell. Eventually, the victory banner comes to me as mounted on a long staff held in the East, opposite a trident held in the West. Here, woven through with cloth, is the endless knot. The final symbol, the parasol, takes on two roles, as I draw an umbrella as a symbol of suffragette movements throughout the ages, from the right of women to vote to the Hong Kong protests against authoritarianism.

In another dream I saw the skin of an antelope draped over the left shoulder and tied across the chest. This I add in a single session, after looking at dozens of other depictions of Kanjizai⁷ with a thousand arms, or four, and in every one the antelope skin is there, signifying that hatred is overcome by compassion.

Each item is chosen to represent a point in time, a cultural depiction of the Bodhisattva of compassion. Each element a nod to a sutra, to a movement, to a teaching or a practice. In this way, each session is a surprise, a literal revelation. An unveiling informed by study, reflection and contemplation.

K

---

1. The description of how to do visualization begins at 26:20 in this recording. If you would like to access just the guided visualization practice without the instruction, you can visit this link, which also has a full transcript.

2. Chen-Ray-zeeg

3. Shoutout to Jenn, the most bad-ass seawitch sailor of them all.

4. The Korean name for Avalokiteshvara.

5. Both these deities are common in stories of how Avalokiteshvara came to take a thousand-armed form.

6. The eight auspicious symbols are the lotus, dharma wheel/Dharmachakra, vase, victory banner, parasol, endless knot, white conch shell, and pair of golden fish.

7. A Chinese name for Avalokiteshvara.