Guanyin Bodhisattva Is in Your Home

Buddhas and bodhisattvas appear in this world to teach in countless ways, and they very often ground their teaching in filial piety. There is a well-known parable from mainland China about a mother and her son. The mother was widowed young, and raised her son entirely on her own. The son, for his part, was not especially dutiful, but his mother loved him fiercely all the same.

One day this unruly son suddenly decided he wanted to make a pilgrimage to Mount Putuo to worship Guanyin Bodhisattva. When he arrived at the mountain, he met an elderly woman who was a manifestation of Bodhisattva Guanyin, and she called out to him on the road, “Young man, where are you headed?” He told her he was making a pilgrimage to Mount Putuo to venerate Guanyin Bodhisattva.

The old woman replied, “Bodhisattva Guanyin is not on Mount Putuo. Guanyin Bodhisattva is right in your own home.”

“In my home?” he said, puzzled. “How could that be?”

She said, “Hurry back now. When you knock on your door, if you see a person who has thrown a cotton coat over their shoulders and worn their shoes backwards come out to greet you, that is Bodhisattva Guanyin.”

When he heard that Guanyin Bodhisattva was at his home, he hurried back immediately. He arrived at dawn, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, and the door was still shut. He knocked.

His mother thought of her son every day, and had been waiting and wondering when he would return. When she heard his knock and recognized his voice, she was overjoyed and startled, and didn’t even pause to dress properly. She just threw a coat over her shoulders, slipped her shoes on backwards, and rushed to open the door.

The second the door opened, the son looked up—he had already fallen to his knees, for he knew the bodhisattva was before him. In the faint gray light of dawn he could barely make out her figure: coat thrown haphazardly over her shoulders, shoes worn backwards, exactly as the old woman had described. He knew this was truly Guanyin Bodhisattva, and he bowed to the ground in kowtow. Only when he could see clearly that it was his mother did he suddenly grasp the meaning. From that day on, he was unfailingly dutiful to her.

We must take these lessons to heart. All who practice the Dharma are called to live out filial piety without fail.

The Buddha taught the Three Blessings of Pure Land Practice as the right cause of pure karma for all Buddhas of the past, present, and future. The first of these blessings, which concerns worldly merit, teaches: “Be filial to your parents, serve your teachers and elders, cultivate compassion and refrain from killing, practice the ten virtuous deeds.” The Buddha places filial piety at the very head of this list. This is the worldly expression of filial piety, and it is our fundamental duty to fulfill it.

Transcendent filial piety goes further: it addresses the root of our parents’ suffering, which is their endless cycle of rebirth in samsara. While our parents are still alive, we should repeatedly share the path of Pure Land rebirth with them, and often tell them stories of others who have been reborn in the Pure Land. This will awaken their faith and joy in the Pure Land Dharma, so that they may take up the practice of reciting the Buddha’s name with sincerity and single-minded devotion.

For a lay practitioner, if you cannot make encouraging both your parents to recite the Buddha’s name and seek rebirth in the Pure Land the core of your filial duty, then even if you fulfill every expectation of what the world calls good filial piety—providing for their material needs, tending to their emotional well-being, achieving success in your career, bringing honor to your family name and glory to your ancestors—this is still only the full extent of worldly filial devotion. From a worldly perspective, this is already deeply admirable. But when measured against the transcendent Dharma, these acts cannot grant your parents the ultimate, lasting benefit. In the end, such efforts are incomplete and unfulfilling.