Stephen Levine - Becoming Kuan Yin: The Evolution of Compassion

After decades of Stephen Levine's devotion to compassionate service, who better to bring us the story of the transformative journey of Miao Shan becoming Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

Ram Dass, author of Be Here Now

Compassion is the root of healing. It's the doorway to the real miracle, which is an open heart. In this most extraordinary book, Stephen Levine shows us why, and how. Highly recommended.

Dean Ornish, M.D., Founder and President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, author of The Spectrum and Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease

A loving poetic fable, filled with the mercy of Kuan Yin and the devotion to love that is Stephen and Ondrea's life work and gift to the world.

Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

Becoming Kuan Yin is our true workmine, yoursand a marvelous path from the head to the heart, right into the splendid universe of her Buddha heartsoul. I bow and reverence the radiant Buddha within our own innate original goodness; don't overlook her! Unconditional Compassion is the way, the truth, and the light, and Stephen's long awaited guide takes us right in. Meet ya there!

Lama Surya Das, author of Awakening the Buddha Within

The stories of Kuan Yin here are truly captivating and liberating. Through these stories and his own insights, Stephen Levine encourages us to cultivate our own limitless capacity for love and compassion.

Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Happiness

This book expanded our experience with Kuan Yin to a new level beyond our imagination. This is truly a Masterful book that most assuredly will become a classic. In a very real sense, it felt to us that this book was written at the Gates to Heaven. We found no separation between Kuan Yin's commitment to her Spiritual Life and Stephen's and Ondrea's commitment to their spiritual life and journey. The Levines, in almost a magical way, make Kuan Yin and her life of Compassion, Loving Kindness, and Charity very much alive in every reader's mind.

Gerald Jampolsky, M.D. and Diane Cirincione-Jampolsky, Ph.D.

Stephen's transformational book about the life, teachings, and example of Kuan Yin has the rare power to change people's lives by shifting their reality. For months I have been enduring severe nerve pain, yet it wasn't until I read Stephen's book, Becoming Kuan Yin: The Evolution of Compassion, that my heart fully opened to practicing a profoundly merciful, and compassionate approach to my pain.

Susan S. Trout, Ph.D., co-founder and President of the Institute for the Advancement of Service, Alexandria, VA

Stephen Levine's new book, Becoming Kuan Yin, is a beautifully written masterpiece that embraces the reader in a reverent flow. The tale of awakening, alternating with principles of practice and guided meditations, opens the heart and generates a profound inner stillness. A remarkable and vibrant transmission of love.

Francine Shapiro, Ph.D., originator of EMDR therapy, author of Getting Past Your Past

Good news: the cosmos is compassionate, and Stephen Levine is a trustworthy guide to the Universal Portal. Profoundly nourishing. A real treasure. Please discover and enjoy for yourself the pilgrimage of but a foot and a halffrom head to heart. Absolutely #1.

Gary Gach, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism and founder of Mindfulness Fellowship

Using the myths and image of Kuan Yin and her dragon mount, Stephen Levine has given us grace-filled meditations and reflections on the practice of a fierce compassion that constantly stretches the boundaries and limitations of what we previously thought was possible.

Ralph Metzner, author of The Unfolding Self

This book has a heart of its own. A boundless heart. A clarified heart. A heart that bridges humanity. A poetic reminder that enlightenment is not a head tripit's a heart trip. I felt my own emotional armor shedding a little more with every page. A beautyfull read!

Jeff Brown, author of Soulshaping

Kuan Yin smiles exquisitely in Stephen's writing. Blessings hide and seek between words and lines, eager to find and be found, console, heal, and inspire.

Paul Cash

I don't consider this wise and loving book as so much written by Stephen Levine as I do a clear message from Kuan Yin herself.

John Fox, The Institute for Poetic Medicine and author of Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making

First published in 2013 by Weiser Books, an imprint of

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2013 by Stephen Levine

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levine, Stephen, 1937

Becoming Kuan Yin : the evolution of compassion / Stephen Levine.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-57863-555-9

1. Avalokitesvara (Buddhist deity) I. Title.

BQ4710.A8L48 2013

294.3'4211dc23

2013016705

Cover design by Nita Ybarra

Cover photograph Maen CG / shutterstock

Author photo Ondrea Levine

Interior by Dutton & Sherman Design

Typeset in Bembo text and Priori Sans and Centaur display

All photographs and line drawings Ondrea Levine unless otherwise noted.

Printed in the United States of America

VG

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992 (R1997).

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When I first met Kuan Yin in a back street curio shop the owner described her as she who hears the cries of the world. I was immediately drawn to her. Kuan Yin was the merciful guardian, the healer and protector of the suffering and disenfranchised. At that time I was working with the terminally ill, and I closely identified with her. She opened my heart. Taking her home with me that afternoon, I trusted so much what I felt that I never considered I'd need a book about her. Some people told me who she was thought to be, and that was enough.

Sometime later, I read John Blofeld's The Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin and realized that her presence in the world had a profound resonance. So when Stephen told me he was going to work on a book about Kuan Yin and the emissaries of her compassion a few years ago, I was delighted. It was the natural expression of his decades of spiritual practice. It was going to be a doozy!

Once Stephen started writing, the words came as though delivered from the heavens. He was excited as he learned from the remarkable transmission, and it symbiotically affected our practice. Kuan Yin was the Mother of Mercy we had known for so long at the bedside of the dying, offering us an initiation into the universe of her heart.

Late every afternoon Stephen would read the day's work to me, and we both received it as our next teaching. We began to recite the