The compassionate visage of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, better known as Guanyin in Chinese, has been a source of inspiration and devotion for Buddhists and non-Buddhists for centuries. Offering readers the opportunity to get to know this great practitioner from the Buddhist texts themselves, The Universal Gate contains a new translation of Avalokitesvara's Universal Gate Sutra, the Buddha's scriptural account of this compassionate sage and his power to manifest in whatever form necessary to help sentient beings.
This short sutra, chanted and memorized throughout East Asia, is rich with symbolic significance and striking, memorable images. Venerable Master Hsing Yun provides a complete line-by-line commentary to unpack the sutra's fantastic descriptions, relating them to personal practice and the wider Buddhist teachings. The Universal Gate allows readers to enter Avalokitesvara's compassion and to appreciate the bodhisattva's special place of reverence in the Buddhist world.