The Universal Door Sutra talks about a person who stands on top of a mountain and someone pushes that person into a pit. All the person needs to do is to invoke Avalokiteshvara’s name and then that person is safe just like the sun hanging in the sky. I think many of us cannot imagine this, that you are standing on top of a mountain and someone pushes you down and you would not fall down. So what is the peak of the mountain? The peak here means success, fame and money. A person who stands on the peak of the mountain means a person who stands at the top of success and gives rise to pride and arrogance. Just imagine a wave that goes up must come down. So many people compete to climb up to the top. How can we survive if someone pushes us down? We cannot explain this sutra literally by saying that if you just say the name Avalokiteshvara, then you will be safe. What the sutra means is that when you invite the energy of Avalokiteshvara to come up inside of you, you begin to see that reaching to top will be inevitably followed by a period where we then go down. That is the first thing we have to recognize. In other words, there is no such thing as a wave that goes up without coming down.
BE LIKE A TREE
Zen Talks by Thích Phước Tịnh
Edited and Illustrated by Karen Hilsberg
Jasmine Roots Press – 2008
CHAPTER NINE
The Energy of Avalokiteshvara
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