Where Unconditioned Comes From

    I came across a book by Stephen Levine called Becoming Kuanyin: The Evolution of Compassion. Besides being a beautifully illustrated book, this book sparkles with a refreshing, honest simplicity and a kind of understanding of what Kuanyin represents in the heart of Buddhism. I would like to share some thoughts about it.

   While Kuanyin refers to the bodhisattva of compassion, Levine goes deeper into the storied understanding of Kuanyin. He remarks, "To know KuaYin we need to let go of all that is unloved, judged, forged from old mind clingings. She is the unconditional love beyond the conditioned mind." (p.1). Most figures of love that I recall from Greek mythology represent the more conditional edges of love. I think, for example, of Hera, who jealously guards after Zeus. Even psychoanalysis extends the notion that love is something that is 'forged' (note the reference to love as a 'building') out of the materials of jealous longings for a parent. It is easy to see that the love in therapy is a love for something that is scarce, unpredictable, not always accessible, or simply unknowable. From that ambiguity comes the dichotomy of reason and emotion, light and dark, good and bad, and the struggle to love becomes the struggle to secure the 'better' half of another person.

    In contrast with dualistic notions of love, Kuanyin's love is said to be unconditional. As Levine notes, this unconditional love is only accessible when one lets go of 'old mind clingings': the habits of defense, craving and attachment that characterize human interactions. To do this, one must get to a place where the mind isn't really sullied by judgments. I suppose it's hard to appreciate or grasp this mind, but it can happen when the stillness of the mind becomes apparent, and one is not busy connecting thoughts together to create complex thoughts, judgments. In this sense, unconditional means that there is nothing to reject or to seek. Even those clinging thoughts that arise in one's mind can be 'beloved' when they are seen in context--that is, when they are seen as a part of one's true mind, and not connected in some complex way to each other. Here, I am reminded of what is written in The Surangama |Sutra, about the tying of knots. Buddha remarks to Ananda, "consider some worldly person who wishes to untie a knot, how will he know how to untie it? You have never heard of space being broken ino parts. Why? Spae has no shape or form. Therefore, it can neither be divided nor put together again." (p.175)

     I think that the old mind clingings are like untying the knots. Trying to untie the knots are the real issues that people have, not necessarily the old thoughts themselves, but it's the way we try to fix thoughts so that they go in a way that we like, Levine describes Kuanyin as an embodiment of coming back to the home of the true mind, and not using old attachments as a foundation for responding to things. Levine describes the 'edgeless presence, and I think this refers to the delicate ways of Kuanyin. Rather than trying to save some beings and condemn others, Kuaynin uses the power of soft illumination to see the thoughts as they are, and to know what conditions are behind those thoughts. Paradoxically, knowing this conditioning is itself unconditioned, because illumination is not based on any prior conditioning.

      Even though I am not close to embodying this kind of spiritual power of Kuanyin,it is useful to reflect on the qualities of Kuanyin, if not as an archetypal way of being. Appreciation and beholding are qualities of Kuanyin that are not easy to teach, and they often don't appear to be ways of knowing that are taught. More often, knowledge is often defined in terms of how well people can speak persuasively for one thing and against something else, rather then being able to behold all perspectives in a situation, even when they cannot be reconciled. Beholding tension and lovingly turning to it is especially difficult to embody, but this seems to be what contributes to the edgeless aspects of Kuanyin. Because thoughts don't really conflict with one another, they can be infinitely beheld without having to use domination to subdue some thoughts.


Levine, Stephen, (2013) Becoming Kuanyin: The Evolution of Compassion. San Fransisco, CA: Weiser Books.

The Surangama Sutra: With Excerpts from the Commentary by the Venerable Master Hssuan Hua. A New Translation (2009) Buddhist Text Translation Society.