Here is a weird little anecdote about a Buddhist saint which I attempted to present at a conference; I got rejected, which was their loss.

Ippen [1239–1289] was a medieval Japanese preacher of the nembutsu, which means calling on the name of Amida Buddha for salvation. Large crowds would gather around him in marketplaces as he handed out paper slips called fuda bearing Amida’s name, which scholar Ōhashi Shunnō memorably dubbed “tickets to heaven.” His followers, called Ji-shū or “people of the hours” after their regularly timed nembutsu chanting sessions, danced ecstatically with him in public spaces to celebrate Amida’s gift of salvation. Ippen intended to leave no impression on the world except for reciting the nembutsu, and he instructed the Ji-shū to only continue that great work and do nothing to remember him. He ordered that all his books and possessions be burnt upon his death, which was carried out. Yet those who knew him well were unable to erase his memory from their thoughts and deeds, and he became a posthumous star. His half-brother Shōkai memorialized his life in a set of twelve scrolls called the Ippen hijiri-e (1299), which is a masterpiece of medieval art, perhaps even the greatest landscape painting made by any human being of the thirteenth century.

The classic example of Ippen's style of Buddhism is his decision to offer a "ticket to heaven" to a monk who had read many Buddhist texts and had come to disbelieve in the nembutsu, and how the deity of Kumano miraculously appeared before Ippen to affirm the correctness of this decision. James Foard writes that Ippen “presents the nembutsu as a ritual that is done for itself and that expresses itself, and in this sense only is instrumental and expressive. It has no other end or reference.” It was therefore irrelevant that salvation was offered to someone who disbelieved in it; they would be saved regardless. Foard's image of the “nembutsu expressing itself” seems to be drawn from Ippen’s own words: “Saying the Name from moment to moment, then, is the nembutsu saying the nembutsu.” One recent Japanese Buddhist, Watanabe Yoshikatsu, distinguishes Ippen from the other famous thirteenth century Pure Land preachers in this way: Hōnen saw the nembutsu as a man crying out for Amida, Shinran saw it as Amida crying out to man (hence the emphasis on not saying but “hearing the nembutsu” among Shin Buddhists), but Ippen saw it as Amida speaking to himself.

But it would be incorrect to see Ippen and his Ji-shū as simply cool, unemotional believers raising awareness of salvation to everyone, and we can see this fervor in the way another category of miracle is systematically downplayed or omitted from the beautiful Ippen hijiri-e: the type of miraculous event seen as emanating from Ippen himself. Stories of such occurrences may have accounted for some of Ippen’s popularity among common people, but before a Canadian First Nations activist brought them to the attention of Japanese scholars in 1987, this category of miracle was scarcely taken seriously as a reading of Ippen.

Our story begins with a rather crude caricature of Ippen in the comic scroll Tengu sōshi, which may have been completed as early as 1296, before the Hijiri-e itself. The scroll, which is still extant today, depicts Ippen dropping his robes to urinate into a tube being held by one of his followers, while a crowd reacts in a delightful variety of ways. A nun covers her eyes, but two monks look on gleefully. Other townspeople turn to look at the scene with astonishment, and the author has clearly relished writing up imaginary conversations around their heads like a modern-day comic book:

“Look at all these people begging for some piss!”

“This is Ippen Shōnin’s beloved piss, it cures every ailment!”

“What a crowd! I hope he’s got a full bladder!”

“The nun can’t see, so she’ll wash her eyes [with piss]!”

“I’m drinking Shōnin’s piss for my stomach issues.”

“Hey, this man needs some too!”

Tengu sōshi is one of two contemporary texts offering a critical view of Ippen. The text calls his Ji-shū movement “the height of stupidity” (the other critical scroll, Nomura no kagami, refers to him more plainly as a “madman”). It vividly illustrates the Ji-shū’s nembutsu dances, suggesting the crazed effect Ippen had on the uneducated people around him. The work was basically hot off the press as soon as Ippen died, and was in fact produced in the same studio that also made Ji-shū’s official narrative scroll, the Yugyo Shōnin engi (circa 1303-07; this scroll was an institutional alternative to Ippen hijiri-e which was commissioned by an elite patron).

It is not quite accurate to say that Tengu sōshi and Nomura no kagami were completely ignored by modern Ippen scholars. A study authored during World War II used Tengu sōshi's wild portrayals of Ippen and the Ji-shū in order to dismiss the movement as a disorderly abuse of Buddhism. However, after the war, new interpretations emerged, seeing Ippen as a dramatic figure and the Ji-shū as influential in the reform and revival of medieval Buddhism. Yet, during this period, Ippen scholars completely ignored Tengu sōshi, despite the fact that it is a primary source that possibly predates the Hijiri-e. Foard’s 1977 dissertation omits it entirely from his list of biographical sources for Ippen, even though he lists another source that he finds “virtually useless” for the sake of completeness. Evidently it was seen as a meaningless and baseless slander.

The coming of a paradigm shift could be seen in 1986, when the historian Kuroda Hideo started to look more closely at the meaning of the caricature as part of a broader study of illustrated scrolls. But it was an article in Daihōrin magazine by a non-academic named Miyamatsu Hiroyuki that forced the hand of scholars. Miyamatsu argued that urine therapy was common in premodern times and was mentioned in religious texts such as the New Testament. Critiquing a description of Tengu sōshi given by an academic biographer, he reasoned that Ippen could not have become such a “rock star” based on his chanting and dancing alone and suggested that the Ji-shū frequently drank Ippen’s urine for health purposes just as the scroll depicts, and that this practice was simply omitted from the major hagiographical sources by elite monks who found it embarrassing or inconvenient.

Some scholars refer to Miyamatsu Hiroyuki as a “doctor” but this is not technically true. Miyamatsu is best described as an indigenous rights activist turned urine therapy advocate. Emerging as an activist from Japan’s New Left student movement, he spent two years living with Asabiinyashkosiwagong people in Northwestern Ontario, who had suffered mercury poisoning from a Canadian factory upstream of their reservation. The severe suffering of this tribe on their own ancestral land can be read about online and is harrowing. When poisoning victims came to him for medical advice due to their being cut off from Canadian health care, he became invested in home therapies. After initially opening a free acupuncture clinic, he learned about urine therapy from a Tanzanian-Canadian refugee and began drinking his own urine while in Canada. Encountering strong cultural resistance to this home remedy upon return to Japan, he spent much time researching premodern medicine. His article in Daihōrin makes a connection prior scholars had missed, namely the prominence of urine therapy in an era when most people had few other medicines available to them, and extols Ippen’s healing power.

Buddhism's scripture was transferred entirely orally for several hundred years before it was written down. Two questions:

1. How close are the written versions (like, say, the trippitaka) to the words Siddhartha actually spoke?
2. What was it like logistically to convert the words of a man into consistently reproducible scripture? Did they divide it up so different monks had different sections to memorize?
3. What was it like logistically to consistently maintain this block of oral scripture/chants once it was originally organized? Did monks spend 90% of their time trying to remember the precise words some guy said 300 years earlier?
4. To this day, monks repeat their chants in Pali. Over 400 years, the language must have changed massively in the region. Did they maintain the original Pali as it was spoken by Buddha? Or did it change as the language progressed? And then at a later point did we revert back to the original Pali?

If we don't know the specifics about how they did it, are there any other comparable examples of effectively maintained oral histories?

I have always been a mystic by nature; when I walked away from the religion forced upon me as a child, I became acquainted with Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of Compassion, through his Chinese equivalent Guanshiyin, more popularly known as Guanyin/Kuan Yin; Kannon or Kanzeon in Japan, Gwanseum in Korea and Quán Thế Âm in Vietnamese. I immediately took to and wanted to learn all I could about him. I shall attempt to be comprehensive, if not exactly concise.

What's a bodhisattva? Who is Avalokiteshvara? What was up with the lotus symbolism?

What, pray tell, is a bodhisattva?

The short answer is, "one who is on the path towards bodhi, or Buddhahood". Bodhisattvas are beings on their way to enlightenment, have studied and attained the wisdom of a Buddha, and are on their way to nirvana, however they have put off entering nirvana until all other sentient beings have attained it first. Bodhisattvas put of their own attainment of the state of a Buddha (enlightened, free from worldly cares, concerns, suffering, and free from samsara - the cycle of rebirths). Once Buddhahood has been attained, a soul no longer acts in the world, so to speak, as they no longer incarnate. Bodhisattva is an ideal, a goal, and though they are worshiped as deities in some schools of Buddhism, they start as ordinary people like you and me. In the Early Buddhist (Indian) schools and modern Theravada Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who resolved to become a Buddha and has received confirmation or a prediction from a living Buddha bearing that out. In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a being who is motivated by great compassion (the compassion of the Buddha) and has generated what is called "bodhicitta" - a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Who is Avalokiteshvara?

Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. His name translates to "lord who gazes down (at the world)". He began, in a previous kalpa (the time between creation and recreation of a world or universe in Hindi and Buddhist cosmology), as an acolyte and devotee of Amitabha "Infinite Light" Buddha. His compassion for other sentient beings became his hallmark on his path to Buddhahood. All the suffering in the world greatly affected Avalokiteshvara and he vowed never to rest (and to put off his Buddhahood) until he freed all sentient beings from samsara.

Amitabha Buddha himself started as a monk called Dharmakara who made a number of vows: his 18th vow was that anyone who called upon his name (once he attained Buddhahood) would be reborn in his paradise and would reside there in bliss until they themselves attained enlightenment. He managed to accomplish his vows and thus became Amitabha whose domain is Sukhavati, "the Pure Land".

Avalokiteshvara came to realize that his vow was more difficult to fulfill than he expected, and seeing this, Buddha Amitabha gave him the ability to manifest himself in multiple forms according to need. Currently, he is recognized in 108 forms (avatars) , one of whom is Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara. The legend goes, Avalokiteshvara's head split in grief when he realized just what he had gotten into in vowing to save all sentient beings from samsara. Amitabha saw this and caused each of the pieces to become a whole head, placed those pieces on his head in three tiers of three, then a tenth head, and then topped those heads with his own image (Avalokiteshvara's headdress).

He is the guardian of the world in the interval between the departure of Gautama Buddha and the future appearance of Maitreya Buddha (a bodhisattva who will come to earth to take up teaching the law - dharma - when Gautama's teachings have decayed). For protection from shipwreck, fire, assassins, robbers, and wild beasts, pray to Avalokiteshvara. He is said to have created this universe, the Fourth World.

My personal favorite manifestation of Avalokiteshvara is Guanyin, called the "Goddess of Compassion". You've encountered her in literature if you've read Journey to the West, and she is worshiped throughout East Asia. She is "the one who perceives the sorrow of the world" and Lady of Compassion. Call out to her and she will pour her waters of compassion over you and soothe your suffering in the moment she is needed. To bring her compassion into yourself, chant the Heart Sutra - you can find an English version here.

Avalokiteshvara started out as a human male and is most often referred to as male, but in his many manifestations, he can be any gender. The only true true form is no form, gender does not matter outside of the earthly designation.

Fun fact: In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is considered Avalokiteshvara's primary earthly manifestation. Tibetan Buddhists believe he has manifested himself through spiritual teachers, and even as kings in Tibet.

What's the deal with the lotus?

Apart from being a beautiful flower, that is? The lotus is one the most recognizable symbols of enlightenment in Buddhism. Legend has it that everywhere the baby Gautama Buddha stepped a lotus flower grew out of the ground. Its growing conditions symbolize nonattachment: the flower is rooted in the mud of attachment and desire (samsara) but the flower tops a long stalk that rises out of the mud and is considered unsullied by it.

Avalokiteshvara's consort and female counterpart, Tara, was born from a lotus: when he shed a tear at the thought of all the suffering in the world, a lake formed from that tear, a lotus rose from the water. When it opened, Tara was revealed. She, like her partner, is compassionate, and a protector of earthly travel as well as spiritual travel on the path to Buddhahood.

Mahayana Buddhism's The Lotus Sutra (Sutra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma) is the earliest text that teaches about Avalokiteshvara and remains one of the most influential and venerated of the Mahayana sutras. It tells the story of Avalokiteshvara's life and bodhisattva path. There are 2 central teachings of the Lotus Sutra: 1. The doctrine of the One Vehicle (what Mahayana means), or, all Buddhist paths/practices lead to Buddhahood and as such are just skillful means of reaching Buddhahood, and 2. the Buddha's lifespan cannot be measured and therefore he didn't really pass into the final Nirvana yet, he merely appeared to, and is still actively teaching the law ("dharma"). If you would like to read it for yourself, see below. I have linked the BDK version as it is the best regarded translation I've heard of.

I will close with this beautiful chant "Namo'valokiteshvara" from the monastic community of Plum Village in southwest France.

Re/Sources:

Drewes, David. “The Problem of Becoming a Bodhisattva and the Emergence of Mahayana [History of Religions 2021].” Academia, 21 Mar. 2022, https://www.academia.edu/34935437/Mahayana_Sutras_and_the_Opening_of_the_Bodhisattva_Path_Updated_2019_?email_work_card=title.

What is a Bodhisattva?

The Early History of the Bodhisattva Ideal

Short story of Avalokiteshvara

Chandra, Lokesh. “The Origin of Avalokita-Svara/Avalokit-Eśvara (1984).” Internet Archive, 6 June 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20140606205922/http://www.indologica.com/volumes/vol13/vol13_art13_CHANDRA.pdf.

Encyclopedia Britannica: Avalokiteshvara

Legends of 1000 Armed Avalokiteshvara

Manifesting Avalokiteshvara: The Jewel within the Lotus

The Lotus Sutra

Seven Sutras that are related to Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara

If this is allowed, I'm curious to find out if any ACTUAL historians agree with Ken Wheeler's interpretation of "original Buddhism" and "actual doctrine" as presented here: https://youtu.be/gFYx67428RA

Sorry for linking to a 20 minute video. This guy never makes things short/simple despite claiming to do so. He's also a total edgelord, but he has some interesting takes on Buddhist Philosophy and Religion.