​Kanzeon Before Me

by Eido Frances Carney

Living in the cold, windy city of San Francisco, as a single parent raising three teens, and working a full-time job that sucked the life out of me, threw me into a disheartening decline.  Every day I’d rise early and ride the bus from the fog belt to the financial district to spend the day in front of a computer screen.  By the time I trudged the six blocks from the bus stop to home in darkness through driving cold rain, my umbrella turning inside out, I’d be fully spent.  Yes, I had meditation, but I began to disbelieve its value.  Yes, I had notions of Kanzeon, but where was she?  What could I rely on?

Every day on the verge of tears over slight difficulties caused me to be distant with family and friends.  We were living together, but I began to withdraw.  I was quite aware of this condition in myself and found it unnervingly painful.  I needed to hold the family together.  Nevertheless, I couldn’t see my way clear to changing my attitude about my life.  Everything came to rock bottom, and I could not see the use of my life, nor any future that made sense.

One particular day, I felt unusually low.  I had to go out to the store and found
myself walking up the hill while thinking about where I could find solace.  Kanzeon
came to mind, but I thought about this being, or spirit, or phantom with a sense of near
contempt.  Was there anyone or anything I could trust or believe in?  I went to the core of
my being, feeling alone and wounded and I spoke clearly to myself, “All right, I’m sick
of this pain, this isolation, this drudgery.  If you are real at all, show yourself immediately
and give some proof, some help.”

At that very moment as I reached the top of the hill, a blind man came around the corner.  He heard my footsteps, and simply said, “Good evening!”  He said this in such an immediate, bright, confirming way, as he tapped his white cane along the street.  This man could only hear the world.  He could only listen to the sounds around him, and he spoke to what came toward him.  I replied “Good evening,” and then he stopped to talk.  “I
don’t know your voice,” he said.  “Who are you?  Do you live on this block?”

The light of Kanzeon coursed through me.  The sound observer, the one who observes the sounds of the world, the Gateway to Everywhere.

We chatted for a few moments and all the while, I knew Kanzeon had made an
appearance.  Kanzeon was not a remote idea but an embodiment of all life around us.  I
realized that we are all Kanzeon as we respond with compassion to life in each moment. 
Sometimes we don’t know we are being Kanzeon, as this man did not, but the timing, the
moment, the manifestation rushed through me.  A moment earlier I had demanded proof. 
Here was Kanzeon before me in the words of the Lotus Sutra, listening to the sounds of
the world, and my life changed at that moment; the perceived torments of everyday life
simply vanished.  I would be reminded of this every time I heard his cane ticking on the
sidewalk in the neighborhood as he recognized my footstep.  Every sound an opportunity
of healing, the gateway to realization.  Not a small miracle, but the actualization of
compassion in the visible life around us, gratitude for all life in all its manifestations.

Constant Mindfulness of Sound Observer, the delicate voiced one who observes the
sounds of the world, the one who responds well to all places in all directions.  The one
whose broad vows are as deep as the ocean, beyond reckoning or discussion.  There is no
field of activity where Kanzeon does not display her body.  Kanzeon, the one who can
extinguish the woes of existence, who is the manifestation of the gateway to everywhere.
Visible and alive for all of us in every moment, a truth we can call on and rely on!

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