It is important to know what this day is about. Otherwise, it becomes meaningless, where everybody becomes vegetarian 3 days a year.   

What is important is to ask ourselves why we feel safe with Guanyin. Everybody goes to Guanyin temple to pray and feel safe.  Why do you feel safe?  Yes, Guanyin is very compassionate and have loving kindness. You feel safe because you are relieved from suffering and can throw our emotions at her as she doesn’t judge.  

The most important thing is for everyone to learn the meanings from Avalokiteshvara’s name. What is important is the awareness of the five aggregates. With this awareness of aggregates, the most important is the Mahayana teaching in the realization of the emptiness of phenomena. So, when we say we all rely on Guanyin, it's also the mistaken way because when you rely on Guanyin, you feel you are a real person and Guanyin is also real and there is a real personality called Guanyin.  

Our ordinary uneducated Buddhist or training disciple thinks that there is a real Guanyin and that I am praying to this Guanyin. However, what does it mean to be like Guanyin and what does it mean to be like Avalokitesvara? Importantly, it is so that whatever you see, you unsee, whatever you hear, you unhear, whatever you feel, you unfeel, whatever you want to talk, don't talk, don't gossip, whatever you want to smell or taste or all the tactile or your perceptions, they are all your own perceptions that is not the reality. So, what is the most important point in terms of the teaching is to see Guanyin as Guru and see Guanyin in disguise of Guru. That is for the very advanced practitioners to see Guanyin as Guru. Ordinary people will just see Guru as ordinary human being, and then deity is deity, Bodhisattva as Bodhisattva. Advanced and deep practitioners, they realise the guru is the deity. The purpose and the meaning of all these is to free ourselves from our own nonsense. We have a lot of our own nonsense because when we see something, we believe in that something. When we hear something, we believe in that something, or when we taste something, we believe in it.   

There are many bad people who do many good things and good deeds. So, if we choose to be at the level that “I want to do good deeds”, that “I want to do this ...and that”, and then we criticize other people who do not do or believe the way that we believe and feel, then we know you are at the beginner level. I wouldn't say you're wrong, you're just at the beginner level because beginners are taught like that in society, that teaches us to make things happen like that.  

So many people ask me what to do, what am I supposed to feel when I'm reciting? You're supposed to feel regret for all that we’ve done, all the nonsense that we've said against Dharma brothers, sisters, parents and Guru, including all the wrong views, anger, judgment on each other and this and that. We are supposed to feel a sense of regret and now we ask for blessings from Chenrezig that we can become like him. This is important because it is not just a matter of us coming and reciting together. That defeats the purpose as it's not like that.  

Visualisation and Recitation on Chenrezig  

So, I generate and reframe my mind that I practice at this moment the heart of compassion, the spirit of Enlightenment that I may awaken into Buddhahood so that I can save and liberate all beings and ourselves from all forms of delusion, ignorance, fear, sadness, hunger and all types of sufferings including sicknesses, diseases, black magic, curses, Naga attacks and so forth.  

May Guru protect me, guide me, hold me, bless me that I may be free from all these and become like you.  I want you to feel from Chenrezig’s (Guanyin’s) hand as though he is holding a wish-fulfilling jewel, shooting out a laser of white light which fills your whole body and becomes white. Imagine the light shooting into your heart and you recite “Om Mani Padme Hung”. From the lower part of your body, that means your lower parts where you go to the toilet, dispelling all your negative guilt, your regret, your sadness, your suffering, and all the things that we feel powerless about. The things that we didn't know, and all the things that we killed, feel regret for, the things we lied about, the things we cheated on because we were frightened – all these things we ask him to forgive us, and we recite “Om Mani Padme Hung”. Most importantly, we pray and aspire to become like him. So, please pray to Guru Chenrezig and recite the mantra.  

Recite: “Guru Chenrezig, please send your light to my heart, to my life, to all my past lives, and send me the light, for me, to see my future clearly. So that I may make the blessed decisions, with your blessings, support, and guidance. Om Mani Padme Hung.”  

Now please change your visualization to Chenrezig sending light to you. Then this light now shines on all your friends, shining on all your family members, your friends, and the people that don't like you, hate you, gossip about you, the people and your enemies you don't like also. The light Guanyin sends to you, you shine on the people that you don't know too. Especially right now, it is very important that we have to shine the light on all the countries at war. So, from us we become bright like the sun and then we shine this light on them and relieve them of their suffering which is very important. This time, you need to recite the mantra, but you must feel a vibration coming out of your body, don’t mumble the mantra.  

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