Quan Yin Method

The term Quan Yin Method was coined in the 1970s by Suma Ching Hai, a controversial spiritual teacher, to describe the type of meditation that she herself practices and teaches. The spelling is a romanisation of a Chinese term said to be in English translation: “contemplation on the sound.” According to Ching Hai, the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, popularly known as Kuan Yin by many Chinese Buddhists and Taoists, practiced this form of meditation to become fully enlightened in ancient times. The argument is supported by the lesser known Buddhist sutra “Shurangama Sutra”. Ching Hai describes the Quan Yin Method as meditation on the inner sound and light of God.

Doctrine

Master Ching Hai maintains that the Quan Yin Method is the only avenue by which a person can become fully enlightened, or God-realized. She maintains that the method is independent of any particular Teacher, though not all teachers are enlightened to the necessary degree for teaching it. Surat Shabd Yoga is the traditional Indian name for this method.

According to her doctrine, there are five basic levels of enlightenment, each containing many sub levels. Master Ching Hai and her followers claim that only the Sound (Yin) can bring a person back to the true seat of the soul, at what they call the “Fifth Level” of consciousness (Sat Loka [hindi]/Sat Khand [Punjabi]: "True World"). Master Ching Hai is in agreement with other Sound meditation Teachers in describing a cosmology of five basic levels, and noting the importance of having a fifth level Teacher (one could only reach the spiritual level of who they follow).

Master Ching Hai says that each of these five levels are so vastly superior to the preceding one, that whenever someone reaches the next level he or she is immediately convinced that nothing in creation could be greater, and that the ultimate God realization has been achieved. Only a true Master (from at least the Fifth Level) possesses the wisdom and power to liberate souls and bring them back up to the souls' true home at the Fifth Level, according to this theory. Meditation without a fully realized Teacher is therefore unlikely to lead to beyond the "three worlds", where one is still affected by the sway of universal law "as you sow so shall you reap" ('karma').

The First Level

The “First Level” of enlightenment, according to Quan Yin doctrine, corresponds to the subtle, or “Astral” level of heaven. It is said to be the emotional level. The Astral level is made up of many varied sub-levels. Souls at this level occupy the Astral body, which is limited by emotional laws, not physical.

The Second Level

The Second Level of God-knowledge is the “causal”, or intellectual level. At the causal level, the soul is only encased by the mind, and is no longer the slave of emotion. The Physical, Astral and Causal levels make up the "three worlds". Although the Astral and Causal levels might seem increasingly magnificent according to human conception, the three worlds are governed by the negative power. Beings within the three worlds experience life and death according to a binding operating principle: "as you sow so shall you reap" ('karma'). Enlightenment beyond the three worlds requires nullification of this account. Souls at this level occupy the Mental body.

At the peak of the second level is the Universal Mind. This is the root of all activity in the three worlds including the existence of all inhabitants below.

The substance of the three worlds can be summarised as various admixtures of "matter" and "soul". Body and mind are grosser and finer manifestations of this admixture. They are created according to the organisational principle of the three worlds: 'karma'. Hence Souls may inhabit a multitude of bodies, and their minds my evolve over time. When a Soul's karmic account wears thin, it might employ the help of a living Master to exit the body and mind, hence leaving the 'three worlds'.

All of the three worlds are temporary, in that they are inevitably subject to periodical dissolution.

The Third Level

Beyond the three worlds the Soul is liberated from the authority of the negative power. It is not required to enter again, but may if it wishes to perform good works in order to climb further into the spiritual heir achy. At the third level the soul is liberated, but not completely realised, that is, it still "believes itself to be something which it is not".

The Fourth Level

At the Fourth level the soul is said to be highly realised. Many teachers of mankind have been enlightened to this level. At the peak of the Fourth level is a vastly dark region, like a pitch black city night. The only light comes from the souls existing here, which are waiting for a chance to encounter a Master to show them how to enter the Fifth level. The fifth level cannot be entered on account of any merit gained as can the levels below it. As the True home of Souls, a Fifth level Soul must accompany a soul in its qualification to enter.

The Fifth Level

All souls in creation originate in the Fifth level. Here we are promised eternal happiness and unchanging joy and here we have absolutely reunited with our essence as created beings.

If beings from the Fifth level were to attempt to rise above their origin, they would merely loose their conscious, individual identity and become the original unlimited potential. The intention of our Creator, however, is that we would retain our individuality.

The Sixth, Seventh and Eighth levels

These levels are untouchable and unknowable, existing beyond the capacity for individual existence of souls which originated at the Fifth level. Beings from these levels "have no cover", and never incarnate or visit realms below the Sixth.

The Ninth Level

The Ninth level is the final and unlimited level. It's peak is the true God, which is the consciousness of the ultimate, formless, impersonal and absolute. In its lower reaches, the Ninth level consists of vast entities responsible for the ordering of reality. Both the Absolute and the entities below it can and do incarnate for the benefit of the beings below, right down to the physical.

Metaphysical Method

The Quan Yin Method is said to involve a spiritual transmission from a Fifth Level Master in which a person’s third eye (located in the center of the forehead) is opened, supposedly allowing him or her to see and hear on higher spiritual planes.

According to Ching Hai, the third eye is the window to heaven, allowing a person to connect with the Word and enter samadhi through sincere concentration at that point. She teaches that it is really located at the center of the brain, but focusing attention in the middle of the forehead is how a person may access it. The location has been linked by others to the Pineal gland.

It is said by Ching Hai that it is possible for a persistent meditator to open his or her own third eye through personal effort, and thus attain samadhi, but she does not advise that. She claims that self-effort can only get a soul partially enlightened (probably up to Second Level at the most) and leaves the meditator vulnerable to the negative power, or Maya.

In Quan Yin literature, maya is the force of illusion in creation that causes suffering by entrapping the soul in a mind. It is personified by the Devil and is said to be the reason why human souls no longer experience the bliss of oneness with God. Master Ching Hai maintains that only a true Master, like herself, is able to protect a soul from the countless pitfalls and tricks that Maya can present during meditation. Without such protection, she says, no soul has any chance of ascending all the way to the Fifth Level.

Initiation

Practicing the Quan Yin Method requires an initiation from a Fifth Level Master, according to Ching Hai, although she hasn’t said if there are any other “Masters” out there who are qualified to perform initiation besides herself. During the initiation procedures, the students are instructed on how to meditate, then required to meditate together as a group, at which time a kind of spiritual transmission is allegedly made in which the students are said to experience “immediate enlightenment” with the opening of the symbolic third eye. This immediate enlightenment supposedly includes experiencing the sounds and sights of heaven and feeling uplifted.

Sometimes these initiations are performed en masse, immediately following a public lecture of Ching Hai’s. Other times, they are carried out in small groups by a representative of Ching Hai, without her being physically present. According to Quan Yin practitioners, Ching Hai’s power is everywhere and so it is not necessary for her to be physically present during the initiation.

For a person to be accepted for initiation, her or she has to agree to meditate two and a half hours a day and obey the five precepts, taken from Buddhism. The precepts are:

Refrain from taking the life of sentient beings.
Refrain from speaking what is not true.
Refrain from taking what is not yours.
Refrain from sexual misconduct.
Refrain from consuming intoxicants.

The first precept requires that the student maintain a strict vegetarian diet. Eggs are also not allowed because that is still considered “killing.” Abstaining from intoxicants entails that the Quan Yin student does not drink nor smoke. Pornography and gambling are also cautioned against.

Ching Hai's use of the Quan Yin Method

Ching Hai says that the Quan Yin Method is a practice, not a religion, and therefore does not call for initiates to leave their current religions and “convert” to Quan Yin. She says that whatever religion a person is in before initiation can be continued, with Quan Yin meditation and observance of the precepts added onto that. Master Ching Hai herself was a Tibetan Buddhist nun for ten years after she claimed to have became fully enlightened in the Himalayas

She continued to dress like a Tibetan Buddhist lama until around 1990, when she started wearing her own fashion designs. There is no charge for initiation and initiates are not allowed to donate to their master. Master Ching Hai makes her living independently as an artist and fashion designer.

Her paintings, clothing line, jewelry, and other artwork are available to the public at a considerable price. Criticisms of Master Ching Hai tend to focus on the fact that her disciples buy much of her artwork, which they see as indirectly donating to her.

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