TLDR: Ying Cong reviews the Guan Yin musical and explores the relevance of Guan Yin in today’s fast-paced and often tumultuous society.
“Guan Yin” is a name I hadn’t thought about in a long time. That’s why, as I cleared my head of work to prepare for the Guan Yin musical on Friday evening, my imagination stuttered.
Shifting my focus from the day-to-day challenges of business growth to the age-old tales of Guan Yin was like stepping from a bustling city into a tranquil ancient temple.
For the next three hours, Victoria Theatre would be my modern-day temple, a sacred space where these ancient tales would be retold.
A modern encounter
Like many millennials, my impression of Guan Yin is a distorted one, pieced together from fragments encountered in various temples and snatches of her story in movies and TV shows.
Guan Yin was a celestial figure featured in key moments of Journey to the West, a TV series I eagerly watched with my family over dinner in the early 2000s.
Other than that, my most light-hearted memory of Guan Yin was a scene in the 2002 movie, I Not Stupid, where the overzealous mother of an underperforming EM3 student prayed for her child’s academic success at the temple.
A scene from ‘I Not Stupid’ 2002
After eagerly stuffing some cash into the donation box, the temple staff informed her that as part of their digital transformation, the blessing papers for her son were now downloadable on guanyinma.com.
In various heartland Channel 8 dramas in Singapore, Guan Yin is the ultimate social safety net whom protagonists turn to for everything from financial to romantic help in their darkest moments.
My fiancée and I entered early and watched the audience stream in. It was, understandably, an older demographic – grandparents with their grandkids, groups of friends from various Buddhist groups, monastics associated with the musical producer at Dizanglin.
Out of insecurity of my patchy understanding of Guan Yin, I served myself a Wikipedia crash course on her origins. Like most figures with sustained history, the origin story is complicated and winding.
It turns out Guan Yin is the Chinese interpretation of the symbolic figure of Avalokiteshvara, who is an instantiation of the Bodhisattva. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva, out of compassion for all beings, chooses to remain in the cycle of samsara to alleviate their suffering.
From Royalty to Dhamma
Soon, the lights dimmed and the curtains drew. The live Chinese orchestra in the pits started playing, and we were greeted with an opening chant by a troupe of white-robed singers, tuned to a calming, angelic melody.
This ethereal singing is, happily, a fixture for the remainder of the show. The musical is split into 4 stories marking pivotal moments in Guan Yin’s life.
The first story describes her origin. Guan Yin was born as Princess Miao Shan. Somewhat reminiscent of Siddhartha’s growing up years, she came of age with scant attraction to the earthly allures of luxurious clothes and royal food, instead inclining heavily towards Dharma.
In a similar narrative twist, she rejected her father’s wish for her to marry royally, vowing instead to ordain. Her father was understandably enraged and punished her with menial chores, which she patiently endured. Finally, he relented, and she set off on her arduous path.
Through various sages, she learned of a vase up on a mountain that holds the key to her future. It turns out this was no Bukit Timah Hill, especially in the days before proper climbing gear. The treacherous uphill journey was infested with menacing beasts.
This was artfully depicted with evocative sand art projected onto the backdrop. With a brief wave of the artist’s hands and some dexterous tracing, the sand quickly outlined the dripping viciousness of a lion, a tiger and a viper.
Another sweep later, we saw the valiant elephant who rode in to defend her. When she finally found the sage with the vase, she pleadingly asked when she would be enlightened. The answer returned resoundingly – there are too many beings suffering for her to escape from this world.
Guan Yin’s Market Teaching
The second act is a much more light-hearted tale set in a bustling village market. She came this time with a basket containing live fish, intending to inculcate the lessons of compassion.
The villagers, tempted by the fish, wanted to buy it for food. Taking this as the spark for her teaching, she implored them to consider the pains of the fish when it dies for their plates.
Although somewhat chastened, the village men remained undeterred and expressed a desire to marry her. Smilingly but unfazed, she said she can only pick one – the one who can memorise all the chants she issued to them.
After a few rounds of increasingly longer brain-breaking chants, where initially overconfident contenders dropped like flies, an earnest and affable fisherman emerged as her groom.
Yet, while the villagers basked in the celebrations of the wedding, they found her dead, and decomposing faster than usual. Among this confusing turn of events, a monk appeared, and enlightened the groom that she was Guan Yin incarnated, and has come to share the teachings of compassion with them through the chants.
His duty from then on was to spread the teachings contained in the chants he had memorised.
War, death, and compassion
The third story opened with a chilling backdrop. In this story, the common folks were wilfully slaughtered in a war between nations, and the spirits of the innocent dead lingered in hatred, pain and self-pity.
Cast in a dim red light, the dancers writhed and howled in visceral agony. I could feel my fiancée tensing up in her seat. Also sensing the suffering thick in the air, Guan Yin manifested as a monastic, sat by the river near the dead, and chanted non-stop for 49 days to transcend the trapped spirits to a good rebirth.
The relief was palpable throughout the theatre as the howling ghosts calmed down, prostrated with profuse gratitude and spirited away peacefully, light as air.
Guan Yin Transcends Time
The last story connected Guan Yin’s story to the present. It tells of a Japanese monk who visited the Guan Yin statue in Wu Tai Shan. In a moment of desperate folly, he nabbed the statue, intending to invite Guan Yin home to palliate his mother’s ailments.
He then set off on a small boat into the ocean towards Japan. The seas were calm at first. The dancers who depicted the waves pulsed steadily with billowing white cloths.
Yet, with a thunderous strike, the waves leapt into wild rage, trapping him to the shores of an island.
Taking it as a sign from Guan Yin, he disembarked, and settled down. This island eventually became the site of the main Guan Yin temple at Pu Tuo Shan, which exists till today.
Pu Tuo Shan, Cntravel 2013
Guan Yin in TikTok land
As the curtains drew to a close, the essence of the stories lingered in my mind, weaving a tapestry where compassion stood as the timeless, yet often overlooked, thread.
It made me question the hierarchy of values I had unconsciously prioritised – where achievement and status are the celebrated protagonists, while kindness and compassion often find themselves relegated to the background.
Looking at our daily headlines and the trends on platforms like TikTok, it is striking how rarely compassion, as opposed to controversy or sensationalism, takes the spotlight.
The irony is poignant: we are often taught to be kind, yet society rewards us for worldly accomplishments. It is only in moments of burnout, when a sense of meaninglessness begins to shadow the relentless chase in our careers, that the whisper reaches a crescendo as a clarion call – compassion is not just necessary for a healthy society, but also a healthy mind.
Despite her selfless giving to the multitudes of suffering beings, Guan Yin herself has not once lost her inner sanctuary of peace.
Reflecting on this, the name “Guan Yin,” which had long been absent from my thoughts, now takes on a new significance. As I stepped out of the modern-day temple of Victoria Theatre, I realised that the age-old tales of Guan Yin are more relevant today than ever.
Wise Steps
Practice Daily Compassion: Incorporate small acts of kindness in your daily life, fostering a compassionate mindset inspired by Guan Yin’s teachings.
Reflect on Values: Evaluate personal priorities, questioning societal norms, and consider integrating compassion as a fundamental value in decision-making.
Share Compassion: Spread awareness by sharing the article or discussing it with friends and family, encouraging conversations about the importance of compassion in today’s world.
TLDR: Teacher burnout is a real risk. The mental health of teachers also has a significant impact on students. Besides relying on their peers and official support channels, teachers can practise meditation to promote greater mental wellness for themselves and their students.
The Missing Conversation
“What’s missing from the conversation in schools is the mental well-being of teachers.”
So goes a comment from a former secondary school teacher, as quoted in a CNA Insider post, which highlighted the challenges that teachers have faced. As netizens generally agreed, teachers have it tough.
Struggling to cover content while keeping up with new policies and coping with safe management measures, answering multiple stakeholders like parents, colleagues, and supervisors. Teachers may find it all rather overwhelming.
If a common refrain of critics is to ask who guards the guards, can we ask in turn how we can care more for the caregivers?
How should we take better care of teachers’ mental health, especially from a Dhamma-based perspective?
Burnout and Brownout
The issue of mental wellness has preoccupied the nation’s collective imagination in recent months. Reports have noted that, in comparison to their peers globally, Singaporean workers experienced higher than average levels of burnout: around half felt exhausted, while almost 60% felt overworked. For professions as demanding as teaching, the risk of burnout seems particularly acute.
Aside from ‘burnout’, more workplaces have observed increased incidence of ‘brownout’ — akin to the reduction in voltage which results in the dimming and flickering of lights — in the workplace environment. This would refer to the stage before the point of burnout, as a loss of interest in work and life, in general, threatens to slip into depression.
I’m reminded of the five hindrances in Buddhism: perhaps experiences of burnout and brownout constitute a toxic mixture of states of torpor, intensified by restlessness, worry, and doubt.
Some have raised the deeper question about the role of teachers and the scope of their responsibilities. In a widely-shared video by RiceMedia, artist-musician and former teacher Chew Wei Shan recounts what it was like to be marking on weekends and juggling multiple obligations like managing a CCA, managing parents’ expectations, and so on.
She movingly describes her experiences at school, which included dissuading a teenager from jumping off a roof at 2 AM, having chairs and scissors thrown at her, and male students cornering her while “eating [her] worksheet in [her] face”.
At the same time, she observes how emotionally invested teachers can be in the lives of the hundreds of students they meet every year.
As she reflects, it’s hard for teachers to avoid bringing back home worries about the students, or to prevent themselves from evaluating the little choices they make daily.
More than to ‘Just Teach’
As an NIE lecturer of mine once quipped, “If you want to just teach and only teach, you should be a full-time tutor.”
To be a teacher, however, is far more than just to teach.
It also means being a confidant, ready to step in when the need to counsel students arises, in addition to being an event planner, community organiser, safety officer, and a myriad of other roles.
I’m reminded of the figure of Kuan Yin, the thousand-armed bodhisattva in the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, whose numerous arms deliver aid to all suffering sentient beings, and who tirelessly offers blessings in the spirit of boundless compassion and wisdom.
Perhaps teachers, who have dutifully coached and comforted students despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, are akin to modern bodhisattvas, selflessly devoting their time and effort to the welfare of their young charges.
But unlike Kuan Yin, teachers generally don’t have infinite energy and knowledge. Many teachers have also gone out of their way to ensure that programmes and lessons can proceed uninterrupted.
For instance, as described in a TODAY article, as mass assembly programmes had to be halted due to safe management measures, teachers had to equip themselves with new skills such as how to record or live-stream performances to be presented via video-conferencing tools for events like Racial Harmony Day.
The work involved in preparing for such events, in addition to other preparatory work needed to create resources for home-based learning or other activities, may have taken a toll on teachers over the past two years.
No System is Perfect
In response to concerns about excessive workloads as a result of duties apart from teaching, the Ministry of Education has clarified that the appraisal of teachers is such that their contributions are given recognition in all aspects of work, taking into account their efforts in aiding students’ holistic growth.
As for administrative duties, there has been significant progress made to minimise teachers’ workloads by incorporating technology like the Parents’ Gateway app, as well as the evaluation and furnishing of manpower support. Furthermore, the ministry has reminded schools to review their systems of management so that teachers’ responsibilities can be better managed.
On the ground, much depends on individual schools, school leaders, and colleagues, but at least official clarifications signal purposeful angling of priorities and directions for future educational policies.
In a world governed by Dukkha (dissatisfaction), no system is perfect, but teachers can still refine and shape their sphere of influence to promote greater awareness and understanding of the roles that they play, and the effects they have on others.
Interdependence: Teachers & Students
As former nominated MP, Anthea Ong, was quoted to have observed, “A student who is not well affects the well-being of a teacher—and a teacher who is not well affects the students. These two things need to be looked at in totality.”
This reminded me of the concept of interdependence, or interbeing, as Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh would put it.
When we understand how all phenomena exist concerning one another, we develop an awareness of the welfare of one is contingent on the other. Teachers and students are inextricably interconnected.
Such interdependence also explains why teachers play such a critical role in modelling to students what mental health entails. Students mirror their teachers in many ways, and the effect of teacher modelling can hardly be underestimated.
If teachers are calm and steady, students naturally sense this and develop a similar composure. If teachers are anxious or worried, students also succumb more easily to such fearful states of mind. Students are extremely observant towards the emotional tenor of their teachers, and they can quickly spot any discrepancy between teachers’ words and feelings.
Getting off my Treadmill of Suffering
All this is based on personal experience. I remember how, amid one particularly difficult period in school, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. All the work involved in teaching graduating classes, setting examination papers, managing a CCA, coordinating committee work, organising events, responding to parents, and so on—with the cycle repeating every semester—had left me feeling like I was on a samsaric treadmill that could not stop.
I hardly realised it at the time, but without adequate strategies to cope with stress through skilful means, the atmosphere of my classes had been compromised. Even though I thought I kept maintaining my encouraging and reassuring classroom persona in front of students, my students shared privately after school with me that they noticed how I was often worried and anxious in class.
My micro-expressions and other body language cues must have revealed my sense of tension and unease, which had invariably filtered into my students’ consciousness as well.
Fortunately, after my students alerted me to this, I began a process of self-reflection and lifestyle adjustment. I went through all my duties to reschedule or de-prioritise whatever I could. I blocked off time for sleep (instead of marking into the wee hours) and time for regular meals (instead of skipping lunch).
In the evenings and on weekends, I set aside time for spiritual reading, and often I would also be listening to Dhamma talks like those by Ajahn Brahm. I made a conscious effort to shift my default state of mind from restlessness and agitation to calmness and equanimity.
This shift paid off—my students noticed that I was more ‘alive’ and present during class.
It was a testament to the importance of self-care, which far from being selfish, is essential for long-term flourishing. It means setting boundaries and respecting one’s own physical and psychological limits.
The Power of Mindfulness
As Venerable Thubten Chodron observes in her book Good Karma, “Giving up self-preoccupation does not entail making ourselves suffer. We must take care of ourselves… this human body is the basis of our precious human life that gives us the possibility to learn and practise the Dhamma.”
Meditation can also be a powerful means of promoting greater mental wellness. When my school counsellor conducted weekly secular guided mindfulness practice sessions for the whole school via the PA system, I noticed how helpful it was for my students to begin the day with such a dose of calm.
This practice signalled how mindfulness could be beneficial for the mainstream. Through mindfulness practice, students could increase their attentiveness, reduce test anxiety, and develop greater impulse control. Teachers in turn could cultivate a greater sense of balance and become more responsive to students’ needs.
Naturally, this is not to suggest that mindfulness alone is a panacea for all teachers who experience burnout. For teachers experiencing mental health issues, support from colleagues and official channels (such as counselling services offered by the Academy of Singapore Teachers) would be crucial.
Seeking such professional help should also never be a cause for stigmatisation. We can continue to develop a culture in which self-care is safeguarded, and access to affordable therapeutic care is normalised.
Perhaps we could learn from therapeutic circles of care, such as those established in other countries that have leveraged community partners like trained grandmothers to provide affordable mental health support. At the same time, mindfulness can help to enhance teachers’ abilities, while ensuring that they can care for themselves in ways that allow them to care better for others.
If “wisdom springs from meditation” (Dhammapada v. 282), teachers are in a unique position to cultivate life-changing qualities of wisdom and compassion through the practice of mindfulness for the benefit of their students.
By championing and foregrounding the importance of mental wellness, teachers can better empower their students to learn, grow, and pass on the light of mindful living to others.
Wise Steps:
Develop a sense of purpose and meaning in the work that you do. Minimise the risk of burnout by prioritising tasks, based on discussions with colleagues and superiors.
Never be too busy to take care of your physical and emotional well-being. Schedule time for regular meals and sleep. Reading or listening to Dhamma talks can also promote your mental wellness.
Engage in mindfulness practice as a daily habit to ground and centre yourself during difficult times. Remain motivated to practise by staying connected to like-minded spiritual friends.
