“A thousand eyes can not only see, but illuminate. Your ordinary eyes can see ten or twenty miles, or with binoculars, perhaps a hundred miles. With a thousand eyes, you can see for a million miles, to the ends of empty space and the Dharma Realm. You don’t even need a television to watch the astronauts walking on the moon. It’s so much less expensive than buying a television or photographs, or magazines. Now do you think a thousand eyes are useful?

“What about a thousand hands? If you have only two hands, then when you pick something up in each of them, you can’t pick up anything else. With one hand, you can take the thousand dollars; with a thousand hands, you can take a hundred million.

“Now let’s divide some apples. You may take as many as you want. Of course, if you only have two hands, you can take only two. If you have a thousand, you can take a thousand. Isn’t that useful? But a thousand hands are not for child’s play. The reason to have a thousand hands is to save other people. If a thousand people are drowning and you have only two hands, you will only be able to rescue two of them. If you have a thousand hands, you will be able to reach into the water and pull them all out. Is that useful or not?

A thousand eyes observe,
A thousand ears hear all;
A thousand hands help and support

“The Bodhisattva Who Regards the Sounds of the World has a thousand hands, not for stealing things, but for rescuing people. They are not for the purpose of surreptitiously picking a thousand apples. You should be clear about this point.

“Where do the thousand hands and eyes come from? They are born from the Great Compassion Mantra. You must recite the Great Compassion Mantra and cultivate the Great Compassion Dharma of the Forty-two Hands. The last of the forty-two hands is called the “Uniting and Holding, the Thousand Arms Hand.” Every time you recite this mantra, your hands increase by forty-two. Recite it once and you have forty-two more hands; recite it again and they increase by forty-two. Recite it a hundred times and you will have 4,200, a thousand times, 42,000, and so forth. It’s simply a matter of whether or not you cultivate. But the thousand hands and eyes are not obtained in a day and a night. You must cultivate with effort every single day, never missing a day. If you cultivate daily according to Dharma, you will perfect the inconceivably wonderful function of enlightenment, but if you cultivate today and quit tomorrow, it is of no use at all. In the world, if you want a Ph.D., you have to study for fourteen or fifteen years. How much more effort is needed to study the Buddhadharma! Unless you continually use true, genuine effort, you will have no success.…” (DS 2-4)

In the Sūraṅgama Sutra, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara states:

For example, I may make appear one head, three heads, five heads, seven heads, nine heads, eleven heads, and so forth, until there may be one hundred eight heads, a thousand heads, ten thousand heads, or eighty-four thousand vajra heads; two arms, four arms, six arms, eight arms, ten arms, twelve arms, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen arms, or twenty arms, twenty-four arms, and so forth until there may be one hundred eight arms, a thousand arms, or eighty-four thousand mudrā arms; two eyes, three eyes, four eyes, nine eyes, and so forth until there may be one hundred eight eyes, a thousand eyes, ten thousand eyes, or eighty four thousand pure and precious eyes, sometimes compassionate, sometimes awesome, sometimes displaying wisdom to rescue and protect living beings so that they may attain great self-mastery. (SS V 178-179)

千手千眼 ; Avalokiteśvara