A guide to this poem (with a little help from Wiki): Avalokiteśvara is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. This bodhisattva is variably depicted, described and portrayed in different cultures as either male or female.In Tibet, he is known as Chenrezig, and in Cambodia as Avloketesvar. In Chinese Buddhism, Avalokiteśvara has evolved into the somewhat different female figure Guanyin, also known in Japan as Kanzeon. The Master the poem speaks about is Ramakrishna, the Bengali teacher who died in 1886. In many ways, he united the dual, theistic path with the avaitic or nondual path. The weeds and the little Rockaway river are all found around my home in New Jersey.

-Jason Shulman