“She Carries Me” : A song for difficult times
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
Helping the Dying and Deceased 
Mar 26, 2020 The Buddha of Compassion, Guan Yin, and the qualities of compassion and wisdom will sustain us through hard times and all the way to awakening. This song was offered to all beings by the Sravasti Abbey community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Venerable Chodron introduces the song
We’re going to sing for you the song She Carries Me which is a song about Guan Yin, Chenrezig. It’s a very beautiful song and it has many multiple meanings. For some people it brings tears when they sing it. In the initial way when you sing it you see Guan Yin as a bodhisattva, as a person who’s reaching out to carry you across to the other shore of awakening. But if you look deeper, if you look at the lyrics and think about them more deeply, Guan Yin refers to bodhichitta. She also refers to emptiness and the wisdom realizing emptiness. So when you chant the song you can think about it either way — as a bodhisattva, as a person who helps. Or you think about those qualities that affect you when other people have them. And connect also with your aspiration to develop those same internal qualities yourself because those qualities will carry you through any kind of difficulties in your life and carry us through all of samsara to awakening.
Studio version
An offering: The community sings live
She is a boat, she is a light
High on a hill in dark of night
She is a wave, she is the deep
She is the dark where angels sleep
When all is still and peace abides
She carries me to the other side
She carries me, she carries me, she carries me to the other side…And though I walk through valleys deep
And shadows chase me in my sleep
On rocky cliffs I stand alone
I have no name, I have no home
With broken wings I reach to fly
She carries me to the other side
She carries me, she carries me, she carries me to the other side…A thousand arms, a thousand eyes
A thousand ears to hear my cries
She is the gate, she is the door
She leads me through and back once more
When day has dawned and death is nigh
She’ll carry me to the other side
She carries me, she carries me, she carries me to the other side…She is the first, she is the last
She is the future and the past,
Mother of all, of earth and sky
She carries me to the other side
She carries me, she carries me, she carries me to the other side…
Used with the permission of the composer. Learn more about Jennifer Berezan’s work here .
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
