Heart Sutra blog II

           Hi every one or should I write my very very few readers.  I just got back from a seven day sesshin and even after all these years  (40+) I believe meditation is deepening  and changing for me.  Here is part 2 on my Heart Sutra blogs.

O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form.  That which is form is emptiness. that which is emptiness, form.  The same is true of feelings,perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
 
            All of a sudden Avalokiteshvara comes out of meditation and addresses Shariputra.  Unlike Avalokiteshvara we know Shariputra to be a real member of the Shakyamuni Buddha's community.  Shariputra was famed for his scholarship and wisdom.  It is interesting that Avalo addresses Shariputra and not the Buddha or the whole group sitting that day.  This points to an unusual interpretation that this whole sutra might be about not Avalo's enlightenment but about Shariputra's enlightenment and that this is all happening inside the mind of Shariputra.   I say this because Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva is a Universal Bodhisattva representing the wisdom of non-discrimination.  We might say that Avalo manifests every time the wisdom of non-discrimination manifests.  In this case this wisdom is manifesting for Shariputra.  Any individual who is experiencing the wisdom of non-discrimination is meeting Avalokitesvara and experiencing the heart of the Prajna Paramita. Whether you accept this unusual interpretation it doesn't matter, this Sutra is about the experience and wisdom thereby gained from non-discrimination. 
          To at all understand the Heart Sutra we have to have some idea of what is the experience of non-discrimination. Maybe we can have some inkling of understanding if we understand how meditation with a mantra works.  In meditation with a mantra we recite the mantra to ourselves attending to the sound of the mantra with concentrated awareness with our inner ear, usually synchronizing the repetition with our breath.  This is a practice in mindfulness and concentration.  We use the mantra to crowd out and cut off our inner dialogue and imagination  This simple practice if maintained continuously over long periods of time, not just hours but weeks and years, will so reduce the energy and habits of our constant inner dialogue and imagination that we will find ourselves without inner dialogue and imagination. not permanently but for periods of time.  One might think that this practice will put one in a sort of a dull hypnotic state but this is not true.  Actually if a person can take the practice that far he/she will find their mind clear, alert, and energized.  This is not very different from the state of mind of the artist or artisan who has spent endless hours practicing, mastering their craft.  Now imagine that after a long period of mantra practice we have entered a state of mind where there is nothing happening in the mind but that mantra repetition   All self consciousness is gone.  We have lost awareness of our body.  All extraneous thoughts are stopped.  Now we open our eyes and look out at the world.  We see forms but all the normal habits of thinking about these forms are gone.  We don't categorize the form as this thing or that thing.  We don't recognize the form as being "out there" or "here in the mind.  We don't add any emotion or thought to what is seen.  We don't  even divide the forms into this and that.  This is the state of complete non-discrimination.  And if upon returning to discursive thought we try to describe this experience of non-discrimination then the word empty might seem like an excellent description.  The normally constant process of conscious and unconscious discrimination that gives the forms observed a sense of reality and solidity is not present.  Now when we observe form we can only ascribe a quality of emptiness to form which is to say no quality.  And this no quality is so intimately fused with observed form that we have to say; "That which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form."
          There is another translation of the Heart Sutra by the Zen Studies Society of New York City which replaces "emptiness" with "Mu" a common Zen mantra which translates as "no" in Chinese.  Shodo Harada Roshi is constantly telling his students to see things as "just phenomena."  The Heart Sutra is not talking about some subtle and difficult to understand intellectual concept of emptiness but the experience of emptiness which is non-discrimination.
          
The same is true of feelings perceptions, impulses,and consciousness.                       

          This next line seems to be a shift in perspective from looking outward to looking back upon one's self.  Form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness are the five skandas (trans: aggregates)  which form the classical Buddhist idea of what constitutes a human being.  At a sesshin (7 day meditation retreat) I  always encounter a lot of pain during the long hours of meditation.  Some times the pain seems almost unbearable  I have thoughts that I am doing permanent damage to my body and I need to move.  But then if meditation is deep with few thoughts I observe the same sensation with little trouble.  The sensation is no longer painful it is simply sensation, phenomena.  The sensation has become empty of the usual attending thoughts that make the sensation painful.  In deep meditation  each of the skandas has that same quality of emptiness as form.  Even consciousness becomes empty when in very deep meditation we enter a mirror like state where sensations reflect on the mirror of consciousness but there is no self conscious awareness.  Each skanda is just phenomena.
          If each of the five skandas is just phenomena then we humans are just phenomena, then  I am just phenomena.  Not my form, not my feelings, not my perceptions, not my impulses, not my consciousness has any special quality that I can attach to as "I".  This is just a reformulation of the non-atman doctrine of Shakyamuni.  This is such an unsettling idea that to our normal way of thinking it is scary, and fear is often experienced by meditators as they approach this insight.  It takes a deep experience of personal emptiness for it to truly be accepted.  But once accepted there will be profound changes in the individual. 
          One might think that the acceptance of our own individual emptiness would lead one into feelings of nihilism and despair but just the opposite happens.  We read that this insight saved Avalokiteshvara from all suffering.  Why?  This insight of emptiness cuts the roots of the illusion of an individual self  and though we seem to loose what is most dear, our selves, we gain the Universe.  Or maybe I should say we become the Universe.  Our personal boundaries are gone and we experience an amazing connection to everything.   Zen teachers often tell their students to become  "one" with something, the mountains, the sound of a stream, the pain in the knees, etc.  They are simply asking the students to experience that same amazing connection that happens when there are no personal boundaries.     
           I am not sure this completely explains why this insight saves us from suffering it doesn't actually end the pain in the knees during sesshin.  And it certainly doesn't end  emotions of empathy for the suffering of others.  These emotions are just intensified by a deepening connections to others.  Nor does it actually end any other emotion though I would hope it lessens greed, anger, and fear.  .But, what it does do is end our attachment to our emotions and any idea of how things should be, and it is that attachment which is the actual suffering.  
           I heard a wonderful interview with an astrophysicist the other day.  The astrophysicist talked about how some people upon learning about the huge immensity of the cosmos will feel insignificant and depressed, but that they have a deluded view of their self importance.  He on the other hand feels aw and joy that he gets to take part in this amazing Universe.  He called it a cosmic perspective This is very much like the perspective of the Heart Sutra, by understanding our own emptiness and the emptiness of all sensations there is a complete change in perspective.  It doesn't change us from being human but it does give us a sort of cosmic perspective in which we also find aw and joy as well as love and compassion                                            

Part I Heart Sutra Blog 

     The Heart Sutra Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra 

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all  suffering. 

O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness, form. The same is true of 
feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.


 O Shariputra, all Dharmas are marked with emptiness. 
They are without birth or death, are not 
tainted, nor pure; do not increase, nor decrease. Therefore, in 
emptiness no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no 
consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no 
mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of 
mind, no world of eyes, through to no world of mind consciousness. 
No ignorance and also no extinction of it, through to no old 
age and death and also no extinction of it. No suffering, no 
origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment, 
with nothing to attain. 

The Bodhisattvas depend on Prajna Paramita and their minds 
are no hindrance. Without any hindrance, no fears exist. Far apart 
from every deluded view they dwell in Nirvana. 


In the Three Worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita and 
attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect Enlightenment. 
Therefore know: the Prajna Paramita is the great transcendent 
mantra, is the great bright mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the 
supreme mantra, which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not 
false. So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra, proclaim the 
mantra that says: 


Gyate, gyate, paragyate, parasamgyate, bodhi svaha!  


          Hi everybody out there in Zen blog land.  I thought I might start a series of blogs on the Heart Sutra.  We Zen students read it all the time.  Here in the Moonwater Dojo we read it three times a month which doesn't seem  much but during sesshins here in Port Townsend and on Whidbey we read it several times a day.  Yet if you ask most Zen students to explain it's meaning they would have a difficult time.  I guess some how it is suppose to filter into our consciousness and transform us.  Anyway I am going to expound on it. I am going to use the translation used by the One Drop Sangha  for the most part. Here goes

Avalokiteshvara Boddhisattva while practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering.


          This is the first line of the Sutra as used by the Zen schools.  There is a slightly longer version used by the Tibetan schools which sets up the event which becomes the Heart Sutra.  In this longer version the setting for the Sutra is a gathering of monks and Bodhisattvas each practicing their  individual meditation practice.  The Buddha is practicing a Buddha's samadhi called  "Profound Perception".  We don't know exactly how the Buddha practiced meditation though a deeply experienced practitioner might have a good idea of what is the samadhi of Profound Perception.  More importantly we should understand that Avalokiteshvara's practice is different from the Buddha's, maybe not as deep and he is using   a mantra in meditation which will be given at the end of the Sutra.  He is practicing the Prajna Paramita which we gather from the Sutra is the repetition of a special mantra.  And what we read here is that something happened to Avalokiteshvara while meditating, this perception that all five Skandas are empty and that this was his/ her's enlightenment.  
          Who is Avalokiteshvara?  Normally we should not think of Avalokiteshvara as being a real person who existed during Shakyamuni's time.  Avalokiteshvara is one of those class of Bodhisattvas which in the Mahayana school of Buddhism represents certain important universal qualities.  Normally Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of Compassion.  As the Bodhisattva of Compassion he/she manifests in various different forms.  The Tibetan's believe that the Dali Lama is a incarnation of Avalokiteshvara.  The Chinese have transformed Avalo into the female deity of mercy and compassion Kwan Yin.  My friend and local Buddhist scholar Bill Porter tells me that Avalo was probably a pre-Buddhist Western Asian deity incorporated into Buddhism.  But, here in the Heart Sutra, Avalo represents something other then compassion.  And though we should realize that though the Sutra does not tell the story of a literal event we should think of it as though it is a literal event.  And as such it tells the story of an Enlightenment which tells us about the essence of Enlightenment.
        Avalo while representing compassion is the star of this Sutra because he/she also represents the wisdom of non-discrimination.  This is not a wisdom to be gained from intellectual discourse nor the normal experiences of life.  This wisdom is to only be found in the experience of non-discrimination which can be experienced in meditation.  It is also the foundation wisdom where all other of the Buddhist versions of wisdom begin.
          Prajna Paramita translates as "perfection of wisdom", prajna meaning wisdom and paramita meaning perfection.  Prajna Paramita as a practice has the sense of a process.  Avalo is in the process of perfecting his wisdom unlike a Buddha who's wisdom is complete, though of course this is just an ideal.  
          The Heart Sutra is one of a group of sutras called the Prajna Paramita Sutras all of which focus on the concept of "emptiness." Right away we learn that Avalo perceives that the five skandhas are empty and that this perception is the essence of enlightenment.  I like the use of the word perception in this translation because it points not to emptiness as a fully intellectual concept but as an actual quality of Avalo's experience of the world and in particular the five skandhas which are the components of his own being.  The emphasis here is that this is a meditative experience.  Avalo was not trying to figure anything out as he sat repeating a mantra over and over with his full concentration until his perception was transformed and he clearly saw everything including himself as empty.
          Here we see the essence of the Mahayana as being different from Theravada Buddhism.  In Theravada Buddhism the emphasis is on a gradual process of purification in which the individual rids him/her self of passions, desires, delusions and attachments and thereby attains enlightenment when the process is complete.  Here in the Heart Sutra Avalo attains enlightenment with a single insight jumping over some of the process of purification or maybe we should say jumps beyond the process of purification.
          We read that Avalokiteshvara was saved from all suffering.  This is how we know that this is  enlightenment but being saved from suffering is different from ending all suffering.  There is a story that the Buddha after his experience of enlightenment was walking to Vasili to meet his friends when he ran across a fellow sannyasin and tried to explain  his experience and insight to this sannyasin.  The sannyasin was not properly impressed and the Buddha had to rethink his presentation.  The teachings we know as the Buddha's focus on ending suffering through  the process of purification which Theravada Buddhism teaches.  The ending of suffering is a very attractive teaching.  But Theravada Buddhism in Asia is a monk's discipline, and one of the first steps in the practice is to be a home leaver, to drop all cares, attachments and responsibilities of the normal individual, and then work on purifying the individual mind.  But then how is the normal individual with the responsibilities of life to practice and find release from suffering. This is a problem here in the West where Theravada Buddhism has become mostly a laymen's practice.  Yes we can deal with individual cases of suffering through the practice of non-attachment and certainly mindfulness helps in identifying our patterns of attachment and delusive thinking.  But, does this get to the root of our suffering?  Is this not like trimming a tree of attachments with new branches constantly growing.  Some how we need to identify and focus our cutting on the roots of our suffering.
           There are other teachings in Buddhism besides meditation, mindfulness and non-attachment.  One of these teachings is the Non-Atman doctrine.. This is the idea that we have no soul no self, nothing that is permanent indestructible and divine that is the core of our being as a human.  I find this is the most difficult teaching in Buddhism to absorb.  It deeply challenges us.  If we have no-soul then what is this I which is filled with desires, passions, likes, and dislikes.  And if there is no I then what is free will?  Without free will what is karma?  And then what happens when we die?  How can we be reborn or go to heaven without a soul?  I imagine that this might have been what the Buddha tried to explain to that sennyasin he met along the road.
          In the Heart Sutra  the concept of emptiness is the Mahayana version of non-atman, and it is insight into this which is the core of the enlightenment experience.