Here is part V and the end of my Heart Sutra Comentary.



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! 


          Now we come to the mantra, but before I discuss the mantra I have a few things to say about the first line of this section.  The Three Worlds are the World of Form, the World of the formless, and the World of desire.  These three worlds represent the three ways that most of us humans relate to the world around us.  The World of Forms is the world of things.  Being enamored with things is to live in the World of Forms.  This can manifest in various ways from the person who likes to travel who likes to see things to the wealthy person who  accumulates lots of things.  I like tools and to build things, in this way I live in the world of Form.  There are many ways to live in the world of Form as there are many ways to live in all three worlds.  The World of  the Formless is the world of the intellect, the world of ideas.  The philosopher and the scientist live in the world of the formless.  Of course writing this I live in the world of the formless.  Lastly is the World of Desire.  This is the world of sensual pleasures and our visceral desires for sensual pleasures.  This is also the world of the hedonist.  None of us live in just one or two of these worlds.  We live in all three aspects of the triple world though individual personality and experience draws the individual into one of these worlds more then the others.
          These three broad categories are different aspects of what we Buddhists call Samsara the world of delusion, attachments, and suffering, the world that most of us live in.  It is interesting that the author of the Heart Sutra placed the Buddha in Samsara and the Bodhisattva in Nirvana.  Bodhisattvas are supposedly not as advanced as Buddhas.  One becomes a Buddha upon attaining "complete perfect enlightenment."  The Bodhisattva though enlightened is still on the path and can still fall temporarily from the the grace of enlightenment and may even choose to do so in their path of compassion.
          I think the author of the Heart Sutra is trying to emphasize that Buddhas live in the same world that we all do.  That they are just humans but also in their complete dependence on Prajna Paramita have transformed the Three Worlds into something different, Nirvana.  The third vow of the four Bodhisattva vows states; "Dharmas are inexhaustible, I vow to master them."  We might think that the Dharmas are teachings of Buddhism but in this case Dharmas also refer to our moment to moment situations in life.  Each moment is a challenge, will our minds cloud over with delusions and attachments or will they remain clear with the wisdom of Prajna?  Even for the enlightened this is a work in progress.  If there is truly something called "complete perfect enlightenment", this is when through years of practice Prajna manifests for the individual in every situation.
            The Sixth Patriarch of Zen, Hui Neng, was noted for teaching "sudden enlightenment" and what he called the Buddha Path.  This is nothing more then an emphasis on the enlightenment experience that Shakyamuni experienced and each of us has the potential to also experience, the experience of Avalokiteshvara presented in the Heart Sutra.  Yes, this enlightenment experience is sudden but it is just a single step in a path that will take a life time.  Even Shakyamuni continued to practice his whole life.  Maybe it was wise that Sakyamuni did not emphasize his experience but rather the day to day work of the Eight Fold Path.  The idea that there is  something special to achieve becomes a barrier, on the other hand thinking there is nothing to achieve can also be a barrier, a difficult problem.  The ideal of "complete perfect enlightenment" is just that, an ideal to spend a lifetime working towards.
          Lastly, if we view what I have just written from the wisdom of non-duality there is only complete perfect enlightenment functioning moment to moment.  It is the Universe's own complete perfect enlightenment.  We humans in our ignorant striving and suffering are just the functioning of Universal wisdom, Prajna.
          Now we really come to the mantra; Gyate gyate paragyate parasamgyate bodhi svaha.  
          This is a very special mantra as the sutra lets you know.  Mantras have a special power, not a magical power but special.  They work in two ways.  I wrote about one of the ways mantras work in an earlier blog.  The conscious and mindful repetition of a mantra will cut and de-energize the normal habits of our thoughts and emotions, and eventually the practitioner will enter a state of non-discrimination.  
          The second power of the mantra lies in it's meaning.  Here in the West, with most mantras coming from Asia as well as our teachers of these arts, we often don't know the meaning on the individual words of the mantras and are told it doesn't really matter.  It doesn't matter for that first way a mantra functions.  
         Sometimes our teachers tell us that it is better that we don't know a mantra's simple translated meaning but that is not correct.  It is correct that the meaning of a mantra should not be allowed to disturb our practice but rather quietly sit in the back of our mind.  The simple translated meaning of a mantra does not usually give a insight into the deep meaning of the mantra.  That happens with practice.
          When I was in my early 20's I decided to take my practice off the cushion and recite a mantra as I hiked around.  I decided to use the Tibetan mantra Om Mani Padme Hum. The simple meaning of this mantra is: Om-the universal sound and beginning of most Tibetan mantras, Mani- jewel or diamond, Padme- in the lotus, Hum- the closing sound of most Tibetan mantras.  I repeated this mantra as I hiked in the woods and I hiked in the city.  The recitation of the mantra did not easily become a habit.  My mind was always talking.  The recitation of the mantra was a strain because I liked talking to myself.  Eventually the recitation of the mantra became more natural.  It would quickly quiet my mind and bring me into a meditative state, but I still didn't have any special insight into the meaning of this mantra I was repeating, even many years latter after I had some deep experiences meditating.  
          I was at a meditation retreat (sesshin) reciting the mantra when I was not in seated meditation and then the moment of insight came.  A deeper meaning to the mantra became totally clear.  I was experiencing the meaning of the mantra in the practice of meditation but also because I became conscious of this through the meaning of the mantra my meditation immeasurably deepened through the rest of the sesshin.
          In Zen we talk about "turning words," words that bring about special insight.  This insight only happens when the practitioner is ready and is activated by some words he/she hears.  The words may be spoken by anybody or can even be some words that are sitting  in the the back of an individual's consciousness .  A mantra contains it's own turning words that is it's special power.  Koans those paradoxical questions and stories asked by Zen teachers also work on the same principle as turning words.  Koans can not be properly answered by "figuring them out" with our normal way of thinking, but that doesn't mean they don't make sense.  They make sense when we see the world in a completely different way which the koan itself can prompt us to see.  And of course turning words only work when our minds have properly ripened through practice.

Gyate, gyate, paragyate, parasamgyate, bodhi svaha! 


          What is the meaning of these turning words?  We might translate them this way: Gone, gone,  completely gone,  more completely gone, wisdom awake.  D T Suzuki translated them, "Gone . Gone, Gone to the other shore, landed at the other shore, gone for good."  Eather translation works though Suzuki's using the Buddhist metaphor of the "other shore" though less exact hints at the deeper meaning of the mantra.  The Buddhist path is likened to traveling across a river to an other shore,  The river is called the "river of life."  On one side we have our normal dualistic world view of a world broken up into individuals and things,  We are born and we die and we suffer, Samsara.  On the other side is the perspective of non-duality, with no individual things, no birth and no death, and no suffering, Nirvana.  How do we get from one side to the other?  What exactly is the Buddhist path?
          The Prajna Paramita mantra is both a description of the Buddhist path and an instrument for its passage.  "To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self.  To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things."  this is the Zen master Dogen's description of the Buddhist path and it differs little from the path as discribed by the mantra.  To be "gone" is just to forget the self.  In meditation we forget the self with each breath or each recitation of the mantra.  Embracing the activities of everyday life we forget the self.  We forget the self through the practices of mindfulness and concentration.  We forget the self in compassion, love and generosity.  Of course it is not that easy but this is what we work towards.  And even if we have had a moment of completely forgetting the self and have an enlightenment experience we continue our practice of forgetting the self again and again and again.
          Our whole dualistic way of thinking, our suffering, our attachments, Samsara hinges on our attachment to our idea of self.   Nirvana, the other shore, is that place where all attachment to an idea of an individual self is dropped. And through that dropping of an idea of an individual self a whole new non-dualistic perspective opens.  The vehicle that takes us from one shore to the other is forgetting the self.
          So ends my blog on the Heart Sutra.  Good Practice.

Heart Sutra part IV

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


          When I read this first line in my head I always connect it to the last phrase of the previous section.  With nothing to attain the  Bodhisattvas depend on Prajna Paramita and there minds are no hinderance.  This makes sense to me because I see the persistant drive to attain something, that nawing in our heads that I must have or be this or that, as fundimental to our normal way of thinking and manifests as a kind of suffering is the antithisis of of how a Bodhisattva sees and thinks about the world.  Of course Avalokitesvara is not the only Bodhisattva.  The world is filled with Bodhisattva's.  We might say that when anyone acts without regard for self with compassion and kindness they are Bodhisattvas, and when anyone acts with regard to an idea of an individual self and attainment they are just human.  We might also say that this dropping the self and the consiquent drive for attainment is Prajna Paramita.  And the practice of Prajna Paramita is the practice of dropping the self and attainment and not just the recitation of a mantra.  This is not a conventional point of view but it is not wrong.  
          How do we drop our whole way of thinking about things based on the idea of individuality? That comes from the type of deep experience of non-discrimination I wrote about in the previous blogs.  That deep experience manifests a multitude of consequences.  The experience manifests itself in many qualities.  We can say that one of it's qualities is non-discrimination, but it also manifests as an experience of non-duality.  It is also an experience of the mind being quiet, but maybe not completely quiet, yet clear and fully awake.  It is also without attachments and desires.  It is without our normal inner dialogue and emotions that constantly reinforces our sense of an individual self.  It can have the quality of being sensually panoramic because it does not filter our sensations when relaxed yet if concentrated attention is applied it is deep and one pointed.  It can also manifest feelings of deeply emotional connection.  Lastly it is undeniable in giving a truer understanding of the world then our normal self centered dualistic understanding.  
          It is the undeniability of the non-dualistic vision that has the transformative power.  It changes the whole way we think.  It does not diminish our discriminative powers but now we are no longer attached to any version of right and wrong because in our non-dualistic understanding everything could not be but what it is.  We may see the delusions that people suffer from but now we also see them as enlightened.  Because we have stopped believing in an individual self we find ourselves not attached to our individual desires, and emotions.  No longer are we driven by individual attainment but we do find ourselves motivated by selfless emotions of love and compassion.  These are just some of the consequences of non-dualistic understanding.
          Traditionally one becomes a Bodhisattva by taking the four Bodhisattva vows, to liberate all sentient beings, to eliminate all desires, to master all dharmas, and to become the Buddha way.  This intention is just a first step on the Bodhisattva path and not as yet does this Bodhisattva know how to depend on Prajna Paramita.  It is only with this experience of non-discrimination that I have been writing about does one become a Bodhisattva as understood in the Heart Sutra.  This Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita in two ways.  The first way is that He/she depends directly on the experience of non-discrimination, an experience which through practice can be repeated over and over again and eventually can integrate into everyday life.  One eventually finds they can  function in the midst if this experience.   This state of non-discrimination becomes both a refuge and the source of a deepening non-dual wisdom 
         A Bodhisattva does not live full time in the midst of non-discrimination.  He/she returns to the world of multiplicity and dualistic thinking but now this world has been transformed by the understanding of non-duality.  Dualism exists within non-duality not in distinction to it.  The Bodhisattva sees a world of multiplicity with individual people and individual things knowing they are just temporary manifestations within the non-dual whole.  And yet also the Bodhisattva also feels a deep intimacy with all other beings knowing there is nothing that really separates him/her self from other beings  This is the second way a Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita.
          The Bodhisattva feels a deep harmony with the world around him/her and is not bothered by all those feelings and thoughts that most people suffer with.  Most importantly he/she is not bothered by fear of death.  Why?  The Bodhisattva does not think of him/her self as actually being alive as an individual.  Or if he/she does he/she knows better.  The Bodhisattva thinks of his/her life as the life of the whole Universe which is without birth and death.  This whole way of experiencing and understanding which begins with the experience of  non-discrimination is nothing other then dwelling in Nirvana.
          As I write this a tragic accident has touched my family.  My wife, daughter, and granddaughter are very upset.  I see a fear in my wife caused by the sharp reminder of death.  The fear of death both for one's self and others we are extremely close to such as family is natural, something deeper then verbal thought.  We suffer with these deep emotions and yet we might ask why would we want to stop them?  Are these emotions not what make us human?  Why would we want to become detached from the suffering of family, friends and the rest of humanity?  My experience is, yes a Bodhisattva does carry around an element of detachment but is not by any means emotionally dead.  He/she does not fear death for him/her self and others but does experience a intimacy and identification with others which transforms emotions with which we normally suffer into emotions of love and compassion.  I write this as an authorized teacher of Zen who has had the experiences I am writing about and am not basing my arguments and descriptions from a purely intellectual understanding, yet I do not know how I will respond to the imminence of my own death or the death of those I am closest to.  I cannot know.  But still this is my experience  to this point in time.

          This is part three of the Heart Sutra blog.

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 forn, no feeling, no perception, no impulse, no consciousness, no eyes no ears, no nose, no tong, 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, and also no attainment with nothing to attain.    


          This  section of the Sutra is demarcated as the third section in our translation, and again there is a perspective shift.  In the first two sections Avalokiteshvara is describing an insight coming out of deep meditation in the present moment.  But now he/she steps back from direct experience in meditation and delivers a polemic based in the perspective gained from the meditative insight into emptiness.  In Red Pine's book on the Hear Sutra we read that this exhaustive list of categories represents the many categories that earlier Buddhist philosophers argued over, whether this category or that category is real.  But lets step back and make sure we understand  what the word "Dharmas" mean.  In this sutra dharma is not defined as a teaching nor as one's role in life as a modern Hindu might use the word.  Dharma simply means sense object   Whatever it is that we can discriminate is a dharma.  Each of the categories listed in this paragraph represents a category of Dharmas.  And again the list focuses on qualities of being a living being.
          At first we read that all Dharmas are marked by emptiness.  The qualitieless quality of emptiness means that the Dharmas are without birth or death, are not tainted nor pure nor do they increase or decrease in other words in meditation without discrimination we don't add any ideas to sensation.  Sensations are just what they are and we don't turn them into any concept of a thing., we don't divide sensations into categories of this and that, and without dividing sensation into categories then the categories cease to exist.
         One might think that this state of non-discrimination is just a psychological trick, propagated by skill in meditation.  We all know that eyes ears noses and tongs exist, as do our bodies and minds.  How else could I write this and how else could you read this?  Are we to become like amoeba without any understanding and just function?  No not at all.   A truly deep experience of non-discrimination can show us a completely different view of the world.   
          I am not a scholar but I know the Sanskrit word, "sunyata" which we translate as "emptiness" has other possible translations.  The Buddhist community in recent years has settled upon "emptiness" as the word to be used in translation.  It acceptably describes one aspect of the experience of non-discrimination which is what the Heat Sutra is about.  It describes that quality-less quality of non-discrimination but that is an incomplete description of the experience.  It is incomplete because as the word non-discrimination implies there is no differentiation between this and that and so in the experience of emptiness there is also no separation, and in this no separation all is experienced as a single whole.  The experience of emptiness is also an experience of non-duality.

          Early morning, setting water on the stove 
          Not a thought of self
          Does the Universe properly brew tea?

          For a billion or more years life has been evolving on this planet  This whole amazing show we call life is based on the motivation of individual life forms to survive and reproduce,  thereby fueling the process of evolution.  In the simplest life forms this "motivation" is just an energetic activity rooted in the structure of the form.  It has no consciousness.  Scientists have speculated that this whole process we call life only needed a single self replicating molecule  to randomly form in the soup of the early oceans or atmosphere to start the whole process.  In time life became much more complex and something like a sense of self, desire to live, and a fear of death became an important advantage in the competition to reproduce.  Now with more then a billion years of evolution humans, with a strong idea of an individual self, desire to live, and a fear of death have evolved.  But with this evolution of a strong sense of self has also evolved a consciousness, and a strong intelligence  both emotional and conceptual.  For untold generations the development of intelligence has server the causes of survival and reproduction but now with the evolution of humans,  intelligence has grown both powerful and flexible enough that it is possible, though very difficult, for humans to see beyond our evolutionary programming for survival and reproduction.  
          In Buddhism we say that humans suffer because they are caught in delusion.  We also say that humans suffer because of karma which is a simple way of saying that there are causes in our past that make us suffer in the present.  Yes there are causes in our past that make us suffer, a billion years of evolution.  And those billion years of evolution have developed a delusive way of thinking based on the illusion of an individual self.  Yet through  effort in meditation culminating in this experience described in the Heart Sutra we can set aside our delusive thinking and karma, experience and understand the non-dual nature of what is.  Some times I think that humans are close but not quite to the cusp of an evolutionary turning point where consciousness and intelligence have become so powerful that it will be natural in some future being to experience and understand non-duality.
          In non-duality we don't separate things from the larger Universe.  In this not separating there is no birth and death  nor good and bad, nor change and motion.  In this not separating not a thing exists.  And in particular as the Heart Sutra points out in this not separating not a single characteristic by which we define ourselves as individual human beings exists.  This is emphasized in the sutra because the root of our delusion is the attachment to the concept of our selves as individuals.  Once we deeply experience our own personal emptiness then we are open to an ever deepening experience and understanding of non-duality, and delusive thinking and attachments fall away.
          Other schools of Buddhism approach insight into selflessness and non-duality in different ways.  There are philosophic schools which talk a lot about causation and interdependent origination.  There are schools which specifically examine the individual body, sensations, thought, emotions, and consciousness while in meditation in order to understand the emptiness of each of the five skandas.  In Zen  through meditation and mindfulness we clear our minds of delusive thoughts until we awaken to the absolutely clear mind of non-discrimination.  In this clear mind non-duality becomes apparent and we recognize the delusion of the individual self as delusion.  This experience has a depth that goes beyond just an intellectual understanding and truly has the power to transform.