Tag: Sutras

The vast Prajñāpāramitā sutras are condensed into the Heart Sutra, and the essence of the Heart Sutra is in the first line, which is a description of our zazen:

“The bodhisattva of compassion, practicing Prajñāpāramitā, sees that the five skandhas are empty and thereby relieves all suffering”

The most important thing is to see that it isn’t a person practicing Prajñāpāramitā (zazen). Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, is identified with the whole world. The person is the five skandhas, and for our purposes, the skandhas of mental formation and consciousness are the ones which matter; mental formation our ceaseless tendency to do something with our raw experience, and consciousness the awareness of that. Prajñā, pre-knowing, is the state prior to mental formation.

It isn’t a sequence; when one arises, all arise.

We are storytelling creatures who want to be truth telling creatures. That is another sort of story. But we can be truth experiencers.

The Heart Sutra is the distillation of the vast Prajñāpāramitā sutras.

The version we chant divides into 2: an initial statement, then a long monologue by Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

The initial statement is:

The bodhisattva of compassion, practising Zazen actualises the emptiness of the five skandas and thus relieves all suffering.

This is a mythical rendering of our experience as we sit. The critical thing is that it isn’t a person sitting, and that emptiness is something felt, not a statement about the nature of reality Thus, we can say that emptiness, compassion, no-self and suffering relieved are all facets of Zazen.

This is a very different practice from one concerned with gain, or change.

(With thanks to David Taylor)

At the end of the Heart Sutra, there’s a mantra:

Gya tei gya tei

Hara gya tei

Hara so gya tei

Bo ji so wa ka

This is simply a Chinese/Japanese inflection of the original Sanskrit which is

Gate gate

Pāragate

Pārasaṃgate

Bodhi svāhā

The ‘ga’ in gate, pāragate and pārasaṃgate is the same ‘ga’ as in ‘Tathāgata‘, ‘Thus-come’ or ‘Thus-gone’, by which we mean the Buddha. So, ga means both come and gone.

‘Para’ has various meanings, including ‘beyond’ and ‘the opposite shore'(of a river)

‘Sam’ means ‘with’, ‘together with’

So, the mantra is often translated as

Gone, gone

Altogether gone

To the far shore

So the suggestion is that we leave this shore, cross the river, and reach the far shore of nirvana. But, in this interpretation, the metaphor is confused, because both this shore and the river are identified with samsara.

But if we re-render ‘gone’ as ‘come’, then a different possibility emerges, of the far shore arriving. Thus, it isn’t that we cross over the water of samsara to reach the far shore of nirvana, leaving this shore behind, but rather that both shores are manifested.

And this suggests Zazen, coming at the end of the sutra, which started with an explicit exchange between Śāriputra and Avalokiteśvara about Zazen ( which significantly, is the practice of the latter, not the former). When we sit, we don’t abandon our particularity, our form, our karmic existence ( this shore), but equally, we manifest the self that is not separate from all things ( the far shore)

And both these shores make manifest the river of our true life, held by both.

Whoever says that the Tathāgata goes or comes, stands, sits or lies down, he does not understand the meaning of my teaching. And why?

‘Tathāgata’ is called one who has not gone anywhere, nor come from anywhere.

Diamond Sutra, verse 29

The Buddhist state is instantaneous, immediate, and cuts off past and future.

‘Tathāgata’ means ‘thus come’ or ‘thus gone. The name itself is a description of reality; not ‘existence’ [because that would entail dualism], not ‘no existence’ [because that would entail nihilism] but something luminous, hovering in the background, behind our conceptualisations.

The Heart Sutra begins:

The Bodhisattva of Compassion, practicing the highest wisdom, realises the five skandas are empty, and thereby relieves all suffering.

In other words: 

The Bodhisattva of Compassion, practicing zazen, makes real the emptiness of all experience, and so relieves all suffering

The passage is a mythical way of talking about practice. When we practice, we are practicing not from the position of self, but from the position of Buddha, Kanzeon. We are not cultivating compassionate awareness, we are compassionate awareness. Practice is the palace of Enlightenment, not the door.

Emptiness is the release of all things into their infinite, ungraspable nature.

Whosoever says that the Tathāgata goes or comes, stands, sits or lies down, he does not understand the meaning of my teaching. And why? ‘Tathāgata’ is called one who has not gone anywhere, nor came from anywhere.

Diamond Sutra, verse 29

The Buddhist state is instantaneous, immediate and cuts off past and future.

Tathāgata means ‘thus come’ or ‘thus gone.’

The name itself is a description of reality: not ‘existence’ (because that would entail dualism), not ‘no existence’ (because that would entail nihilism), but something luminous hovering in the background, behind our conceptualisations.