Heart Sutra

Entire Heart Sutra in Chinese

I recall running across the Heart Sutra very early on in my journey to Buddhism. Oddly enough, it did not leave much of an impression on me. I say it is odd because approaching the Heart Sutra from a literary point of view, it is just the kind of minimalist, e.e. cummings  style of poetry I’ve always been drawn to, plus the fact at that time I was rather young and immediately dug anything that smacked of being mind-blowing.

My next encounter was some thirty years later. In the interim, I was in Buddhist traditions that did not use the Heart Sutra as a teaching or practice.

When I left the tradition I had been involved in for twelve years, I started visiting different centers and groups in the Los Angeles area. One place I visited was in the San Gabriel Valley, an English speaking Dharma group, and on my first visit, we chanted the Heart Sutra in English and it was then that I had my mind-blowing experience. It was a little like the line in the Bob Dylan song: “every one of those words rang true and glowed like burnin’ coal pouring off of every page . . .”

This is truly a between-the-lines sutra. I think that without some basic knowledge of Buddhist dharma, the sutra does not have as much of an impact. Even then, to grasp the full meaning of the Heart Sutra is a daunting task.

I recently ran across an old notebook of things I had jotted down from dharma talks and lectures I attended and books I was reading some ten years or so ago. One of the notes I found was from a class I took at a Buddhist Center in mid-town L.A. The instructor of the class mentioned that she had recited the Heart Sutra daily for nearly fifteen years and yet only recently had she began to have real insight into the sutra’s meaning.

There are also a few pages of notes I took when I attended teachings by the Dalai Lama for the first time. I only went to the last two days, and it was sort of a fluke, and I was somewhat unprepared, knowing very little about Tibetan Buddhism. I can’t even recall what the teachings were on. However, I think that at some point a question concerning the Heart Sutra was asked of the Dalai Lama, and he replied, “Heart Sutra is actual words of Buddha, not transmission.”

I hope that I have taken him out of context, because to this, I cannot agree. The historical Buddha had nothing to do with the Prajna-paramita or any Mahayana sutras. I don’t know why it is necessary to keep propagating that nonsense. The fact that Buddha did not directly teach it does not make the teaching any less valid.

He also said, “People should recite Heart Sutra in accordance with their own country.” Now, this I agree with completely, however when I am reciting the sutra alone, it is often in Japanese. In my experience, when some individuals are introduced to Buddhist chanting in Asian languages, they feel a bit put off. They don’t understand the words and we Westerners just have to understand the meaning of each word if we are expected to recite it.

Chanting in Japanese is my personal preference because I spent many years doing that and I like the rhythm. Chanting in a traditional Buddhist language allows me to approach the sutra with a more meditative mind. I know the general meaning of the sutra, I can recognize many of the sutra’s Chinese characters, and I know, for instance, that when I say “ku” it means empty and so on. At the same time, since the language is foreign, I am not weighed down with the baggage of literal meaning English would suggest. Reciting in Japanese allows me to relax my mind and just go with the flow of the sutra.

In the English version I use, Avalokitesvara  appears as Kuan Yin, in the female aspect, and I encourage those chanting with me to envision the Bodhisattva in that way. Bringing Avalokitesvara over from the Lotus Sutra, gave the Mahayana authors, or compilers, of the Heart Sutra a chance to make a little dig at the so-called “Hinayana.” Having Shariputra, one of the foremost shravaka disciples of Buddha Shakyamuni, asking a question of and then receiving instruction from a Mahayana Bodhisattva is kind of designed to put the “Hinayana” in their place.

Nowadays, this Mahayana attitude appears to be just a little unseemly, and we realize what a derogatory term “Hinayana” is, and most people don’t care to hear much about shravaka and non-returners, etc. But, if you go a step further and envision Kuan Yin as female, I then think  you have something that is both revolutionary and relevant to today.

With this slight change, we have one of the Buddha’s foremost disciples, and remember that all his disciples were male, receiving instruction from a woman.  That seems pretty mind-blowing. This may not be a traditionally accepted interpretation, but really what’s wrong with it? In this way, we can broaden the symbolism we use and make it more inclusive by expanding the role of women in our mythology. This interpretation is not just relevant to women but to everyone, because every person reciting the sutra is then encouraged to tap into and cultivate more of their innate feminine qualities, one aspect of which is symbolized in the sutra as compassion.

Maybe some already view it in this way, but I haven’t heard about it.

A few other things I have jotted down in this old notebook:

The mantra is the essence of the sutra. It tells you how to proceed to enlightenment. “Go, go, go way beyond .  . .”

The five skandhas are all delusions. They are not definite and real. Our delusion is that we cling to them as being an actual and real self.

Buddha said first requirement for “faith” is suffering. Faith is commitment to practice in the face of great difficulty. Suffering wakes us up from our dream.

True form is no form. The Bodhisattva of freedom realizes the form of no form, the principle of ultimate emptiness, particularly in sound. Avalokitesvara, one who perceives the sounds of the world.

Buddha: After I am gone, the dharma is the teacher.

What are the five skandhas empty of? Sunyata-svabhava, empty of self-being. Svabhava, the being or essence, character, is-ness of a thing or person. Absolute self-being equals eternalism and ignores cessation.

Perfection of wisdom, transcendent wisdom, is not present as an existing thing.

D.T. Suzuki’s version of the Heart Sutra and three short commentaries:

The Prajnaparamita-hridaya-sutra, or Shingyo

When the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara was engaged in the practice of the deep Prajnaparamita, he perceived that there are the five Skandhas; and these he saw in their self-nature to be empty.

“O Sariputra, form is here emptiness,[4] emptiness is form; form is no other than emptiness, emptiness is no other than form; that which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness is form. The same can be said of sensation, thought, confection, and consciousness.

“O Sariputra, all things here are characterized with emptiness: they are not born, they are not annihilated; they are not tainted, they are not immaculate; they do not increase, they do not decrease. Therefore, O Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no thought, no confection, no consciousness; no eye,  ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; no form,[6] sound, colour, taste, touch, objects; no Dhatu of vision,  till we come to no Dhatu of consciousness; there is no knowledge, no ignorance, till we come to there is no old age and death, no extinction of old age and death; there is no suffering, no accumulation, no annihilation, no path; there is no knowledge, no attainment, and no realization, because there is no attainment. In the mind of the Bodhisattva who dwells depending on the Prajnaparamita there are no obstacles; and, going beyond the perverted views, he reaches final Nirvana. All the Buddhas of the past, present, and future, depending on the Prajnaparamita, attain to the highest perfect enlightenment.

“Therefore, one ought to know that the Prajnaparamita is the great Mantram, the Mantram of great wisdom, the highest Mantram, the peerless Mantram, which is capable of allaying all pain; it is truth because it is not falsehood: this is the Mantram proclaimed in the Praynaparamita. It runs: ‘Gate, gate, Paragate,parasamgate, bodhi, svaha!’ (O Bodhi, gone, gone, gone to the other shore, landed at the other shore , Svaha!)”

The Heart Sutra has only two hundred seventy Chinese characters, yet it contains all of Mahayana Buddhism’s teaching. Inside this sutra is the essence of the Diamond Sutra, the Avatamsaka-sutra, and the Lotus Sutra. It contains the meaning of all the eighty-four thousand sutras. It is chanted in every Mahayana and Zen temple in the world. In Korean temples and in our Zen centers in the West, the Heart Sutra is chanted at least twice every day, in the morning and at night, and during retreats it is chanted more. Sometimes if you find that your mind is not clear, and meditation does not help so much, you must read this sutra. Then your mind will become clear.

-Seung Sahn, Korean Jogye Seon master

The title, the Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra, is made up of references to both dharma and analogy. The phrase “which transcends the relative” indicates a dharma which reaches a state of non-relativity. Prajna paramita is . . .the wisdom which arrives home and the wisdom of the Buddha . . . It is called the true heart (In Chinese, the character xin means both heart and mind) . . .The true heart is wisdom; wisdom is the true heart. Because prajna can be translated “true heart,” the two hundred fifty or so words of this sutra are the heart within the heart – the heart within the six hundred chapters of the prajna text of the Great Prajna Sutra.

-Hsuan Hua, Ch’an Buddhist teacher

When we listen to this mantra, we should bring ourselves into that state of attention, of concentration, so that we can receive the strength emanated by Avalokitesvara. We do not recite the Heart Sutra like singing a song, or with our intellect alone. If you practise the meditation on emptiness, if you penetrate the nature of interbeing with all your heart, your body, and your mind, you will realize a state that is quite concentrated. If you say the mantra then, with all your being, the mantra will have power and you will be able to have real communication, real communion with Avalokitesvara, and you will be able to transform yourself in the direction of enlightenment.

This text is not just for chanting, or to be put on an altar for worship. It is given to us as a tool to work for our liberation, for the liberation of all beings. It is like a tool for farming, given to us so that we may farm.

-Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen monk

Yesterday’s quote by Lama Govinda was from his book, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism.

Lama Govinda was an interesting guy. He was born Ernst Hoffman in 1898, the son of a Bolivian mother and a German father. He served in the German army during WWI and discharged after two years when he contracted tuberculosis.  In 1928, he went to Sri Lanka where he studied under Nyanatiloka, a German Theravadin monk, and took the name Govinda. A year later, he became a Bhikkhu in Burma.

Although he later was considered an expert in Tibetan Buddhism, originally he was opposed to it. He considered the Tibetan tradition demonic. However, his view changed after a meeting with Tomo Geshe Rimpoche.

He lived in India for thirty years, much of that time spent in seclusion, and during that period he also founded a number of Buddhist organizations, worked with universities, including Tagore University, and published quite a few books. In the 1960’s he lectured extensively around the world, eventually settling in San Francisco area where he died in 1985.

As his interest in Tibetan Buddhism grew, he left Theravada and married a Persian photographer, Ratti Petit, who took the name Li Gotami. He was the first Western Lama, which simply means “teacher”, and it was his teachings that were largely responsible for popularizing Tibetan Buddhism in the West.

In addition to being a prolific prose writer, Lama Govinda was also a poet and abstract painter. He was an extraordinary scholar, and a mystic, yet I have always found his brand of mysticism to be filtered through a practical and scientific view of the various forces and processes of our world, coupled with a forward thinking mindset.

Along with the book mentioned above, some of his other works include, The Way of the White Clouds (the story of his journey through Tibet before the Chinese invasion of 1950), The Psychological Attitude of Early Buddhist Philosophy, Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional Consciousness, The Inner Structure of the I Ching, and A Living Buddhism for the West, in which he wrote:

“It is time for people to wake up and realize that the great religions have collected many things at a superficial level in the course of centuries, things that were significant for these religious movements at particular points in their history. But we, as people of our time, should recognize that it is not our task either to imitate the forms of past ages or to take over without question thought patterns that were once valid but are not outmoded. Rather we should try to extract from a doctrine everything that is relevant to our own time. The point is to distill the essence for our own daily practice and meditation, while recognizing what is outmoded for what it is: the record of previous stages that led to the religious, social, and cultural situation of the present time.”

Religions must grow and change if they are to be “living” and relevant to our times. New interpretations should be formed which are based upon evidence of known facts, pointing to the necessity of understanding history properly.  It is easier to see where you are going, if you know where you have been.

The most famous of all Buddhist mantras, Om Mani Padme Hum, set to some original ambient music with a beat:

Just as the lotus grows up from the darkness of the mud to the surface of the water, opening its blossom only after it has raised itself beyond the surface, and remaining unsullied from both earth and water, which nourished it-in the same way the mind, born in the human body, unfolds its true qualities (“petals”) after it has raised itself beyond the turbid floods of passions and ignorance, and transforms the dark powers of the depths into the radiantly pure nectar of Enlightenment-consciousness (bodhicitta), the incomparable jewel (mani) in the lotus blossom (padma).

Lama Govinda

This artwork was created by my nephew, Russell. He’s in the ninth grade.

Russ uses spray paint and various homemade templates, along with newspaper for blotting.

He and his mom belong to a Unitarian Universalist church. Russ recently participated in the church’s Coming of Age program. The UU coming of age programs differ from church to church. I don’t know all the details of the program Russ went through, but I am told that he had been attending classes since October and was paired with an adult mentor.

UU describes the Coming of Age program as “an opportunity for youth to learn who they are and where they are on their spiritual journey, bond with other teens, celebrate their gifts, and become more confident in how to make decisions.”

At the completion of his journey, Russ prepared a “belief statement.”  There are few guidelines, so each person is free to construct his or her statement in their own way. It’s an opportunity for the participants to let people know who they are and what they think. In his statement, Russ said:

“I believe in creation, and individuality. I create art, music, and eventually I plan to create part of a new generation by having kids.

With art, it’s one way for me to express myself. I love to work with my hands and use my imagination to make new things. One of the many different forms of art I enjoy the most is pottery. I really like to use the clay to make different things. I like the fact that it’s 3-D and you have to make every part of it. When you make pots you not only get to create the shape of the pot, but also the design that goes onto the pot. The possibilities are unlimited because you can make almost anything you want however you want, and that’s usually how I like to do things.”

Unitarian Universalism has had a long history in the United States. They have no one single belief and they draw on a wide variety of spiritual sources. Their emphasis is on spiritual growth, which is where the emphasis should be.

Continue reading »

The problem with Bhikkhuni ordinations is that there is a problem, and there shouldn’t be. It is shameful that there is still opposition to the full ordination of women as Buddhist monastics.

A new article to be published in the summer edition of Buddhadharma takes a look at the current situation and discusses 2009’s controversial Bhikkhuni ordination in Perth, as well as the ongoing problem of gender equality in Buddhism.

The article says, “Like a cork popped from a tight bottle . . . [the issue] has inadvertently challenged the core of Thai monastic authority, which refuses to accept the validity of Theravada bhikkhuni.”

One nun asks, “How can I live with integrity if I love being a monastic but find the ancient structure unresponsive to our modern times?”

Women have been trying to work “within the system” and it seems to me that this effort has largely failed. Yes, support is slowly growing within the male monastic community, but overall, it is a stalled issue, punitive actions have been taken against monks who support Bhikkhuni ordination, and women continue to suffer.

Another nun poses this question, “How can I still use a monastic vehicle that is so structurally unfriendly and prejudiced toward women as my path to liberation?”

Continue reading »

Donovan and Dylan

Yesterday was the birthday of a singer and songwriter named Donovan Leitch. He turned 64.  In September of 1965 he had a hit with a song called Universal Soldier. He was one of those people who sang about peace and love.

The first concert I ever attended was Donovan at the Loyola Field House in New Orleans. He played solo with just an acoustic guitar. I can still remember how his beautiful voice seemed to float in the air like incense.

Some considered Donovan to be a lightweight, a would-be Dylan, a copy-cat. I gave him more credit than that. He could be rather syrupy at times, and he didn’t have the hard edge that Dylan had.  Even so, to my mind, Sunshine Superman was one of the best albums of that period and I think it helped pave the way for the prog-rock to come.

Donovan was also responsible for turning me onto Eastern philosophy. Partially responsible, along with the Beatles. I think it was in the summer or fall of ’67 that Life magazine ran a big spread of the Beatles and Donovan and the Beach Boys going to India to hang out with the Maharishi. A lot of great color pictures. Everyone looked very cool. I thought Eastern spirituality was very cool, and so did many others. All of the sudden my favorite rock artists started turning out music that was Eastern flavored and they all had their own gurus.  The Rascals got into Swami Satchidananda and Integral Yoga and for the Who it was Meher Baba. I can’t remember the others.

The Beatles disassociated themselves with the Maharishi, after he allegedly hit on Mia Farrow in Rishikesh, which inspired John Lennon’s song on the “White Album” called Sexy Sadie. Donovan became involved with some other guru whose name escapes me now. I think Mike Love was the only one who stuck with Maharishi and TM.

At first, I was merely aping my heroes. I wanted to be cool, too. However, there was something more going on. I wanted to find my own religion. Technically, I already had one. I was a Christian, a Presbyterian to be specific. But at that time I lived in New Orleans and I was disgusted by the way the men in the church I went to acted so pious in the pews on Sunday mornings and then told “coon” jokes outside when the service was over. It made me feel uncomfortable about Christianity. I blamed the religion instead of the men, even as Dylan famously put it, they were not to blame, only pawns in some game. I came to understand that prejudice, as we used to call it, was a form of brainwashing handled down from generation to generation.

In any event, Christianity no longer spoke to me, if indeed it ever did.

The first book of Eastern philosophy I read was a book of quotes by Gandhi.  It’s wonderful to discover something at an early age that stays with you for the rest of your life. That book set the ideal of non-violence in my mind and it has never left.

Indirectly, Bob Dylan opened the door to Buddhism; it was through him that I found the Beat Generation: Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Jack Kerouac-the Dharma Bums.

Buddhism made sense to me, although I didn’t understand it very well.  There weren’t a lot of books available on Buddhism then, and the one’s that were around, I found confusing. I didn’t understand Buddhism but it felt right.

The rest is . . . well, a long story, and it’s not what I wanted to write about in this post. I hate to admit this, especially since you have read this far, but I don’t really have any point to make here. I just wanted to say something about Bob Dylan.

Bob also has a birthday this month, on the 24th. He’ll be 69. Wayfaring to the Endless Further with the rest of us, he’s been on the “Never Ending Tour” since 1988 and I’ve seen between 20 and 25 of those shows. I can’t say that I have cared for much of Bob’s stuff since Time Out of Mind, but I hope he keeps on keeping on like a bird . . .

Now in Bob Dylan fan circles right now there is a big hullabaloo over these recent comments by Joni Mitchell,Bob is not authentic at all: He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”

She’s right, he is a plagiarist. Always has been. However, that is also part of the folk tradition and the great poetry he’s written by far outshines any individual lines he might have stole. I long for a bit more creativity from Bob these days, but I also imagine it’s tough being the greatest living songwriter and having to come up with new material, which some will invariably  compare to past work.

One thing that has amazed me in the last twenty years or so is how young people are drawn to Bob. I once sat next to this nineteen year old kid at a Dylan concert at the Greek Theater (I was in my forties then) and he was raved enthusiastically about his admiration for Bob like he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. What was it that fired a guy his age up about an old man like Dylan? If you are a Bob fan, you know the answer to that. If you’re not, then it doesn’t matter.

I would like to introduce you to a young man who is also a Bob fan and every Friday on his blog it’s Bob Dylan Friday! He is obviously a guy with excellent taste in music. His name is RT and he just wrote a literary essay on Mr. Dylan, so check it out. The blog is called sometimes rhymes.

Well, that’s all I wanted to say. I know it was “too much of nothing,” but that’s the breaks. Just wanted to tip my hat to Donovan and Dylan. Their music has enriched my life and pointed me in many wonderful directions. Happy birthday to both.

Here’s a YouTube link to Donovan’s song based on the Heart Sutra: Nirvana.

And here’s a YouTube link to me doing a Bob Dylan song (Yeah, I know, I misspelled the song title).

The area around Hollywood Boulevard between Western and Normandy is Thai Town. It’s also Little Armenia and almost all of the business on those blocks are either one or the other. Most of the Thai shops, including the donut shop, have small shrines inside, usually on shelves like this:

Shrine in store

Here’s an interesting shrine outside of a Thai restaurant. Apparently making offerings to this one will not protect your car.

Shrine outside resturant

Continue reading »

Tsung-mi (780-841) was an immensely important figure in Chinese Buddhism. Regarded as both the fifth and final patriarch of the Flower Garland School and a Ch’an (Zen) Master of the Ho-tse School, he was a forgotten figure until about two decades ago. Today’s post is an excerpt from the Yuan Jen or On the Original Nature of Human Beings, often used as a primer of Mahayana teachings.

Revealing Directly the Original Nature

All sentient beings have been endowed with the true mind of original enlightenment. From the beginningless beginning this mind has been constant, pure, luminous, and unobscured; it has always been characterized by bright cognition; it is called the Buddha Nature or the Womb of the Awakened.

From the beginningless beginning the delusions of human beings has obscured it so that they have not been aware of it. Because they recognize in themselves only the ordinary person’s characteristics, they indulge in lives of attachment, increasing the bond of karmic power and receiving the sufferings of birth and death. Out of compassion for them, The Awakened One taught that everything is empty; then he revealed to all that the true mind of spiritual enlightenment is pure and is identical with that of the Buddhas.

Therefore, in the Flower Garland Sutra it is said: “O son of Buddha, there is not even a single sentient being who is not endowed with the wisdom of the Awakened, but, owing to delusion, beings are unable to realize this. Once freed from delusion, then transcendent wisdom, natural wisdom, and unobstructed wisdom will arise.”

Furthermore, the Sutra states that a particle of dust contains within itself one thousand volumes of the sutras. “A particle of dust” is compared to a sentient being, and the “Sutra” to the wisdom of Buddha. Still further in the Sutra, we read: “At that time the Buddha observed all the sentient beings in the phenomenal world and uttered these words, ‘Strange, strange, that these sentient beings, who are endowed with the wisdom of the Awakened, not realizing this wisdom are being misled. I must teach them the Noble Paths and free them forever from their delusions so that they can see in themselves the boundless great wisdom of the Awakened Ones, so that they may be no different from the Buddhas.’”

For a long time we have not met with the true doctrine and have been unable to understand how to reflect upon ourselves and search for the original nature ourselves. We have been deeply attached to the characteristics which appear though our illusions, being content with our baseness and unconcerned over being born sometimes as human beings and sometimes as beasts, but now on the basis of this last doctrine, we have traced our origin and realized finally that we are from the outset Buddhas. Therefore, we should carry out our deeds in accordance with those of the Buddha, and identify our mind with that of the Buddha.

Returning to and reinstating ourselves in the root and source, we should sever the habits we had as ordinary persons. We must give up these habits and further give up even the attempt at abandonment until in the end we reach the state of “non-action” [wu-wei] wherein we can be spontaneously active, accommodating ourselves to as many situations as there are gains of sand in the Ganges. Then we will be called Buddhas.

It should be known that both non-enlightenment and enlightenment are aspects of the same true mind. How great is this mysterious gate to the source! Here ends the search for the original nature of human beings.

The true burden of freedom is the obligation to summon up the courage to conquer fear.

A bill co-sponsored by US Senators Joseph Lieberman and Scott Brown calling for suspected terrorists to be stripped of their US citizenship is one of the worst ideas I have heard in quite a while. It is unconstitutional and I suspect that what it’s really about taking away due process.

I also think that fear is playing a part here, the kind that can eat away at the heart of a democracy. So the larger question concerns the way in which democratic governments should protect individual freedoms as they respond to the continuing terrorist threats.

Here is an opinion I found at the Washington Post by Ramdas Lamb, a former Hindu monk and current Profession at the University of Hawaii. The piece does not deal with the Lieberman-Brown bill directly however there is some correspondence. One of the points he makes is that reacting with intolerance, we allow ourselves to be intimidated. I appreciated the point of view. Perhaps you will too.

Without freedom of expression, there is no democracy