Heart Sutra, Part Four

With palms together,
Good Morning,

Heart Sutra, Part Four,

Hence: in emptiness, no form, no feeling, no thought, no impulse, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no thinking, no realm of sight, no realm of thought, no ignorance and no end of ignorance; no old age and death and no end to old age and death. No suffering, no craving, no extinction, no path; no wisdom, no attainment.

Shariputra, one of the Buddha’s two chief disciples, was a master at analysis and a master of the sutras. His skill at comprehension was supreme. It is interesting then, that this sutra utilizes a form of logical phrasing. In this case and at this point, we are taught that the nature of everything is oneness, a state of eternal interconnectedness. And if this is so, then the conclusion is as follows: negation. This is sort of like the approach the great Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides used to define God. We can define the Holy only by saying what He is not.

In emptiness there is nothing of substance. A great river flows and the water finds its way. There are no senses that last, no sense receptors that last, no objects, mental formations, nothing, not even ignorance or a lack of ignorance, that last. Indeed, it would seem that the point of our practice is to arrive at a place outside the paradigm of our usual thinking and understanding where we experience the great breath of the universe itself as our own. When we know this in every fiber of our being then there can be no suffering, no craving, no extinction.

Moreover, we are told there is no path, no wisdom, and nothing at all to attain. This is an exquisite exposition of samadhi. Just open your eyes! That is all there is to it. Open your eyes! See clearly what is right there before you. Don’t add a thing; don’t take a thing away. Just this.

Therefore, what is there to attain? We already possess everything there is. We are perfect just as we are. So, the outside and the inside are one in the same.

(For a history and good discussion of Shariputra, see “Great Disciples of the Buddha” by Nyanaponika Thera and Hellmuth Hecker, Edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi, 2003). Tags: