Two Final Commentaries, Heart Sutra December 7, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Avalokiteshvara, dualistic ideas, fear, gate gate, Heart Sutra, illusion, interbeing, mantra, mindful eating, mindful hugging, mindfulness, peace, Prajnaparamita, skandhas
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This week we read the final two of Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra in The Heart of Understanding. Summaries follow:
Freedom
The obstacles which are our dualistic ideas and concepts about birth and death, increasing and decreasing, inside and outside, Buddha and Mara, are no longer obstacles when we see them with the eyes of interbeing. Seeing this way, we are free of illusion and fear.
Svaha!
When you dwell in deep concentration of body, mind, and breath, you can look into and see things clearly. Avalokiteshvara looked deeply into the five skandhas, saw the nature of interbeing, and overcame all pain. During his state of joyful liberation, he provided us with a mantra. A mantra is a statement which, when uttered with one’s whole being, has the power to transform the world.
Avalokiteshvara’s mantra is, “Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.” One translation of this is “Gone, gone, gone all the way over, everyone gone to the other shore, enlightenment, svaha! “ Gate means gone, from suffering and forgetfulness to liberation and mindfulness; paragate means gone to the other shore; sam means everyone. Bodhi means light inside, enlightenment, or awakening. Svaha is a cry of joy or excitement, like “Welcome!” or “Hallelujah!” Study of the Heart Sutra with all body, heart and mind, accompanied by recitation of the mantra with all your being, will bring you real communication with Avalokiteshvara and will help to transform you in the direction of enlightenment. It is not just a chant or object of worship; it is a gift of Avalokita, a tool for liberation of all beings. This gift of non-fear is the heart of the Prajnaparamita.
The Prajnaparamita provides ground for making peace with ourselves. Peace and happiness in yourself help you begin to realize peace in the whole world. If you cannot give yourself peace, how can you share it with the world? When we do something as simple as eating a tangerine in genuine mindfulness, we work for peace. We do not struggle for enlightenment five or ten years from now. Each moment becomes real life. We eat a tangerine for eating a tangerine. We sit for sitting. We walk for walking, alive for each step in real life. This kind of mindfulness can be practiced when we eat breakfast or hold a child or look at another person. When we hug a relative, a spouse, or a friend, we should add conscious breathing to it. Three conscious breaths during a hug will multiply your happiness ten-fold. When eating, we can be happy to have such wonderful food, but we should also be mindful that many people, especially children, are suffering for lack of food. Seeing this way makes us sane, because it shows us that we can make peace with ourselves and the world.
“Each breath we take, each step we make, each smile we realize…is a necessary step in the direction of peace for the world.”
Two Commentaries on the Heart Sutra November 30, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Ananda, Buddha, death, emptiness, Heart Sutra, illusion, increasing and decreasing, interbeing, Mara, senses
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We continued our look at the Heart Sutra this week with two chapters from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra.
The Moon is Always the Moon
We worry that we are decreased upon our death by becoming a speck of dust. But just as a sheet of paper contains the sunshine, the logger, and the forest, a speck of dust contains all the universe. We cannot destroy anything. Though assassins wanted to reduce Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to nothingness, the assassins failed; these two men remain with us. They continue in other forms, including in us. Although the moon appears, as we see it, to increase and decrease, it remains the moon.
Buddha is Made of Non-Buddha Elements
This chapter enumerates the eighteen realms of elements (the dhatus).
1-6 are the sense organs: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind;
7-12 are the sense objects: form, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind;
13-18 are the contacts between the organs and their objects – the “six consciousnesses:” eyes + form brings sight; ears + sound brings hearing, etc.
The 18 realms cannot exist by themselves; each inter-is with each other.
Similarly, the twelve interdependent origins, such as birth and death, cannot exist by themselves; each relies on the others to be. The same applies to the Four Noble Truths. All are empty, and because they are empty, they exist. Understanding (prajna), the essence of the Buddha, has no separate existence. It is made of non-understanding elements, just as the Buddha is made of non-Buddha elements.
This is followed by a story of Ananda, Mara, and the Buddha. One day, Ananda was surprised to see Mara coming to visit the Buddha. Perceiving Mara as evil and the enemy of the Buddha, Ananda tries unsuccessfully to turn Mara away. Much to Ananda’s distress, the Buddha is excited to see Mara, greets him warmly, and invites him to sit down for tea.
Mara explains to the Buddha that he is tired of being Mara: tired of talking in riddles, of having to be tricky and look evil, tired of his disciples talking about social injustice, peace, liberation and non-violence. He wants to turn them over to the Buddha so he can become someone else. Ananda now fears that the Buddha will agree with Mara to trade places.
Instead, the Buddha listens compassionately and then replies that his disciples have credited him with things he hasn’t said, have built temples and statues of him to attract good food for themselves, and have packaged him and his teachings for commercial purposes. He says, “Mara, if you know what it is really like to be a Buddha, I am sure you wouldn’t want to be one.”
Roses and Garbage November 23, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: emptiness, Heart Sutra, interbeing, non-duality, suffering
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We continued our close look at the Heart Sutra with this week’s dharma reading, “Roses and Garbage,” from The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh. Here’s a summary:
A rose is pure, fresh, immaculate. Garbage smells, full of rotten things. They appear to be opposites. But these opposites, defiled and immaculate, are only concepts in our mind, true only on the surface. Looking deeply, we can see that in just a few days the rose will become garbage, and with time the garbage can become wonderful vegetables or roses. They need each other; they inter-are. The Majjhima Nikaya teaches: “This is, because that it. This is not, because that is not. This is like this, because that is like that.”
In Manila, as in many countries, a young woman may leave the countryside for the city in order to earn money for her impoverished family. Because of her youth and lack of worldly knowledge, she is persuaded that she can make much more money than in other jobs by becoming a prostitute. Soon, seeing how other young girls live, she comes to suffer feelings of hellish defilement. But Avalokita would tell her she is like this because other people are like that. “How can a so-called good girl, belonging to a good family, be proud? You are not the only one responsible, so please do not suffer.” No one has clean hands, no one can claim freedom from responsibility. She is that way because of the way we are. Only by seeing her with the eyes of interbeing can she be freed from her suffering. This creates that, that creates this.
Looking at the prostitute, we see the non-prostitute; looking at the non-prostitute, we see the prostitute. Similarly, wealth is made of non-wealth elements, poverty is made of non-poverty elements. Good needs evil in order to be good. The protagonist needs the antagonist in order to be the protagonist. We imprison ourselves in these concepts of good and evil, of right and left. Holding a branch representing right and left, we can try to eliminate the right end by breaking it off. But no matter how much we break off, there always remains a right end.
Looking at the Soviet Union we see America; looking at America we see the Soviet Union [these commentaries were published in 1988]. In such conflicts, each side sees itself as the rose and the other side as the garbage, but both sides contain elements of both. We are inextricably interrelated. We cannot leave the job of repairing misperceptions and misunderstandings to governments and politicians; we must do it ourselves. “Survival” means survival of humankind as a whole. If you want to survive yourself, you have to work for the survival of the other side as well as your own. The Buddha needs Mara in order to be the Buddha. And Buddha is empty as a sheet of paper, made of non-Buddha elements. When bowing to the Buddha,
The one who bows and pays respect,
And the one who receives the bow and the respect,
Both of us are empty.
That is why the communion is perfect.
Perceiving reality in a non-dual way, you will cherish both the garbage and the rose. The rose is the garbage, and the non-prostitute is the prostitute. Looking into ourselves and seeing her, we bear her pain and the pain of the whole world.
Happy Continuation November 17, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: ancestors, birth, continuation, death, dharma, emptiness, Heart Sutra, illusion, interbeing, Pure Land, reincarnation
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This week we read “Happy Continuation” from Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, The Heart of Understanding. A summary follows.
Things are dharmas: a human being, a tree, a cloud, the sunshine. So when the sutra says “All dharmas are marked with emptiness,” it means “Everything has emptiness as its own nature.” This is why things can be. This is a source of joy: “nothing can be born, nothing can die,” despite what our birth and death certificates say. Like the egg in the hen, you already existed inside your mother before you were born, so we should say “Happy Continuation Day” rather than “Happy Birthday!”
Nothing can ever become something from nothing. Even before conception, you were already there, half in your mother and half in your father; and before your parents, you were there in your grandparents and great grandparents. We have been, and are now, the cloud, the river, the air; the rock, gas, sunshine, fungi; a tree, a fish, a deer. This is not reincarnation; it is the history of life.
This is the case with death just as it is with birth. Something cannot become nothing. Scientists know that one form of energy can only become another form of energy. When a sheet of paper is burned, the smoke, heat, and ashes become other things, like a cloud or a rose, but not nothing. Looking deeply into your hand, you can see many generations of ancestors as well as yourself. You are the continuation; you have never died. A speck of dust has electrons traveling around it at 180,000 miles per second. “To return to a speck of dust will be quite an exciting adventure!” One speck of dust can be the Pure Land; one hair on the head of the person you ignore riding in the car beside you can be “the door opening to the ultimate reality.”
The red leaf you see on an autumn day is mother to the tree, communicating to it by a stem, as a child is connected to its mother by the umbilical cord. The idea that we are independent when the umbilical cord is cut is an illusion. We continue to rely on our mother for a long time, and we have several other mothers: the Earth, the cloud…there are hundreds of thousands of stems linking us to everything in the cosmos; therefore we can be. If you are not there, I am not here.
When the leaf goes back to the soil, it will continue to nourish the tree. It is not afraid; it knows nothing can be born and nothing can die. The cloud is not afraid; it has fun falling down as rain and becoming the river, the vegetables, the human being, the ocean. “It is a very exciting adventure.” If a wave sees only its form, it becomes afraid of birth and death; each wave is born and dies, but the water is free of birth and death. In a kaleidoscope, one beautiful sight follows another. Do not cry when the first spectacle disappears, because another appears. If you are the wave, become one with the water and you will not be afraid of going up and down, up and down.
But do not take Thay’s word for it. You must enter it, taste it, be one with it, when meditating, cooking, cleaning, walking. Look at things and see the nature of emptiness, see interbeing, and see that fear and pain, birth and death are just the spectacle in the kaleidoscope. Let us look and penetrate together, be one with the leaf or the cloud or the wave, and be free from fear. Thay says tomorrow he will continue to be a flower or a leaf, and will say hello to you. If you are attentive, you may recognize him and greet him, and he will be very happy.
Long Live Emptiness November 11, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: change, emptiness, Heart Sutra, impermanence, Nagarjuna, skandhas
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This week’s dharma reading was “Long Live Emptiness” from The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra. Here’s a summary:
Each of the five skandhas, form, feelings, mental formations, perceptions, and consciousness, contains all the others. Because one exists, everything exists. Notions of existence and nonexistence are created only in our minds. One contains everything, and all things are one. Matter and energy are one, matter and space are one. Matter, space and mind are one, because mind is in matter and space.
Emptiness should not scare us; it is an optimistic concept. “Emptiness,” meaning “empty of a separate self” and therefore full of everything, full of life, is the ground of everything and makes all things possible, said Nagarjuna in the second century. If you and I are not empty, we cannot be here. Because you are there, I can be here.
If we are not empty, we are merely a block of matter, incapable of breathing or thinking. To be empty means to be alive. Emptiness is impermanence and change. Without impermanence, our children can’t grow up. Without change, a kernel of corn would never grow and we’d never have corn to eat. Instead of complaining when things change, we should say, “Long live impermanence!” and “Long live emptiness!” Thanks to emptiness, life is possible.
The Way of Understanding November 2, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Avalokiteshvara, Heart Sutra, love, penetration, skandhas, understanding
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This week we read “The Way of Understanding” from The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh. Here’s a summary of this commentary:
When we want to understand something, we cannot just stand outside and observe it. We have to enter into it deeply, be one with it, penetrate it. To understand a sheet of paper, we have to be the cloud, be the sunshine, be the logger, be everything that is in it. To understand a person, we have to feel their feelings, suffer their suffering, enjoy their joy. To understand a citizen of a country with which our country has a conflict, we have to be one with that person’s feelings, perceptions, mental formations. The Buddha recommended that we observe in a penetrating way; we have to enter in, participate, to be one with what we want to observe and understand. Love between people is impossible without this kind of understanding.
Avalokita saw deeply into the rivers of the five skandhas, discovered their empty nature, and suddenly overcame all pain. To arrive at that kind of emancipation, we too must penetrate deeply.
Empty of What? October 26, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva, emptiness, Heart Sutra, interbeing, skandhas
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This week we continued our study of the Heart Sutra by way of The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh. This week’s reading was the second commentary, “Empty of What?”
The Heart Sutra is a gift to us from the bodhisattva Avalokita (Avalokiteshvara, also known as Kwan Yin, Quan Am or Kannon). Knowledge can be an obstacle to understanding. As we acquire knowledge or views, we have to be able to transcend them, one step at a time, in order to reach understanding. According to the concept of interbeing a sheet of paper contains everything, but according to Avalokita it is empty, and the five skandhas are empty. Empty of what? “Empty” doesn’t mean anything unless you know “empty of what.”
The five skandhas are like five rivers, all flowing together into one river in us: the river of form (our body), the river of feelings, the river of perceptions, the river of mental formations, and the river of consciousness. When Avalokita says they are empty, he means empty of a separate self alone. Each is made of the other four. They must co-exist, must inter-be. The components of our bodies – lungs, heart, kidneys, stomach, blood – cannot exist alone, rely on the existence of each other. A sheet of paper is empty of an independent self; it is all the things that make it up: sunshine, clouds, trees, logger. Empty of a separate self means full of everything. Form is empty of a separate self, but “full of everything in the cosmos,” as are feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
Heart of Understanding: Preface, Interbeing October 24, 2008
Posted by Alan in sangha.Tags: bodhisattva, Heart Sutra, interbeing, mindfulness bell, Thich Nhat Hanh
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This week we began reading The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, by Thich Nhat Hanh (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1988). Laurie read the text of the sutra, and then together we read the preface by the book’s editor, Peter Levitt, and Thay’s first commentary, “Interbeing.”
Preface: The Heart Sutra is the essence of Buddhist teaching, recited daily in Buddhist communities throughout the world for the past 2,000 years. Levitt describes Thich Nhat Hanh’s efforts since 1987 to help Americans develop “the true face of ‘American Buddhism’.” He describes the activities of Thay’s retreats, including the invitation of the bell, a “bodhisattva” that “helps us to wake up” in the midst of performing our daily chores. Not only the bell, but anything that helps us wake up and relax into the present moment can be a bodhisattva. “Buddhism is a clever way to enjoy life.” We should read this book just like listening to a bell. When it rings, we can put the book down and listen to its sound echo within us.
“Interbeing:” Looking at the paper this book is printed on, we can see a cloud is essential for the paper to exist. The cloud brings rain; the rain helps the tree grow; we need the tree to make the paper. The cloud and the paper inter-are. The sunshine, the logger who cut down the tree, the wheat in the bread eaten by the logger, the logger’s mother and father: all these things are essential to the paper. When we look at the paper, it becomes part of our perception. Our minds are here in this paper. Everything, excluding nothing, co-exists in the paper. You cannot be alone; you have to inter-be with everything else. The paper is made up of non-paper elements; if you take any element away – the sunshine, the logger’s mother – the paper can no longer exist.
But the Heart Sutra seems to say the opposite: that all things are empty. What does this mean?
