Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of eight thieves clearing the mind stream, Geshe Pema Tsering maps each of the Heart Sūtra’s eight negations to a specific moment on the path of seeing in this 40-minute commentary. He shows how phrases like “not produced,” “no defilement,” and “no separation from defilement” each address either the desire realm or the higher realms, then examines a textual variant: why “stainless and free from stains” is doctrinally weaker, failing to express the emptiness of emptiness itself. He traces the move to the path of meditation and its nine subtler obscurations, and closes by explaining why the sūtra’s compressed language was composed for beings already in meditative equipoise — making commentaries indispensable for anyone studying it intellectually. Suited to students familiar with Mahāyāna path structure.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 HS 2003 03 25.mp3
UUID: 2c231624-d8bb-475d-b4d3-8367d350cddc
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Heart Sūtra (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2003-03-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 39.6 minutes
Words: ~3,085
So on the path of release on the path of release of the path of seeing, there is eight things that are they’re called the eight moments of the path of release, and they have eight objects that are things to be abandoned on the path of seeing. So each moment takes on a different object as its meditative focus and abandons a certain thing in each one of these moments. It’s the abandonment of each one of these things. The first of these is called hang on. No, I got to do it in a different way.
So there’s eight moments, right? And each of the abandonments related to the four noble truths has two moments. So the suffering, which is one of the first noble truths, the suffering aspect of the first noble truth has a doctrinal knowledge aspect to it and a subsequent knowledge aspect to it. And what this where it says all phenomena are merely empty, right? This is referring to is the moment in which the doctrinal knowledge which is antidote to the desire realm and is related to suffering of the path of release, of the path of seeing, that is what they’re talking about when it says all phenomena are merely empty.
And then from the path of release of the path of seeing the moment of subsequent knowledge, which is the antidote to the higher realms related to suffering, is what they mean when they say it has no characteristics. So, one of the Four Noble Truths has two aspects to it that is relating to that truth in the desire realm and then relating to that truth in the higher realms. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Did that make sense?
Yeah. They’re both they’re both antidotes. So there’s an antidote to the So their path is like a mental consciousness, right? So there’s a mental consciousness that has released from something, and the things that is applying an antidote to something. The things they are applying an antidote to, if it’s a doctrinal knowledge, it’s relating to the desire realms.
And if it’s subsequent knowledge, then it’s relating to the higher realms. So, within this section, each thing that is describing all phenomena, it relates to one of these moments on the path of release or the path of seeing. Okay, so what is an antidote to is seeing the inherent existence of suffering in the desire realms is the first one, and seeing the inherent existence of suffering in the higher realms is the second one. So is that okay? So likewise with the next two, the things to be abandoned on the path of seeing with reference to the origin of suffering, that is the antidote to seeing suffering as being truly existent.
At the level of the desire realm is described by being not produced and at the level of the higher realms is described by not ceasing. So the first one is called a doctrinal knowledge, and the second one subsequent knowledge. The same as it was with the things to be abandoned relating to suffering. Okay. It’s the same thing with the next the next one.
The path seems to be abandoned with relation to the path on the path of seeing. The path being in the path that’s related to the truth of the path from the Four Noble Truths in this instance. So the first one which is in the Heart Sūtra is referred to as they have no defilement is referring to the antidote for the desire realm which is doctrinal knowledge. Doctrinal knowledge are on the related to the things to be abandoned on the path of seeing related to the path. And the second one which is called no separation from Defilement, is the antidote for the higher realms with relation to seeing the path has been truly established and it’s called subsequent knowledge.
And this is also related to the path of release of the path of seeing. Okay, so the next one, a different way of looking at it is that, so there’s two different things that need to be abandoned in the mind with relation to how we see cessation. That is we see cessation as being truly existent. So on the path of seeing, we need to abandon the way that we see that cessation is being truly existent with relation to the desire realms and the way that we see cessation is being truly existent with relation to the higher realms. Now the way that we see it as being truly existent with relation to the desire realms is called the subsequent knowledge of cessation when we abandon this concept of it being truly existent.
The higher realms, yeah. And the way that we see the cessation in the desire realms as being truly existent. We abandon the way we see the way we see true existence of cessation in the desire realms is called doctrinal knowledge. Okay, there’s also can be some discrepancies within this section between different texts and different commentaries on the Heart Sūtra about how one part of it should be written. Now, in most of the commentaries they say it should be as it is written.
They have no defilement and no separation from defilement, or they have no stains and no separation from stains, but in some some texts they say it is stainless and free from stains. That is no defilements and are free from defilements. So this isn’t supposed to be as clear a way of describing emptiness because if you say stainless and free from stain or with no defilements and free from defilements, then it creates something that’s like a positive about emptiness and doesn’t address the emptiness of emptiness. The whole point of saying no defilement and no separation from defilement is to point out the emptiness itself is even empty. But if we have this idea of it being stainless and free from stain and then it creates something that is a pure thing but isn’t necessarily empty.
So that section up until the end of day have no decrease and increase refers to the path of seeing and the next section is referring to the path of meditation. Okay, so the path of seeing, which is a mind or a consciousness in the continuum of that is the start of the continuum of an ārya being, is actually divided into four different parts. There is the first part of it which is called the uninterrupted path. The second part of it which is called the path of seeing, oh sorry, the path of release. The third part of it is called subsequent wisdom.
And there’s also a fourth part of this path which is anything that isn’t the other three. Okay, so within the path, the uninterrupted path, there is eight things, eight moments, which each indicates something that should be abandoned from the mind stream. So there’s eight different things to be a moment, one each moment. Now what these eight actually are, is division, is the four objects of meditation from the Four Noble truths, that is suffering, the origin of suffering, the path and cessation. It’s those four with each having one section that’s devoted to one moment that’s devoted to the lower realms, and that is the desire realms and one section that’s devoted to the higher realms that is the Form and Formless Realm.
So therefore they’re each called moments of forbearance because forbearance or patience, so that is that something is abandoned and something else isn’t taken on. Therefore with suffering, for example, the things to be abandoned with suffering is understanding of suffering as being permanent. So the thing to be abandoned relates to the desire realm, sorry, not permanent, as being inherently existent and the things to be abandoned with that relating to the desire realm is the first moment, and relating to the higher realms is the second moment. Right okay so the best way to for us to try and get some kind of concept of this is if we think about the eight moments as being eight thieves. Now, in each moment, the thief a thief comes along and takes something out of the mind stream of the person.
So it’s like in each of these eight moments something gets chucked out of the mind stream of the person, something is abandoned. Something someone came comes along, it’s like someone coming along and taking something from someone. So something is gone in each moment, in each of these moments, it’s gone for good and it doesn’t come back. Okay. So if the eight moments of the the path of the uninterrupted path or eight, it was like eight thieves coming on and stealing one thing from the minds of these people, one like attachment to a concept, they’re all gone in those eight moments.
Then the eight moments of the path of release are when the door gets shut and they’re not allowed back in. Alright? So the the things and the path of the uninterrupted path, they’re going out the door, the thieves are taking them out the door, and on the path of release, they’re not allowed back in. The door shuts so they can’t come back in. So, for example, the last of the things to be abandoned, with reference to the path of, the uninterrupted path, is the subsequent, the subsequent, oh yeah, the subsequent moment of forbearance of cessation.
So when that’s gone out the door, then those aspects are all abandoned, they’re finished with, they don’t come back into the person’s mind stream, they’ve been completely gotten rid of. So once they’ve gotten rid of all these concepts of of not seeing things as being empty, sorry, but when they’ve got rid of all the ideas of seeing things as being inherently in existence and they’re meditating on emptiness and seeing it directly, then their work is kind of finished and all they have to do is consolidate it in the next moment and not let them back in the door, not not let the ideas back into the mind. So once these these things have been kicked out and the door’s being shut, then the the being has to again meditate on bodhicitta to then focus again on why they’re actually doing this and to think that the reason that they are doing this is in order to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings and because of this and they must then start practicing the six perfections. I’m fine. So so then they have this idea after they’ve gotten rid of everything out of their mind that they needed to abandon and they’ve abided — that’s not a word.
Do you say abound? Anyway, they’re they’re they’re hanging out in this meditation. Then they realize that they actually have to put something in practice because they’ve been meditating on bodhicitta. He thinks Okay, so once they’ve done this meditation on bodhicitta then they realize that the only way they can truly help beings is not just by realizing emptiness completely, but by achieving Buddhahood, complete Buddhahood. So because of that, this is in what’s called the subsequent wisdom section of the path, right?
So because of this meditation they’ve done on bodhicitta and they’re wanting to achieve complete Buddhahood, then they realize that they have things to get rid of still, which are called things to be abandoned as a path of meditation or the path of familiarization, which are more subtle than the ones they’ve just gotten rid of. So then they go back into a meditation on emptiness again in order to get rid of those. So so they’re back in meditative equipoise on emptiness. They’re seeing emptiness directly in a in a a meditative concentration on that. Then they and they’ve because they’ve realized they still have things that they need to abandon from their mind stream which are related to the path of meditation.
Now in the path of meditation there is actually nine things that need to be abandoned. There is three sets of three. So there’s big, small, yeah, no, it goes big, medium, small, and then within big, there’s big, medium, small, within medium, there’s big, medium, small, and small, big, medium, small, so it comes up to nine, So they’ve realized they have these things to abandon, and when they get to this first one, which is the big of the big, and they abandon that thing to be abandoned, at that stage they then go into the path of meditation. So at this stage when they’ve gone through the uninterrupted path of the path of seeing, the path of release of the path of seeing, they’ve established the subsequent wisdom of the path of seeing and then gone through the the other stages of path of seeing which isn’t any of those other three. And then they’ve started to abandon the abandonment of the path of meditation, then they cease to be a being of the path of seeing and become a being of the path of meditation.
So at the moment that they go into the path meditation is when they’re in complete meditative absorption on emptiness, and so they can’t pass from the path of seeing into the path of meditation without being complete meditative equipoise. So then they go from the path of seeing to the path of meditation. So therefore if we’ve thought all this through in our head and we’re able to meditate while we’re doing it then we just became path of meditation beings. So if anyone has questions. Not path meditation.
Path oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re right.
Sorry. Wrong brain. No. You’re right. I was just like, what?
No. No. That was yeah. Sorry. Brain fuck.
Go on. Ask him. Okay, so yes, that’s the way it works. On the first, once their meditative equipoise is at the end of the path of seeing, then when they start abandoning or getting rid of the first of the things to be abandoned on the path of meditation, that is the most gross of the abandonment on the path of meditation, then they that’s when they enter the path of meditation. The difference between the things needed to be abandoned on the path of seeing and then those on the path of meditation is the things to be abandoned on the path of seeing are intellectually acquired ideas, like our idea of self and that.
And on the path of meditation, there are naturally occurring obscurations that need to be abandoned. He said that Buddhists don’t need to rest because they never get tired. Because getting tired is suffering and they don’t have suffering. Yeah. So the way that the Heart Sūtra was spoken was to people who were already realizing emptiness and it was how should they meditate on emptiness.
So every single word in there is describing a different experience that they would have while they were meditating on emptiness. So it describes one mind that they’d have. So each of these minds is a different part of the path. So whether it’s described for them to know how to meditate on emptiness, so you will experience this mind, you’ll experience that mind, you’ll experience this mind. But because we’re not meditating on emptiness, because we don’t have the insight into emptiness, then we use these explanations to give us a better description which doesn’t just depend on two words in order to be able to understand what those minds are more like.
Because in actual fact they’re beyond words. So if by just using pointers to them by saying it’s not truly, it’s not, it’s without names or it’s nameless or it’s not born or it’s not ceasing, then that helps the people that are actually in meditative equipoise on it. But for us it doesn’t work this way, we need a greater description of the minds. So there’s these eight things that are called the eight aspects of emptiness like empty without characteristic, unproduced, unceased, stainless, non-stained, undiminished and unfilled. These eight were different ways for people who were someone was experiencing emptiness or meditating on emptiness, there were different ways for them to understand the different aspects of it.
But for us, they become ways of describing a mental state that’s part of this meditation on emptiness that we have to understand intellectually and therefore have to rely on more words. Okay, so in the same way we have this concept, as an example, we have this expression all phenomena. Now, all phenomena can be one way of explaining each, but we could also point out each individual phenomena and say a cup, a table, a chair, anything like that and go through the whole lot. But in order to get a better understanding of it, we’d have to explain every single different phenomena. But for brevity’s sake, we say all phenomena instead of going and naming them all.
And so this is the same way here. They’re just using one word or one phrase in order to get something with a great meaning across, but if we don’t have the insight into emptiness that we can only we can understand it from one word, then we have to rely on commentaries where they explain it more clearly. So the it it the sūtra is a very small words, but it actually describes all phenomenon, not just the emptiness of all phenomenon, but all phenomenon as well. So in the same way that we can say beings and that refers to a lot of people, a lot of things and we could go on for ever kind of explaining that in greater detail but we can encompass it by saying beings and the same way we say all phenomena and that could be explained in incredibly great detail but we just use one expression to do it. The Heart Sūtra describes everything from all aspects of the path, all aspects of all phenomena, and all aspects of emptiness.
So we should be very, very grateful to the commentaries on these things because they’re like our teachers, and if we didn’t have the commentaries, then we wouldn’t have a clue what the Heart Sūtra was about. So is that okay then now? What? Yeah.