Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 38-minute commentary, Khensur Rinpoche opens the Heart Sūtra by unpacking its Sanskrit title word by word — showing that Bhagavati, often rendered as “Blessed Mother,” more precisely means “transcendental destroyer,” referring to the defeat of the four maras: death, afflictive emotions, obstacles to practice, and contaminated aggregates. He then introduces the five excellences — time, teacher, place, retinue, and Dharma — and reads through the sūtra’s opening lines to show how each phrase maps to one excellence. A vivid passage describes Buddhist realms across the universe vibrating as Buddha prepared to teach emptiness at Vulture’s Peak, with Rinpoche drawing an explicit parallel to the present gathering at Buddha House. The session closes with a brief mention of the Dalai Lama’s recent Australian tour and a prayer on the view of emptiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 HS 1992 05 19.mp3
UUID: b7e6d702-e7b7-4f70-9387-d1f9f58dac7d
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Heart Sūtra (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1992-05-19
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 38.6 minutes
Words: ~1,677
So the reason that the Sanskrit title is given is to authoritative source, that it was given in the original Sanskrit language. It was first taught in the original Sanskrit language, showing where its source is coming from. And then the translators translated the discourse from Sanskrit into Tibetan language. The Bhagavati in Tibetan is Chomden Dema, in English, the Blessed Mother or the Sacred Mother. Prajñāpāramitā in Tibetan is — This is the perfection of wisdom.
Then the Sanskrit in Tibetan it is ningbo. In English, heart or essence. So the reason it is called the heart or the essence of the perfection of wisdom, generally there are many different types of wisdoms. And it is the wisdom of realizing emptiness which is the essence or the heart of all wisdoms. So we said that Bhagavati or Chomden Dema is generally translated as the sacred mother or the blessed mother.
But the word Bhagavati, Bhagavati, more literally means transcendental destroyer. The syllable chom, Bhagavan, chom means to destroy. And this is an epithet. And what has been destroyed? The four maras have been destroyed.
And the four maras are the mara of the Lord of Death. And this means that having destroyed the taking of death due to the force of karma and afflictive emotions. The second is the mara of afflictive emotions, such afflictive emotions as attachment, aversion, and misknowledge or ignorance, having overcome these afflictive emotions, the mara of afflictive emotions. Then there’s mara of Devaputra. And Devaputra is the obstacles to receiving and the practice of the teachings, having overcome these obstacles and hindrances.
And then the fourth Mara is the Mara of the aggregates. And this is the taking of contaminated aggregates under the force of karma and afflictive emotions. So means that one has destroyed all four of these types of maras. So this term, Chomdende, means to destroy.
Means to possess the qualities, and specific qualities of body, speech, mind. Qualities of body such as the thirty two major and eighty minor marks, qualities of speech, such as the sixty melodious types of speech and various qualities of mind, such as the love and various realizations, and essentially the realization of the wisdom of understanding emptiness. So the heart of the perfection of wisdom is the wisdom, realizing emptiness, conjoined with the awakening heart. And then the the third syllable, is means transmundane, beyond the mundane of the world. So it is said that this text possesses five excellences.
So the five excellences were the excellences of time, teacher, place, retinue, and Dharma. Then the actual text, we begin the actual reading of the text. You can refer to there’s a translation that you have. It begins with Thus I have heard. So this was given at the time of the Buddha’s actual existence, that this discourse was given.
And the individual who was present is recalling having heard this discourse That in that time there was a meditative concentration which they were able to generate, which caused them not to forget whatever they had heard. In those days they didn’t have tape recorders, they didn’t have notes, But it was as if whatever was said was imprinted on their mind. And he is noting this he’s denoting this fact by stating, Thus I have heard. At one time when the Buddha was giving this discourse, I heard him say this. So what did he hear?
He heard the heart of wisdom discourse. And this heart of wisdom discourse is the Dharma excellence of these five excellences. It is the Dharma excellence. And this denotes that it was the time of excellence because the Buddha was living within the world, the excellence of time. So, Thus I have heard, once the Blessed One was dwelling in Rajgir on Vulture’s Peak.
So mentions the blessed one, or that is to say the Blessed One in this case is Buddha Śākyamūni and this is the excellence of the teacher or the lama. This is who actually gave the teaching. So this is the third excellence, the excellence of the teacher. And then the fourth excellence, which I failed to mention, is the excellence of place. And this sentence gives place.
It was given at Rajgir on Vulture’s Peak. And this denotes the this is an extremely important place, a small mountain where the teaching was actually given. So a place where these teachings on were to be given should be an extremely stable place. There’s a great danger that in the course of giving these teachings on emptiness, the ground might shake. And it has to be a very stable place just like Bodh Gaya was.
The Tibetan term used for the city of Bodh Gaya means literally the vajra seat. And vajra has the connotation of being extremely stable and solid. And upon this vajra seat is where the Buddha actually attained his Buddhahood. And he did this through the meditative stabilization upon this vajra seat. If it wasn’t an extremely solid place, then the ground perhaps would have actually split open due to the force of his meditative concentration.
Yes. And then the discourse continues onward. Together with a great assembly so we mentioned the Buddha, and together with the great assembly of monks and bodhisattvas. So this is the fifth of the five excellences, the excellence of Retinue, denoting who was it that comprised and who this community of listeners to the teachings that the Buddha was giving. And it was comprised of monks and nuns, of the hearers lineage, laypersons who were bodhisattvas.
And there were numberless of these individuals gathered together forming a community. And they, together with the Buddha, and the Buddha was giving this Dharma teaching, and this constituted the retinue, or the community listening to the teaching. So at the time that the just previous to the giving of the discourse on the Vulture’s Peak, Buddha was preparing to give this discourse on emptiness. The various Buddha fields throughout the universe began to vibrate. And the beings in these various Buddha fields questioned, Why is our Buddha field vibrating?
And they were told that Buddha Śākyamūni in India is about to give a discourse on emptiness. And they said, can we go? And they said, you’re welcome. And so the entire expanse of space was filled with all of these various beings from all of these various parts of the universe. The entire space was filled with various numberless celestial beings and bodhisattvas and hearers comprising this total community of listeners.
And then the text goes on. At that time the Blessed One is totally absorbed in the concentration that examines all the phenomena called profound illumination or perhaps profound appearance. So this line where the blessed one was totally absorbed in the concentration that examines all phenomena called profound illumination denotes that at the time of the transmission of the Heart of Wisdom discourse, the Buddha was seated in meditative equipoise on emptiness. That is to say, he was meditating on emptiness. So just as in this case where the Buddha was seated himself in the meditative equipoise and emptiness and accompanied with the vast community of bodhisattvas, etc, who were also in the concentration on contemplating emptiness.
Here at Buddha House, we likewise, in giving this teaching on the Heart Sūtra, are accompanied by a vast array of bodhisattvas and celestial beings in both male and female who are filling the space and contemplating emptiness. So the space is filled with the celestial beings listening to the present teaching. These days, the world is beset by many afflictions, many troubles. We can see this every day on the television set. These are extremely hard times.
But hopefully, in beginning this teaching on the essence of the Dharma which was taught by the Buddha, that together as myself as the teacher and you enlisting, we can initiate a golden period of time in the world. So this discourse of the heart of wisdom is not very long. It’s a few words. Therefore, but though it’s a few words, you should try to not forget what is being explained and to try to ascertain what is being taught. And if one can do this, then one’s life will be extremely meaningful.
So it’s because it’s so few words, it’s going to be finished within this term. And therefore you should try to make every session. So then you will be able be able to have the latencies of the complete teaching implanted. So if one has the latency of these complete teachings, then this would be extremely beneficial to your meditation. Each day if you meditate, then you can review what has been said previously and what is going to come subsequently.
And this will be extremely beneficial in your understanding. So today we’ve given an account of the discourse, and so in the future it won’t be necessary to go back into the account. We will go to the actual essence of the discourse itself. So if you have a So if you have some We’ll take a few minutes for questions if they’re brief. So the Dalai Lama said that that there would be a significant change in the situation of Tibet within five to ten years.
And that through His Holiness’s travels in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, that many people took a great interest in Tibet. And I think due to this, things will go well. So His Holiness didn’t have any breaks. He was continually teaching, giving talks, teaching the Dharma. It involved interviews, traveling.
And so he did have some difficulty with his health. Do you have a question? So now we’re going to recite a prayer to incorporating the precious view of emptiness. So we recite verses eight and nine on page five. And verse nine, we’re going to substitute.
Rather than it says, rather than saying those three syllables, we’re going to say, Nyi-dala means the view of emptiness. So the precious view of emptiness. Dong Nyi-dala.