Heart Sutra — 2009-10-23

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this 101-minute teaching, Venerable Tenzin Chogkyi introduces the Heart Sūtra as meditation instructions rather than mystical formula, unpacking its title and opening verses word by word to show how it guides practice on the Buddhist path. She traces the sūtra’s significance across Mahāyāna traditions—the most recited text worldwide, usually chanted before teachings—and explains why it often feels confusing when recited without commentary: it actually maps the different stages of advancement toward enlightenment through progressively subtler meditations on emptiness. Chogkyi sketches the explicit teaching (various kinds of emptiness), the hidden meaning (meditation instructions for distinct path stages), and promises practical guidance on how to apply this wisdom in daily retreat and formal practice, drawing on instructions received from Lama Zopa Rinpoche. The opening also covers the Buddhist background of introductions, sets bodhicitta motivation, and concludes with the story of Ānanda’s perfect recall and final awakening, anchoring the sūtra’s reliability. Suited for practitioners with some Buddhist background or those who have recited the Heart Sūtra many times and want genuine comprehension.

File metadata (for organising)

File: Heart Sutra1 2009 10 23.mp3

UUID: ce499069-d358-4852-894f-9ff7fc038677

Teacher: Tenzin Chogkyi

Collection: Heart Sūtra (Tenzin Chogkyi)

Date: 2009-10-23

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Words: ~14,013

Okay. I wanna make an announcement. We’re gonna go ahead and start if people wanna find their seats. Seats. Hello?

Hello? Yeah, that’s better. Can you whisper into hers and make sure that Hello. That was good. So welcome everybody.

This is Tenzin Chogkyi’s weekend on the Heart Sūtra, which we’ve been very excited about. She will probably go through the schedule with you, but tonight should end at nine o’clock, and then tomorrow morning starts at nine thirty. Usually, way she does it is three hours with a break in the middle, and then we have lunch for an hour and a half, and then three hours with a break in the middle. And then we’ll do the same thing Sunday morning, and then Sunday afternoon we’ll end a little earlier at four o’clock. If anyone asks questions, since you will have time for question asking, we just request that you speak into the mic so that we can record it.

We record the whole thing and it will be downloadable from archive dot org, which is brilliant. So, but we request the question because Oh yeah. So we just request questioner to use the mic. It doesn’t have to be the most profound question, but just so that we record it so that the people at home can hear it and it makes much more sense. Also it helps to amplify for those of us sitting in the back too.

One of our bathrooms just went out. The corner, no, the little one on the landing. Yeah, it’s leaking. Wasn’t in overflow yet, we haven’t purified that much. So if you are a regular here and you probably know who you are, then you guys can use the downstairs bathroom.

If you know where the downstairs bathroom is, then you can use that. Otherwise, you can still use the one that’s in the corner there. That’ll kind of break it up. We’ll hopefully have it fixed by tomorrow. What else?

We are going to start with offering Tenzin Chogkyi the representative of the Body of Speech and Body, by the way. Thank you. Representative of the Buddhist Body, Speech and Mind and a mandala requesting the teaching. It’s sort of a symbolic thing and some of you have seen it before. I’m sure we’ll make a jumble of it.

I’m gonna be the requester, and Michelle’s gonna hand me the things, and Gina, I think, is gonna receive for me. Just, oh, I think what page is it in? I think it’s page eighty six, maybe look at page eighty six of the Gold Prayer book, and I think it’s in there. Yeah? Okay, good.

It’s the one thing I have a memory for is numbers. So it should be Sajipugi, and then right after this one requesting on the bottom of that page requesting to turn the wheel, we’ll sing that one too. But somebody who knows it has to sing it really loud because I don’t have that one memorized. I can fake it, but it’s probably best I don’t. Anything else?

We’ll have more announcements for the weekend. We have calendars for November that are coming, and Maria is picking them up and she’s not here yet, so hopefully she hasn’t run into a problem. But they we will have brand new November calendars. What else? I don’t know.

Okay. Let’s go get her. Okay. Okay. Go for it.

It’s easier for you to take it than it will be somebody coming in late. So, actually, it’s fine. I okay. So for anybody who’s comfortable doing prostrations, we can do them together if there’s room. Might be a little bit challenging.

Alright. Please have a seat. Thank you very much. The American mandala offering always involves lots of giggling apparently. That’s the real offering, the offering of happiness.

Great, great. Thank you all for coming. Welcome. We’re going to start with just a couple of minutes of sitting to settle our minds, watching our breath just to sort of settle our minds. It’s been a long week for everybody and just getting ourselves here in our bodies in this room.

And then we’ll set our motivation. And then right after we set our motivation, we’ll read the Heart Sūtra, which is the topic of our teachings, and it’s on page seventy nine of this gold prayer book. And I’ve got an extra copy here if anybody doesn’t have one. Does anybody need a copy? Everybody has?

Okay. Great. So we’ll read that after we set the motivation. But first, let’s just sit for a couple of minutes just watching our breath, settling our minds, getting ourselves here in this room, in our bodies. And now let’s take a minute to set our motivation.

And we’re going to be studying a Mahāyāna Sūtra. So in the Mahāyāna, the highest level of motivation is to become fully enlightened with all the qualities of a Buddha in order to benefit infinite sentient beings. This is called Bodhicitta, this beautiful, noble intention. And since we’re studying a Mahāyāna Sūtra this weekend, let’s try to generate this wish, or if not the full wish, at least an admiration, a sense of admiration for this noble intention that our spiritual practice is all about, developing qualities that will be of benefit ultimately to others. So take just a minute to set this motivation.

Okay. And now let’s read the Heart Sūtra together, page seventy nine. I prostrate to the aria triple gem. Thus did I hear it one time. The Bhagavan was dwelling on massive vultures mountain in Rajagriha together with a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas.

At that time, the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called profound perception. Also at that time, the bodhisattva, Mahāsattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature. Then through the power of Buddha, the venerable Śāriputra said this to the Bodhisattva, Mahāsattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara, How should any son of the lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom? He said that, and the Bodhisattva, Mahāsattva, Ārya Avalokiteśvara said this to the venerable Śāriputra, Śāriputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom should look upon it like this, correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also is empty of inherent nature. Form is empty.

Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form. Form is also not other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness are empty. Śāriputra, likewise, all phenomena are emptiness, without characteristic, unproduced, unceased, stainless, not without stain, not deficient, not fulfilled.

Śāriputra, therefore, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no visual phenomena, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomena. There is no eye element and so on, up to and including no mind element and no mental consciousness element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so on, up to and including no aging and death, and no extinction of aging and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation, and path. There is no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no non attainment.

Shariputratra, therefore, because there is no attainment, Bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of nirvana. All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom. Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared.

Tadyatha, gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha. Śāriputra, the bodhisattva, mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that. Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration, commended the bodhisattva, mahasattva, ārya, Avalokiteśvara, saying, well said, well said, son of the lineage. It is like that. It is like that.

One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom, just as you have indicated. Even the Tathagatas rejoice. The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the venerable Śāriputra, the bodhisattva, Mahāsattva Avalokiteśvara, those surrounding in their entirety, along with the world of gods, humans, asuras, and Gandharvas, were overjoyed and highly praise that spoken by the Bhagavan. Okay, so that’s the complete Heart Sūtra that is often recited before teachings. You may have recited this many, many times.

Know, for example, when Choden Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche teach, this is a sūtra that’s recited before the teaching. And I had a student last year at Land of Medicine Buddha who approached me and said, You know, we read this thing all the time and I don’t have a clue what on earth it means. We read it and it says no ear, no eye.’ like what are they talking about? Of course I’ve got ears and eyes. Could you please explain?

So I said, Love to. Great. So I developed the course to explain because it’s wonderful to understand what it’s talking about when you read this sūtra. Often it’s recited in the Tibetan tradition as almost sort of like this magical formula to dispel obstacles like voodoo or something, to get rid of obstacles before teaching. But what it is, what the Heart Sūtra really is, is meditation instructions.

It’s a conversation between two of Lord Buddha’s students not really, as we shall see. It’s a little bit more subtle than that and it’s meditation instructions showing us how to meditate on emptiness and get that realization that’s so important on the path. So I think we miss a lot of the benefit when we don’t really understand the meditation instruction aspect of the sūtra. And we just kind of think, oh, it’s really mystical. It’s so esoteric.

No ear. What are they talking about? No exalted wisdom. No attainment. None of this stuff exists.

What’s going on here? So often we just recite it, and we kind of don’t want to think about it because it sort of doesn’t make sense. It’s either confusing, so we’re a little bit we just kind of put it aside and just dutifully recite it. But there’s so much benefit that can be gained because it’s actual instructions. This sūtra is one of the most beloved in all of the Mahāyāna countries and is recited very often at the beginning of teachings in not only the Tibetan tradition, which we’re probably most familiar with, but the Chinese Mahāyāna tradition that extends to Korea, to Japan, to parts of Vietnam, and so forth.

So this sūtra is probably the most recited. If somebody was keeping track, some omniscient being of how many times every sūtra had been recited, the Heart Sūtra would win, hands down. And I heard actually that it’s the only sūtra that’s been printed on neckties in Japan. I hadn’t seen this for myself, but I heard that the whole Heart Sūtra actually appears on a necktie. And one of the reasons it’s so popular, not that people understand what it means, it’s so short, right?

Less than ten minutes in most languages, a lot shorter in languages like Chinese, you know, and English even, which is a very unwieldy language. It’s very easy to recite. And some of us have recited other sutras that Lama Zopa Rinpoche has recommended, like, you know, the Golden Light Sūtra takes hours. You know, even the Diamond Cutter Sūtra takes a good hour at least, even if you’re really fast. Forty five minutes if you’re super fast.

The Sangatta Sūtra, forget it, three hours, you know? So you can recite that, Janet, it’s like, oh my god. So you can recite the Heart Sūtra in a very, you know, brief amount of time. And this is also one of the reasons that it’s, you know, quite beloved in the Mahāyāna countries. But it’s really wonderful to study it and see the meaning in it.

And there’s a couple of different levels of meaning. It’s instructions on how to meditate, as I said. It’s telling us how to meditate at the different parts of the path. And that’s sort of the hidden meaning of the Heart Sūtra. The sort of explicit meaning is it’s a teaching on different kinds of emptiness.

And then the more sort of implicit or hidden meaning is that it’s showing how to meditate on the different stages of the path. And we’ll talk about both levels of meaning because I think it’s really interesting to talk about how it’s instructions to meditate on different parts of the path. We talk about the five paths, meaning five stages that you go through in the progression towards enlightenment. It’s very cool to figure out what it’s like previews of coming attractions what’s going to happen as you evolve towards Buddhahood and exactly how you meditate on emptiness at all those different stages. We’re going to look at that.

This is going to be kind of intense. We’ve only got a weekend. But we’re going to look at a lot of stuff and we’re going to go over that. I’ve prepared a diagram. Luckily I’m Western.

In Tibet, no books have diagrams, but we can have charts, we can have diagrams, we can have flip charts. It makes it all a lot easier. It’s not all these syllables run together. There’s not even spaces between the words in Tibetan. Forget about charts and diagrams.

So we tried to make it easy for you. So we’re going to talk about both levels. We’re going to talk about the teaching on emptiness well, all three levels how it’s the teaching on emptiness, how it’s meditation instructions, and how it shows us how to progress through the five paths. So we’ve got kind of a big agenda ahead of us. One of the things, those of you who’ve been at my teachings, one of the things I like to do at the very beginning is go around and have everybody say their name and a little bit about their background.

There’s lots of old friends in the room and some new friends, too, so if everybody could just go around and just briefly introduce yourself, say a little bit about your background, because that’ll also be helpful for me to kind of know how much background you have and how in detail to go into things. Okay, so let’s start with Keith over in the corner. My name is Keith. Hi, Keith. My name is Keith Enriquez, and I’ve been with Teixing Ling, I think, or five years now.

I converted to man Mahāyāna Buddhism from Theravadan Buddhism after I returned from working in Thailand. Mhmm. Found Te Xing Ling. Thank you. Yeah.

Great. I’m Henny. My background is Theravāda Buddhism and I’ve studied Tibetan Buddhism for thirteen years. I’m still new at it. I’m Tamara.

I have been coming to Tse Chen Ling for, I guess, thirteen years. But I was like a baby, so I didn’t study yet. But I really like coming here and listening to teachings. I’m Lynn, and I actually chanted some mantras with Henny when she was in utero tomorrow. So I took refuge at Kopan in nineteen ninety three, but I recited the Zen Center’s Heart Sūtra at Green Gulch and was fascinated with it and loved it, it’s still my favorite.

I’m Jessica and have been here to one retreat before with you. Really nice to be here again. And love it here. And my primary place of practice, well, home, and then also up in Point Richmond with Anam Thubten. And I’m in training to be a teacher, actually.

I’m John, and I’ve been coming here to Tse Chen Ling for a little over a month or so, maybe not even that. And I was here the last time that you taught on the Four Noble Truths. And, yeah, I’m back for more. Great. Good.

I’m Carla. And, definitely, the heart switch is one of my favorite texts. So this is very good experience for me. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Maria. I’m a beginner, and, I’m exploring, so I’m taking all the classes that I can. I was with you with the three and the Four Noble Truths. So here I am again. My name is Adrian.

I had known Heart Sūtra for fifteen years, but every time when I listened to it, I had different thoughts about it. So it’s always good to keep coming and listen to lectures. I’m Cindy. I started taking dharma classes here since two thousand eight. I’ve taken a few classes of the Lamrim classes and I’ve gone on this is my third retreat.

Actually, is home retreat for me but yeah so and the Heart Sūtra, I’ve read the scriptures and went to Indian path them out. So it’s very and I went to Vulture’s Peak. So it’s very close to heart for me. Great. Great.

My name is Janet, and I’ve been studying Tibetan Buddhism about ten years. I usually say nine, but it actually think it’s beginning to be ten. Once I get a number in my head, it doesn’t change much. It’s kind of like my age. Twenty four, right?

Somewhere, I don’t know. I lost it. Anyway, but I’m really anxious to hear this again. I’ve heard it from different teachers, and you always get a new little bit of wisdom and a new little way to think about it with every time that you hear it. So it’s very good to have this opportunity.

Thank you. My name is Anna, and I’ve been a member here of Sichuan Ling, now going on for four years. And I have taken other teachings with Venerable Chogkyi and I’ve always enjoyed them very much, gotten a lot out of it. I was fortunate enough to go see His Holiness in Long Beach and there they sang the Heart Sūtra in different languages. And I remember when they did it in Vietnamese, I just started crying.

It was just so beautiful. But it’s a beautiful sūtra, I love studying it. It’s quite fascinating. I’m Gina. I’ve been coming here for about three years taking discovering Buddhism and drop in meditation classes.

And I really don’t have any experience with the Heart Sūtra, but I’m very interested and curious about all different teachings on emptiness. Great. My name is Catherine, and I’ve been a member of Sichuan Ling for probably thirteen years or so, but there’s been years when I’ve barely come, and then this year, as I’ve been here quite a bit more. So I’m sort of the prodigal member or something. And I studied this, sūtra with Chodrak many years ago at Tse Chen Ling when it was over in Glen Park.

It was months and months and months of studying, Once a week Oh. For several months. And I just love it. And so I’m really glad to get more details on Thank you. My name is Chris, and I’ve been practicing Buddhism for just over three years.

It took me a while to find my home tradition. I was in Vacaville and there wasn’t very many things open, I was just kind of being eclectic and learning as much as I could. So I spent some time in Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition, and we recited the Sūtra a lot there. When I moved back to I was also corresponding with FPMT throughout that time, but when I moved back to San Francisco, I immediately came here and found my home. However, the Heart Sūtra, even though I’ve recited it so many times, for me it’s one of the most confusing.

Even if it’s short, it’s one of the most just the whole emptiness thing. I can kinda get it intellectually, but Right. I’m not really understanding it. So I’m really looking forward to this weekend. Great.

Good. Hopefully, I won’t confuse you even worse, Chris. Hi. My name is Matt, and I started taking classes here at Tse Chen Ling about two years ago. And prior to that, I was in the Zen tradition.

And we did do a study period at the San Francisco Zen Center on the Heart Sūtra, but I’m really excited to learn more about it. It’s I remember the first time I read it, I thought Mhmm. There’s something really I’m just getting, like, the tip of the iceberg. I sensed that it was, like, this really dense thing that needed to be unpacked, and I I still feel that way, I’m excited to learn more about it. So Good.

Good. Good. Hi. My name’s Morgan. I’ve been coming here for about three years, kinda on and off.

I I actually first studied this, with Emily, where she taught a class on the Heart Sūtra, I’ve been delving into the Lamrim, but I I think there’s some analytical understanding, but not, there’s no realizations. And I think from meditation side, that’s the confusing part to me. It’s like outside of the analytical side, how do you apply it to like a daily meditation Right. Good. Yeah.

Hi. My name is Brian. I’ve been coming here maybe a year and studying Buddhism for maybe four or five years. And I took the emptiness retreat with venerable Renee and also and Emily. And a class here with Venerable Monem.

And I’m looking forward to this. Great. Good. I’m Lynn, and I’ve been studying Tibetan Buddhism for about three years. And it took rebirth about a year to get over here.

It’s been almost two years. And I think the first thing that I came to here was teaching on how to teach. And I was like, what is this about? I’m really looking forward to it. Good.

Hi, I’m Liza. I’ve been studying Tibetan Buddhism, I guess, pretty informally for like three years. Most interested in vajrayana and, I haven’t studied this, so looking forward to it. Hi. My name is Sarah, and I’ve been studying Tibetan Buddhism since nineteen ninety eight.

And now I work at a Theravadin Center, and I love the Heart Sūtra. Hi. I’m Ben. I I guess I’ve been meditating and and I I live at Spirit Rock now. I’ve I’ve been kinda in that tradition for probably six or seven years.

And in the last couple of years, I’ve been more interested in Mahāyāna teachings and and vajrayana teachings. First did started reciting the Heart Sūtra at Anam Thubten’s place with Jessica as well. It had just a real profound effect on me doing it together with everybody and I’ve been studying it more and more and so I was interested to come to these teachings. Great. Thank you.

That’s good. Thank you. Hi. I’m Viela, and I recently took refuge. And I’ve been coming to St.

Helene for about a year and a half. So I’m very I’m looking forward to this. Great. Hi again. It’s good to see you.

I’m Theresa Mia and I’ve been a Mahāyānist for several years and I can never hear the Heart Sūtra too many times. And I think of all those Lamas who are in their seventies and they say things like, Oh yes, we pray it several times every day. And I still am just beginning to understand it. So I’m a beginner. Thanks.

Thank you. Is there anybody? Yes. Hi. I’m Sandra.

I’ve been practicing Buddhism for twenty years. I started out in So to Zen, and then I’ve been, volunteering or working for FPMT for about ten years. And at the including you, the FPMT has a lot of great teachers, Tibetan and American, a wonderful education department. I know, like, I I’m sounding like I’m plugging FPMT, but it’s really it’s it it really is great. I since I stopped working up in Portland, I’ve really come to appreciate the dedication, you know, from Lama Yeshe and, of course, Lama Yeshe and all the teachers.

Great. Thank you. See, Maria was somewhere. Did she disappear? Oh, there she is.

She snuck in. Oh, did you do yours? I totally missed that. What happened? You were back there and then you moved here.

I’m losing it. Okay. Are we done? That’s it, okay. Oh, and one thing that you’ll have to help me remember is that we pass the mic around for questions so it all gets on the recording, and I always forget, people are good, Gina’s the one, right?

Aren’t you the one to remember the mic? Janet. Janet and Janet. Okay, great. So we’ll rely on Gina and Janet because don’t trust me on that.

I always forget. Okay, great. Great. So in terms of practice, Morgan and a couple of other people said, we’ve studied this a little bit intellectually, but how does it relate to practice? And I’m definitely going to try and talk about that aspect as well.

I remember when I was in this long meditation retreat and I got traditional preliminary practices and then a bunch of extra ones because, of course, I was talking to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, so he kind of makes up preliminary practices. One of the ones I got was two hundred recitations of the Heart Sūtra with meditation on the five heaps or the five skandhas. That ended up it took a couple of weeks to do it. I was doing it really, really slowly. And of all the years that I was in solitary meditation retreat, I think the weeks that I spent on that practice were some of the most profound, just amazing, really, really.

So he sort of instructed me how to do that meditation, so I’m going to try and share that with you because as we shall see, that’s the main meditation for the path of accumulation, the path of preparation. If you don’t know what those words mean yet, you will by tomorrow at about three o’clock. But for the people who do know, you know, that’s kind of the main meditation for beginners. And so we’ll go through that because for me personally, I found it one of the most, I don’t know. There’s just something about it that just kind of takes you to this place.

It really cuts down this sense of self and this ego grasping, and it’s just very, very simple to do, not very complicated. You just go through the five heaps, then you relate those to the sense of self you have, go back and forth. So we’ll do that. So we’ll definitely get into practice. It is going to be quite intellectual at times, but we’ll always be trying to relate it to practice.

And Marcella just came in. We’ve been doing introductions. If you could introduce yourself. Thank you. Sorry I’m late.

My name is Marcella. I know some people. I’m coming to practice meditation for two months and a half. I’m trying to practice every day. I had very good experiences.

I’m very happy I’m here. My bad karma was pushing me to go, but I couldn’t make it. I’m very happy to participate. I was thinking I couldn’t come, I’m here. I’m happy.

Thank you. Yeah. Somebody else just walked in. I’m Chooky, not chokey, Chooky, more like Cookie. And I have been I can’t even see you anymore.

I just was playing a parking lot attendant for Marcella. Anyway, I’ve been here at the center almost ten years. I’ve been ordained almost ten years. Been a Buddhist for more, probably fourteen years. And I am really excited.

You had originally mentioned the possibility coming back and teaching us more on emptiness last year when you taught on emptiness. And so the idea was born. And we have seen it through. Great. Yeah, so that’s all I have to say.

Great. Welcome, welcome, welcome back. Thank you. Great, Great. Alright.

Alright. So the teachings on the Heart Sūtra that I’ve received, one of the things I do when I’m asked to teach something, you know, I pull out all my notes from teachings that I’ve gotten, and I pull out all the books that have been published, and I kind of spread them all out on my bed and kind of read each section. It’s so much fun preparing for a class because it’s such a great review. You get to just review everything. So I wanted to just mention the sources that I used for this particular teaching that some of you may be familiar with.

Some of them are just teachings that I’ve received from texts that have not been translated into English yet. One of the main teachings I got on the Heart Sūtra is from a commentary by a Tibetan lama named Gyungtrul Dragpa Shedrup who lived from sixteen seventy five to seventeen forty eight. It’s a word for word commentary called The Sun Whose Rays Illuminate the Profound Thusness. I love these titles. They all sound the same.

It’s always the sun illuminating something or the whatever, the profound whatever. But it was a great commentary because those of you that know me know that I’m really into words and language and etymology. So since we just have a weekend, I’ll spare you most of it. But I’m going to have to put it in there from time to time, especially about the title. We’re going to be going into the title word for word because I just love that kind of stuff.

I think it’s cool. So this was a great text, just word for word breaking down every word. And then also His Holiness, and some of you may have been there, taught on the Heart Sūtra in San Jose in two thousand and one. And I wasn’t there. I was in a long meditation retreat, but somebody sent me the tapes.

It was back in the days of cassette tapes right afterwards. And I listened to them over and over and over again and pretty much transcribed the whole thing. So that was one of the sources that I used. Also, I’ve received teachings from Yongsi Rinpoche on the Heart Sūtra, from Geshe Lozang Tarchin, from Geshe Tsultrim Gyaltsen. Those are some of the other sources that I used.

There’s a great book by Donald Lopez called The Heart Sūtra Explained that’s for people like me that love words because he goes really into the meaning of all the words, mostly in Sanskrit. He’s mostly using Sanskrit commentaries and Sanskrit sources for his commentary. And by the way, those teachings in San Jose in two thousand and one have been published in a book called The Essence of the Heart Sūtra. I think it’s Wisdom no, Wisdom? Yeah, I think it is Wisdom Publications, and that’s a great resource too.

So some references. There we go. You know, I don’t pay them to do this. It’s just spontaneous. That’s what the hardback looks like, and obviously that’s what the transcripts from two thousand and one.

Two thousand and one. Yeah, and that’s a great one. That’s a really, really good one. Anybody who’d like to get into it more, the Donald Lopez one is for people like Morgan. Morgan by the Donald Lopez one, for people who are really into getting into every excruciating detail.

And he compares Haribhādra’s commentary, all these ancient Indian masters’ commentary. So that’s very cool. But the one by His Holiness is very accessible, as His Holiness teachings always are. So that’s a wonderful one that you can read. Now the point of the Heart Sūtra and the point of these Mahāyāna Sutras that teach about emptiness is because understanding emptiness is a completely necessary prerequisite for being able to meditate on emptiness, and meditating on emptiness is what gets you to the direct realization of emptiness, and the direct realization of emptiness is what cuts through ignorance that’s the root of saṃsāra and gets you both liberated and enlightened.

So without having that realization, it’s completely what’s the word non negotiable. If you want to become liberated from saṃsāra and beyond that you want to become a fully enlightened Buddha, you’ve got to have a direct realization of emptiness at some point. No way to get that realization unless you know how to meditate on emptiness. No way to know how to meditate unless you’ve studied. So that’s the importance of meditating on emptiness.

That’s the importance of studying emptiness. It’s not just an intellectual trip, even though sometimes it seems that way. It’s not just to give Jeffrey Hopkins a job, writing all those books. I read this book called Maps of the Profound. It’s like sixteen hundred pages of excruciating I think there’s like eleven hundred footnotes or something, you know, and these excruciating hair splitting arguments.

What I actually realized after reading that book is that I was never going to understand emptiness by reading a book like that. I just had to get my butt in direct contact with the meditation cushion, and that was how I was going to meditate on emptiness. It’s unbelievable. So it doesn’t have to be as complicated as that. Emptiness is not that hard actually intellectually to understand.

We talk about different levels of knowing things in Buddhism when there’s phenomena that are directly experienced, like the cup on the table. I can just experience that with my sense consciousness. That’s an obvious phenomena. And then there are phenomena called hidden phenomena that are accessible through inference or logic, and emptiness is one of these kind of phenomena. Now one example of a deeply hidden phenomena that that can only be known through the words of an enlightened being is the mechanism of karma, exactly how karma works.

So that’s a lot harder to understand and in fact, unless you’re a Buddha, you can’t ever really get it how karma works. But we can understand how emptiness works through logic, through analysis, like that. So it’s not that hard. It’s not really that hard. I heard one time recently His Holiness the Dalai Lama was teaching, and you know how he gets the questions, Tipton Jinpa reads out this pile of questions that gets passed up, and somebody said, How do I get a direct realization of emptiness?

In His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, Study, study, study. That was his answer, so we definitely need to study, but then that’s no substitute for meditation. We can’t only study. We just have to study enough to know how to meditate. That’s the main thing.

We don’t have to read maps of the profound. Forget it. Shouldn’t say that, but it’s wonderful but it’s not necessary. But a certain amount of study to understand how to meditate is really necessary. So that’s what I’m going to try and focus on this weekend.

And we only have two days, but I’m really going to try and focus as much as possible on the practical. So let’s get into the sūtra itself, and there’s a couple of things missing from the translation in the Gold Book, and if you’ll turn back to page seventy seven, it has the name in Sanskrit, and we’re going to look at that, look at these words a little bit. And one of the things that’s missing that’s in the Tibetan, it says before the title in Sanskrit, it says, ‘In the language of India.’ and then the title in Sanskrit is the little words in italics underneath the Tibetan, Aarya Bhagavati Prajñāpāramitā Hridaya Sūtra. So before that it says, In the language of India. And this is always put in Tibetan translations of the three baskets of teachings, the main teachings of the Buddha that came from India to show that it’s a valid source.

It’s not something made up by the Tibetans. So in the language of India, and then the title is always given. The main sources in the Tibetan canon are the Sanskrit sources. So generally speaking, I think maybe just a handful of exceptions, it’ll say in the language of India, and then the actual title is in Sanskrit because those were the sources that were brought to India. So it always says that to show that it’s a valid source and that it is a teaching of one of the three baskets that’s just been translated.

So the Tibetans didn’t just make up the Heart Sūtra. It was something that came from the Indian sources. And then the title, Ārya Bhagavati Prajñāpāramitā Hridaya Sūtra, which we translate here as the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra. So let’s look at the words of the title a little bit first before we get into the actual sūtra itself. First, we have the word ārya that I think most of you, if not all of you, are familiar with.

Carla, what’s an ārya? Oh, should get the microphone for the answers. That’s a very good question. Because an ārya is not an arhat. Aria bodhsattva, we usually say an aria bodhsattva, right?

Right. Is that the same as a Bodhisattva or Aria Bodhisattva is different? You tell me. Think it’s that stage that comes right before you become a Bodhisattva. It’s on the path to enlightenment before you’re a bodhisattva.

You know, you become an aria. That’s what I remember. Okay. Lynn, what’s an ārya? Lynn.

No. I’m asking for this. Very clever, very smart. I don’t know how it is in this. I I don’t know I don’t know how I don’t know how to to I parsed this out with Chodak a long time ago, but I don’t remember what he said.

Bless the But just the word ārya, the way we usually use it, what’s that? I think it’s a being that’s directly realized emptiness. Right. Is that a good note? That’s exactly what it is.

Okay, so in ārya, we have a couple of these Sanskrit words that sound similar. We’ve got ārya and arhat, and they’re two different things. Ārya is a being who’s had a direct realization of emptiness. They’re not liberated yet. They’re not enlightened yet.

If they were liberated, they would be what’s called an arhat. And a lot of times these words are mixed up. Or people think, once you get a direct realization of emptiness, then you’re liberated. That means you’re an arhat. Like the first direct realization of emptiness, you’re out of here.

You’re free. And unfortunately, it’s not like that. There’s a progression. But it’s an amazing, incredible thing. It’s like a huge, huge step in the path to get that direct realization of emptiness.

And as Carla pointed out, you can be an Ārya Bodhisattva, too if you’re heading on the track going towards full enlightenment if you’ve had the direct realization of emptiness conjoined with Bodhicitta. So it’s actually a little bit different. You can become a Bodhisattva before you’re an Ārya Bodhisattva. You get title Bodhisattva the minute you’ve generated what they call uncontrived bodhicitta, which means it’s the baseline of all of your motivation for everything. They call it in philosophy it’s a main mind, meaning it’s there all the time.

It’s not like the way it is with a lot of us. I mean I’m sorry I’m being a little presumptuous like you have a really good Tonglen meditation and then you’re all excited and afterwards you’re like I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna get enlightened for the benefit of all beings! And then ten minutes later you’re like, Let’s order a pizza, come on, let’s watch a movie, and it fades out. It arises after a good meditation then it fades away.

But if you get the title Bodhisattva, it’s not like that. It just means it’s completely consistent. They call it uncontrived or unfabricated, meaning it doesn’t just arise after a good meditation. It’s what’s called a main mind, meaning that’s it. That’s where your mind is.

And that can happen before the direct realization of emptiness. We’ll look at how that works. But an ārya is just a being who’s had a direct realization of emptiness, but they’re not liberated yet. They’re not a Buddha yet. They could be a bodhisattva if they’re on that track, or they could not, depending whether their direct realization of emptiness is what we call conjoined with Bodhicitta or not.

Okay, so that’s what that word ārya means. Okay? Are you puzzled, Matt? You’re looking quizzical. Was I’m gonna go to Mike.

Oh, Mike. I think I missed one of the points. Okay. So an arhat is a liberated being who has realized But where does the Bodhicitta come in before? Doesn’t come in for an arhat.

We don’t talk about arhats in the bodhisattva track. So we’ve got two tracks. We’ve got one track going to liberation and one track going to enlightenment. And often there’s a misunderstanding that it’s sequential, too, which is another big misunderstanding. You become liberated first and then after that you become an arhad and then later you become a Buddha?

You can, but it’s really, really hard. The way it’s usually taught is from some point pretty early on in the path it doesn’t have to be your first weekend teaching, but at least a little bit early on you kind of choose which direction you’re going to move in, either towards liberation or towards enlightenment. So when we use the word arhat, we’re talking about a being who’s liberated, not a being who’s a bodhisattva on the way to enlightenment. So you can be an aryan both tracks because both of those beings need a direct realization of emptiness. So you can be an ārya on both tracks after you’ve had that direct realization of emptiness.

Does that help? Yes, that does. Okay, good. Ārya. Then we have this word Bhagavati.

And you’re probably used to the word Bhagavan. This shows up, right, in a lot of our recitations and a lot of our prayers, this word Bhagavan. So, Bhaga, the first part of this word, Bhaga, has two meanings. It means destroying or conquering or overcoming. Sometimes the word Bhagavan is translated as conqueror.

I was just teaching in Colombia in South America, and the translator, when we got to this point, she kept calling it conquistador, and I go, wait a minute, let’s not call the Buddha a conquistador. I think that’s got like a slightly not quite the connotation that we want, but that’s the word, right? It’s like the, you know, El Buddha, la conquistador. But it’s got this meaning of conquering, destroying. That’s one of the meanings of bhaga, and it also has a connotation of possessing.

Possessing. So conquering, destroying, and possessing. What do you think is being conquered by the Bhagavan? What do you think is being conquered or destroyed? Anna.

Defilements. I do this so you guys have to be quick on the drama. The defilements? Defilements. Okay, and so we say in a Buddha it’s defilements that we’ve got two sets of obstacles that are destroyed.

We have the obstacles and we’ll get into this more obstacles of karma and delusions, and then we also have obstacles to omniscience or something we call knowledge obscuration. So for Buddha, all of these are destroyed. They’re all purified. So he’s the conqueror destroyer or the subduer, meaning all of these defilements are completely destroyed. And then what is possessed by Buddha?

What is the Buddha endowed with? Yeah. Chris. Mike. Luckily, there’s nobody named Mike in this room, so Yeah.

Yeah. So possessing wisdom, compassion, loving kindness, power. Okay? And this comes up in a couple of other words that we have that are related. In Tibetan, we have the word Sangye, which is the word for Buddha.

And san means purified, and gye means endowed. We also have the word in Tibetan jang chup, which means enlightenment. And the same thing, the jang means purified of negativities, and then the chup means endowed with the good stuff. So it keeps showing up, this idea. And even when we do our mediteachings, often we’ll have the white light coming from the Buddha flushing out all the bad stuff, and then it switches to golden light, filling us up with all the good stuff.

So this often happens in our meditation. We have this dual thing of not only being purified of the obstacles, purified of mental afflictions, purified of karma. But it’s not just that because we’d just be in arhat if that was all that was happening. If we’re just being purified of that level of defilements, we’d just be in arhat. But on top of that, we have all of these qualities that we’re endowed with as a Buddha.

All the qualities love and kindness, the wisdom, the omniscient mind, and so forth. So we have these two things, which is why Lama Zopa Rinpoche emphasizes over and over and over and over again purification and accumulation of merit because that’s the cause for this Sangye. That’s the cause for the Bhagavad. That’s the cause for this kind of dual thing of the purification of the negativities and then the endowment of all of the qualities. And then we’ve got the word that we usually use for Buddha, Bhagavan, or here it’s vati — the van part is the word that means transcendent.

Okay, transcendent. And it’s the same word that shows up in the word nirvana, the same vaan. And here it’s the feminine, vati. So vaan vati means to transcend. So it’s very cool.

So often, this Bhagavan or Bhagavati is translated as endowed transcendent destroyer. And we’ve read that sometimes in the prayers, the Endowed Transcendent Destroyer. So when that shows up in the English, that’s just Bhagavan that they’re translating with all the etymology, like all of these very subtle meanings. So that’s just a synonym for the Buddha. He’s often called the Bhagavan.

That’s sort of a respectful way of addressing the Buddha. Oh, Bhagavan! Sometimes when you’re in India, people will I remember once this friend of mine raised all of this money and gave to a leper so that this leper could get treatment for his leprosy. He was just a leper on the streets of Dharmasala. Whenever my friend would pass by this leper, afterwards the leper would go, Oh, Bhagavan!

Bhagavan. So sometimes you’ll hear this in India meaning, oh, you’re the greatest. It’s kind of like you’re the ultimate. So this Bhagavan, we often hear referred to as the Buddha referred to Bhagavan. And then Bhagavati is the feminine ending.

So it’s the endowed transcendent destroyer. Right? It’s the woman conqueror, the woman transcendent one. It’s very interesting. There’s a couple of reasons for this.

One is that in Buddhism, wisdom is considered feminine, the feminine quality, and compassion is considered the masculine quality. Since this is a sūtra that because remember, this is the title of the sūtra. This is saying it’s about the feminine side, the wisdom side, which is seen as feminine in Buddhism. And also, there’s another reason because wisdom is said to be the mother of all the aryas, the mother of all the four kinds of aryas. So why would that be?

Why is it called the mother of the aryas? Anybody know? Catherine, do you have an idea? Perhaps the ultimate being, the head of everything, the one who sort of gave birth to wisdom, perhaps? Yeah, yeah, okay.

Who’s the Earth Mother? It’s a little more it’s not quite as esoteric as that, right? So thinking of the mother as synonymous with wisdom, the mother of all the Buddhas or the mother of all the aryas, sometimes it says? Anybody what do you think, Keith? Why do you think it’s called the mother of all the aryas?

They say sometimes the mother of the four kinds of aryas. I I have not I think the source is what comes to my mind. Okay. And one of the things is yeah. Anna, do you have something to your mic’s coming.

Somebody just had a direct realization of emptiness. Yeah. I thought it was because of that because once you realize emptiness, then you are born to a higher state. And you can’t have a higher state until you do realize the emptiness. And one of the things, it’s the realization in common no matter what track you’re on.

So there’s the idea that it’s the mother of all the aryas, meaning whether you’re headed towards liberation, whether you’re one of those kind of aryas, which is called a śrāvaka or a hearer, or whether you’re a solitary realizer on that track or whether you’re on the bodhisattva track that direct realization of emptiness is the same. Every ārya that exists, no matter what track they’re on, that realization of emptiness is exactly the same. So it sort of gives birth to every arya on all the different tracks. And there’s a bit of a connotation that comes from ancient Indian culture, in fact, modern Indian culture. You can have a woman of a certain caste, and if she has children by different fathers, the children are the caste of the father.

Right? Like, for example, Asaṇga and Vasubandhu were half brothers. And their mother, I think, was from the warrior caste. And one of their fathers was a Brahmin and one was a warrior caste. So the sons, even though the mother was the same, one was a Brahmin, one was a warrior.

So they say the method determines the lineage. So whether or not you have Bodhicitta or not determines the lineage, then the mother is in common. So it goes a little bit back to Indian culture in the caste system, but it’s basically saying it gives birth to all aryas because no matter what track you’re on, that realization is the same. So that’s one of the reasons that it’s also called Bhagavati, the woman endowed transcendent destroyer. And then we’ve got Prajñā Paramita.

So Prajñā means wisdom. There There are a couple of Sanskrit words for wisdom. Prajñā is one of the words for wisdom or knowledge. And then we’ve got Paramita, which sometimes is translated as perfection. Literally it means ‘pāramitā’ means ‘gone beyond’ or ‘gone to the other side’ okay gone to the other side or going to the other side We’ll see that in a minute.

So pāramitā, sometimes perfection, gone to the other side. The other side of what do you imagine? What do you think? Yeah, the other side of saṃsāra. You’ve gone to the other shore.

You’re not on the side of saṃsāra anymore. You’re on the other side. So gone beyond, sometimes gone to the other side. You know the wisdom gone beyond sometimes we translate Prajñāpāramitā. And then Hridaya and that means the essence or the heart because this is the heart of the perfection of wisdom sutras.

Prajñāpāramitā, we often call that perfection of wisdom. So the heart of the perfection of wisdom, the woman endowed transcendent destroyer who also just happens to be an ārya. So that’s the title of this sūtra. So there’s a lot of meaning packed into that, kind of showing us the significance of this sūtra. And when we talk about perfection of wisdom, we have a couple of different kinds of perfection of wisdom.

And so let’s talk about that for a minute too. First, are there any questions about the title, any of these words? I know it’s a lot of detail and it’s not super important, but it’s kind of interesting to just look at the detail of all the words. Yeah, Lynn. Could you say it again?

Just the title? Read it again. Yeah. Aryah? Translation.

You’re a translator. Oh, Okay. What did I say? I just said, the heart of the perfection of wisdom, the woman endowed transcendent destroyer Ārya endowed transcendent destroyer, something like that. So that’s what all the words mean.

Any other yeah. Tell me remind me your name. Ben. That’s right. That’s easy.

I just had a question again. What part was the part that said it came from Indian or Sanskrit? You know, it’s not in this translation. In the Tibetan, before the Sanskrit title, says, In the language of India. It’ll say that.

It’ll say that. Like in Tibetan, it says, In the language of India, Aarya Bhagavati Prajñāpāramitā Hakutaya Sūtra. So that’s the part that indicates that it came from an original Sanskrit source. Any other questions before we carry on? All right.

Yeah, we’ve got Adrian, is it? Okay. And I’m sorry, you can’t see the board. So that’s I might be this question too early, but in all the sūtra that I have seen, you always begin with, does did I hear at one time? Is there a reason for that?

You’re a little early. We’re getting there. Because we’re going to go through every section. So yeah, there’s a lot of meaning in just that one little sentence, so we’ll get there in a second. Yeah, good, good.

All right. So the perfection of wisdom. This refers to a couple of different things. In this case, it’s referring to scriptural what we call the scriptural perfection of wisdom, which is talking about Mahāyāna Sutras, meaning words of the Buddha. We’re going to talk about the different kinds of sutras that there are.

Words of the Buddha, any Mahāyāna Sūtra, dealing primarily with the subject of emptiness. That’s the scriptural perfection of wisdom. So these teachings teach you how to achieve the path and result perfection of wisdom. So any teaching words, sutras, Mahāyāna sutras, the words of the Buddha giving teachings on emptiness that enable you to achieve both the path and the resultant perfection of wisdom. Now, we talk about the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma.

How many people are familiar with this idea of the three turnings of the wheel? Okay, a couple of people. So we talk about three kind of groups of teachings that the Buddha gave, like three ways of categorizing the teachings of the Buddha. The first turning of the wheel. An example of that would be the first sūtra that the Buddha taught to his first five disciples.

You probably all remember this story. They were his friends. And then the minute he started to eat food again, they dissed him and walked off to Sarnath, to the deer park, and decided when he came after his enlightenment that they were going to ignore him. But they couldn’t because he was so glorious that they couldn’t. They were overwhelmed by devotion and prepared a seat and said, what the heck happened to you?

And then he told them. And the first thing that he decided to talk about was the Four Noble Truths. So the teachings basically on things like the Four Noble Truths, the twelve links of dependent origination belong to what we call the first turning of the wheel. So for example, teachings given at Sarnath, so with those as the primary subject. So that’s the first turning.

And then we’ve got this second turning of the wheel. After talking about stuff like the Four Noble Truths for a while, the Buddha upped the ante. He said, Okay, you guys are ready for the next level. And then on Vulture’s Peak, which a lot of us have been to, he taught the Heart Sūtra to people who are ready for that level of teachings. As we’ve seen, he said things like there’s no eyes, no ears, no nose, no phenomenon, no nothing.

And some people freaked out. So he taught the ultimate nature of reality in the second turning of the wheel. And the Heart Sūtra is an example of that one. So we say that the Heart Sūtra is the second turning of the wheel. So in terms of the scriptural perfection of wisdom, these belong to the second turning of the wheel.

Then because people were flipping out, he taught the third turning and he said, You know that thing I said on Vulture’s Peak? I was just kind of being metaphorical. I was exaggerating. And then he kind of backtracked and taught teachings on the three natures, which are one of the philosophical ideas of primarily the mind only school of Buddhism, so he differentiated. He said, You know, the kind of things that I was talking about that don’t exist, there’s only certain things that fit into that category.

And then the other things do exist. So we kind of backtracked a little bit according to the second turning people, not because it was literally true, but just to lead people up because they were just freaking out and they were going to the extreme of nihilism. Oh, nothing exists. That means nothing matters. It doesn’t matter what I do.

And this is super, super important. And they say when you’re studying emptiness, if you get to a point where you start to the law of cause and effect starts to get shaky, back off, backtrack to a lower view. We talk about different philosophical schools because it’s so much more important to have faith cause and effect than it is to understand emptiness in its most ultimate way that it’s explained. You know, so you work your way up gradually. But if your study of emptiness makes you start thinking that you can do whatever you want and nothing matters.

You got it wrong. Clear it up quick because that’s the worst kind of wrong view that you can have is really thinking, Oh, because it’s empty. There’s this great story. Joanna Macy, this Buddhist teacher, was at some Buddhist conference, and there were a bunch of people checking out of the hotel. I think it was back in the days where you had an actual physical key rather than the thing, and you had to check out.

And so some woman at this Buddhist conference, her suitcase dropped and opened up and all the hotel towels were in the suitcase. And she goes, oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s empty. No. That’s not what emptiness means.

So that’s why the Buddha taught the third turning of the wheel. The main sūtra, and I’ve got to look it up because I can’t remember on the top of my head, the sūtra unraveling the thought of the Buddha is the main sūtra that explains these three natures. It’s a whole teaching explaining what is empty and then there’s some things that do exist ultimately. So the Buddha differentiated. But in the Tibetan system, we take the second turning of the wheel as what is called definitive.

It doesn’t require interpretation. The Buddha really meant what when he said the Heart Sūtra. It’s not just a metaphor. It’s actually explaining literally the way things are. So that’s the scriptural perfection of wisdom, the second turning.

So any questions on those three? Yeah. First Chris and then Morgan. Can you repeat the sūtra unraveling thought of the Buddha explains what again? It’s called the three natures.

It’s called the three natures, and it’s teaching that the mind only system, what we call in Tibetan Buddhism, the mind only system is based on those sutras. So the Sūtra Unraveling the Thought of the Buddha. There are some other sutras that also belong in that third turning of the wheel that explain Buddha nature. So there’s a group of sutras, specifically that Sūtra Unraveling the Thought that explains the three natures, and then there’s, for example, the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra that explains Buddha nature, and those are all considered in the third turning of the wheel. So you mentioned earlier struggle with this, is that you mentioned that no matter what path you’re on, let’s say, and you and you have a, you know, you’ve reached calm abiding and and you have a realization of emptiness.

Right. And and it said and I keep hearing this that, like, all the schools, it doesn’t matter. You get the same perception. Yeah. Then how is it with Mahāyāna tradition?

They say, like, the mind only school doesn’t truly get the ultimate nature. I’m not saying it’s so is emptiness more based off dependent arising and phenomenon? Because it seems like some people got it wrong and some people got it right. Right. Right.

And that’s a huge debate because according to the Middle Way Consequence School, every arya has the same direct realization of the same emptiness, but then you go, well, how could they have that if they’re not trained in that, like if they haven’t been taught that? And that’s a huge debate between the middle way consequent school and then the middle way independent school that says there are different emptinesses or selflessnesses realized by the different the hearers realize one and the solitary realizers realize something different and the bodhisattvas realize something different. And according to the highest school, they all realize the same emptiness. But then it becomes how could that be? Somehow their virtue just sort of kicks in like they’re starting to meditate because of their intellectual understanding, the way they’ve been trained, and then somehow because of their virtue, they just kick into the real thing, and it’s a big debate.

It’s a big debate. Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to say how they have the same realization if that’s not what’s taught in their tenet system? How could they get that realization? So that’s one of the things that they spent twenty years shouting at each other on the debate ground about these hair-splitting arguments. But it is hard to imagine how that could be unless by meditating on selflessness in the school they were taught and then somehow their virtue just kind of pushes them to that ultimate view, when they’ve accumulated enough virtue in that last moment, they actually just sort of transcend the view that they were taught and are able to see the ultimate nature of reality as it’s explained.

But it’s hard to explain. Gina? Follow-up to Morgan’s question. If that’s true, then if their virtue pushed them that extra step, wouldn’t they relabel themselves? If they are having that same direct realization, then they wouldn’t see themselves as mindly or autonomously anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it may still be useful to consider themselves that for the student’s sake, and that’s really interesting because you get into this whole thing of Theravāda, Mahāyāna. Often I think it’s very false kind of separation because if it’s beneficial, you’ll call yourself a Christian, and you’ll still be having a direct realization of emptiness.

So I think that’s the difference between what’s really going on in terms of the realization and something we call skillful means, or sometimes I have a theory that I tried to investigate when I was in this long retreat. I got writings of mystics of different traditions to try and read between the lines — are they really having a direct realization of emptiness? They’re really calling it union with God. I mean, there’s there’s all these Sufi mystic poets.

Sounds really suspicious to me what’s going on there. You know, and they’re using different language and a whole different kind of conceptual framework, and maybe they’re having the same kind of realization too. Yeah. I wonder. I’ve been thinking about this not constantly, but since you taught last year on emptiness, and that I wonder if we’re so limited by language, I mean especially English, but maybe even in Sanskrit or Tibetan, that they are in a way describing similar things but different aspects or different levels of subtlety kind of leading to the same or trying to describe the same phenomena that is so, at least from my perspective, difficult to describe.

Right. I totally believe that, and this is just my own personal opinion it’s always important to say this is just my own idea but you know I think the way these different sects originate is the followers of an enlightened being that had a realization and tried to describe it in language that was completely inadequate to the task, took their description really literally, and it differed from somebody else’s description. Then they decided that they didn’t agree and then they were some other lineage and some other sect. And I think if you got all the original founders of those lineages together, they wouldn’t be arguing at all. But they had to write it down somehow, or like you say, from a different aspect.

And then it was taken reified and taken as, oh, but it’s really different because they didn’t say it exactly the same way. And I think all those really hair splitting arguments I’m just not sure how much is really valid analysis and how much is just kind of taking too literally or too solidly a realized being’s attempt to describe what happened to them. In a way, that helps me learn because I can say to myself, well it’s okay if I’m not picking up on some of these subtleties or if I see potential contradictions or even similarities in how they’re describing it because I say, well even people that have, million years ago devoted their lives to this kind of exploration are seeing, you know, either different paths or kind of conversations that fold over each other when it comes to these things. Yeah. Exactly.

And it’s impossible to describe what it’s really like to have that realization. So no wonder it creates confusion when anybody even tries. But I think the more you study, the more you realize open up to the potential of different people in different traditions having. And when you think of past life imprints, it could ripen for somebody who just is completely born in Islamic culture and they become a Sufi mystic. Because they got maybe teachings in some past life or something, it ripens in a realization in that life that they describe with the language they’re familiar with.

I think it’s totally possible. It seems impossible to think it would never happen. But that’s just my own opinion. I’ve never heard a Tibetan Lama say anything, but just for my own investigation. Keith, you had a question.

I had it in my mind, I don’t know if it’s correct, that the the first turn of the wheel was not interpretable and that the second and the third were interpreteachings. No. That’s according to the Vaibhāṣika and the Sautrantika schools, that the first is literal. According to the Middle Way school, the second is definitive, the first and third are interpretable. According to the mind only school, the third is definitive, and the first and second are interpretable.

So it depends whose standpoint, where you’re standing. Anything else about the different perfections of wisdom? Do we have oh, don’t want to keep you guys too late. Let’s just get in just for auspiciousness. Let’s start the sūtra just a little bit.

Now another thing missing from your English translation, in Tibetan, they always added an homage. And this was something added to the original sūtra. So in the Tibetan version, there’s a translator’s homage that says, I prostrate to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. This is something that was decreed by one of the Tibetan kings, and it may have been Trisong Detsen it’s possible when the sutras were first being translated into Tibetan. And he decreed, Let’s put a homage before the translation showing which basket of the teachings it belongs to.

It’s sort of a clue to show you. Is it a sūtra teaching, is it a Vinaya teaching, or is it an Abhidharma teaching. We talk about the three baskets of the Buddha’s teachings, the three collections. The reason it was called baskets is because originally when the sutras and when the teachings were first written down, which was several hundred years after the Buddha’s time, they were written on these palm leaves. There was no bookbinding, and they were just kept in baskets.

So that’s why it’s called the three baskets, because people just carried around the collections of these individual palm leaves. And some of them you can see in museums. It’s really amazing. These ancient, ancient, ancient usually they’ve got holes in them, but that’s the way that they were carried around because there was no bookbinding, there wasn’t enough extra cloth to wrap them like they do in Tibet. In Tibet there’s not bookbinding traditionally, but they would wrap everything.

But in ancient India, they just kind of carry them around in these baskets, so that’s why we talk about the three baskets. And if the sūtra that was being translated was from the sūtra basket, it would say, I prostrate to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. If it was a Vinaya teaching, all the teaching on vowed morality, on ethics, the homage would say, I prostrate to the Great Omniscient One. So that’s the clue saying, Hey folks, this is from the Vinaya basket. And if it was Abhidharma or teachings on manifest knowledge, the homage would say, I prostrate to Mañjuśrī.

I prostrate to Mañjuśrī, the Bodhisattva of wisdom, showing that it was the teachings on manifest knowledge. So it’s kind of cool. And the king said, let’s do that, to just give a little shorthand clue as to which basket it belonged to. So that was in the beginning. So actually in the Gold Book it says I prostrate to the Aria Triple Gem.

Page seventy nine. Yeah. And that’s not that’s interesting because it should be to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, not the ārya triple gem. So I’m not sure how they how where they got that. Yeah, yeah, because according to the commentaries in the original in the Tibetan, it was, you know, I drew a prostrate to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for the for the yeah, it does say that in this Tibetan version, But in the other Tibetan versions and in the commentaries, they talk about, I prostrate to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

Thank you. And the actual sūtra starts with, Thus did I hear it one time. Yeah, so I’m not sure where that comes in, but the other commentaries say, I prostrate to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Thus did I hear it one time. And this will be the last thing we talk about because it’s a cool little story.

So I’ll leave you with a bedtime story. Thus did I hear it one time. Who’s talking? Henny. Ānanda.

Yeah, Ānanda. The Buddha’s attendant for something like over thirty years, who also happened to be his cousin, Ānanda. And Ānanda was the one that recited all of the sutras. And there’s a cool little story about Ānanda. So Ānanda was the Buddha’s cousin, and the Buddha is kind of a little bit like Lama Zopa Rinpoche.

It kept burning through attendants. It’s really hard to keep up with an enlightened being. It’s really hard to keep up with all their bodhisattva activities. So the Buddha had all these attendants and they weren’t that good and they kept burning out. And then finally his cousin Ānanda, who loved him so much said, Oh Lord Buddha, can I be your attendant?

Buddha goes, yeah, sure. Let’s try it out. And Ānanda said, I have some conditions. Right? And so the Buddha’s like, okay.

Like what? You know? Ānanda goes, I wanna be there whenever you talk to anybody or teach anything. I want to be there. And then the Buddha goes, Okay, that’s cool.

Right? Ānanda happened to have perfect recall. That’s right. Right? So he was there every time for thirty years, every time the Buddha taught or every time the Buddha had a conversation with anybody.

He was sitting there. Thank God for us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have the sūtra basket. There was council after the Buddha’s death where they all came together five hundred arhats came together to decide what did the Buddha teach to kind of compile the teachings of the Buddha. It was a couple of months after his death.

Even though Ānanda was with the Buddha for thirty years, he never became an arhat during the Buddha’s life. Everybody else is becoming arhats right and left. Shariputratra became an arhat hearing one four-line stanza from one of the Buddha’s disciples, not even the Buddha. You read about these things, and you’re like, dang, man. I try so hard.

In the time of the Buddha, was like arhats, just like popcorn popping up all over the place, except for poor Ānanda never became an arhat. And there’s this scene when you read the story of the Buddha’s life when he was getting ready to pass away, and he laid down under two sal trees in North India at Kushinagar. It’s such a beautiful place. It was one of my favorite. I did this pilgrimage to all the eight places.

And I just loved Kushinagarr. And you see this sal forest as you’re driving through. The Buddha lay down and he goes, Okay, I’m getting ready to pass away. And Ānanda just broke down. And there’s this thing that he walked over, and he’s just crying like standing next to this tree, losing it.

And all the other disciples who were all arhats are like, Ānanda, pull yourselves together. And then the Buddha had to say, oh, Ānanda, please don’t weep. Impermanence is just the nature of things. But this poignant story of the Buddha’s death was showing, oh, Ānanda wasn’t really in arhat yet. He’s still completely overcome by grief and sorrow.

So then the Buddha passes away, and they decide to have this council. And Mahakashyapa is the senior disciple of the Buddha at this point because the Buddha’s two main disciples, Shariputratra and Mogdalyayana, died before the Buddha did, which is very sad. The Buddha kept saying, without them here, it just feels empty because they were just not in that way, in the mundane way. But they passed away before the Buddha. So Mahakashyapa, this one senior monk who was the senior most monastic, and so he said, Okay, we’re going to have this council, but only arhats are allowed to attend.

So Mahakashyapa, he’s kind of heavy with Ānanda. He’s like, Okay, Ānanda, you’ve got to get it together. Come on. It’s been a long time, and you’re still not an arhat. What’s the problem?

So the night before this council, Ānanda decides he’s going to get liberation tonight. So he stays up, we ever have these moments? I’m going to do it now. So he stays up all night meditating. And he’s just completely striving and pushing.

And so the sun starts to come up, and he hears a cock and then he’s just like, oh, it didn’t happen. And he completely lets go, and in that minute, he attains liberation. So to show off that he attained liberation, he flies into the gathering. They had already convened, and Ānanda just flies in. And all his friends, can you imagine how happy they are?

They’ve known him for his whole life, and they’re like, Go, Ānanda, you made it. So thank goodness, because if it weren’t for that, we would only have two baskets instead of three because it was Ānanda that recited. So what happened was this monk called Upali recited all the Vinaya teachings, and then Mahakasyapa recited all the Abhidharma teachings, and then Ānanda, because of the deal he made with the Buddha thirty years before, he was able to say, Oh, one time when I was hanging out with the Bhagavan, he had a conversation with so and so, and he said this. Because a lot of the sutras are teachings to the whole assembly. A lot of them are just conversations.

Some Brahmin comes up and challenges the Buddha. Some Jain comes up and then they have a debate. A lot of the sutras are just these conversations that the Buddha had with these opponents that would come up. Ānanda was there because he had that arrangement, so it’s extremely cool. He committed everything to memory.

Sat there for however long it took and said, Oh, yeah. I remember one time I heard this, and then another time the Buddha said that, and then another time. So that’s what the Thus did I hear means. So it means he just heard it once. Right?

It was a real incident that happened that he was there, and he heard it. And it also shows he has incredible spiritual powers of recall, complete, perfect, total recall. But even now in Tibetan monasteries and in Indian culture, they’re used to memorizing incredible volumes, like the whole of the Vedas and the whole of the Upanishads and all that stuff. I can barely remember a four line prayer in Tibetan. And they could memorize vast volumes, so their minds were trained in this from youth.

Even now, lot of times, these Tibetan lamas and Tibetan monks, incredible powers of memorization. So luckily, Ānanda had that, and we have the sūtra basket. But I think it’s really cool. Good old Ānanda. He’s also the one that really urged the Buddha to start an order of nuns, And so he’s our big hero.

And I’ve heard in Chinese Mahāyāna monasteries, they have these big celebrations on Ānanda Day, because Ānanda was our big advocate because the Buddha refused initially to ordain women. And then Ānanda went and had a debate with the Buddha, and he said, can women get enlightened? The Buddha goes, well, sure. And then Ānanda goes, so why deny them possibility of living the holy life? And he had a debate with the Buddha, and the Buddha finally agreed.

So Ānanda is our big hero, and I think it’s really sweet that he was with the Buddha for so long, and everybody else is becoming an arhat right and left, and he just sticks with it. So it’s kind of an example for us. Sometimes we don’t feel like much is happening, but then all of a sudden, all the causes and conditions come together and boom, liberation. So that’s the story of Ānanda. Thus did I hear at one time.

Okay, So I don’t want to keep you too late. It’s eight thirty, and I want you to be fresh for the morning. Are there any other questions before we adjourn for the evening? Okay. So we’ll kind of go along like this, explaining every kind of piece of the sūtra, what it means, and really unpacking it and all the different levels of meaning.

So I’m look oh, I should talk about the schedule a little bit. So tomorrow, we’ve got two three hour sessions with the tea break in between. So we’ve got nine thirty to twelve thirty. And I’ll give you like a fifteen or twenty minute break halfway through. And then, what is it, two to five in the afternoon.

So about an hour and a half for lunch, and you have lunch here. And then Sunday will be the same schedule in the morning, nine thirty to twelve thirty, and then we finish at four. So then we’ll have an afternoon session from two to four, and we’ll probably have a little break in between because it’s kind of hard to sit for two hours without a break. So that’s going to be the schedule, and we’ll try and do some meditation at least every day a little bit. It may be kind of short sessions, but especially when we get into the main meditation that Lama Zopa taught me, then we’ll definitely stop and do some practice, too.

Yeah? So the path oh, thank you. I forgot. Yeah, Carla said, Was there anything else about the path or the resultant perfection of wisdom? Thank you so much.

I got all caught up in the scriptural. So the path perfection of wisdom refers to the direct realization of emptiness in the mind of a bodhisattva. The direct realization of emptiness in the mind of a bodhisattva. That’s the path perfection of wisdom, meaning that wisdom that will take you beyond. And then the resultant perfection of wisdom is the omniscient mind of a Buddha, The omniscient mind of a fully enlightened being.

So when we talk about when we say the wisdom or Paramita, we talk about that being going beyond or going to the other shore. It both refers to what takes us there, and then it refers to gone to the other shore. So it’s both going to the other shore, which would be the path, perfection of wisdom, so going to enlightenment and resultant enlightenment, gone there, reached there. So Paramita refers both to that which takes you there and then the result of getting there. So this is the result, the omniscient mind of a Buddha, and then the path perfection of wisdom is the direct realization of emptiness in the mind of a bodhisattva, right, because we’re talking about the perfection of wisdom.

So it wouldn’t be the direct realization of emptiness in the mind of somebody heading towards liberation alone. It’s the direct realization of emptiness conjoined with bodhicitta is this one leading to enlightenment. Yeah. Sandra. Ānanda sounded more like maybe an ārya bodhisattva than an arhat.

Right, right. And so what was really going on? And this is the way that the story is told, and he achieved liberation. And that actually is a story belonging to the Pāli Canon, like a lot of the stories of the life of the Buddha belong to that first turning of the wheel. So definitely, probably from a Mahāyāna perspective, maybe he would be a Bodhisattva.

So it’s kind of talking about liberation because the story comes from those teachings. But yeah, what was really going on in Ānanda’s mind? Great. Do you have something? Okay.

Okay, so let’s take a minute just to dedicate the merits. So just thinking about the positive energy. Āryadeva, a great master, in his text The Four Hundred Stanzas says that even doubting that things exist in the way that they seem tears saṃsāra to shreds. So even generating a moment of doubt. So starting to study this text that explains the ultimate nature of reality, we’ve already started to tear Samsāra to shreds.

Let’s dedicate the merit that we’ll be able to complete our studies, be able to use what we’ve gained from this class to attain that realization for the benefit of all sentient beings. Okay. Thank you. So we’ll start at nine thirty and try and be on time just because we’ve got a lot to cover. And the more time we have, the better.

Thank you. I don’t think so. Go inside. You’ll see. I’ll find it.

It’s Oh, it’s inside? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, I talked to him on the phone, the reporter.

Great. All good. Thank you. Great. I never got the article.

Send it to me. Great. Thanks. Gina, do you need help, or are we leaving it all up? We’re leaving it all up.

Good.