10 July 2012

No-Self, Emptiness, and Inter-being

The Heart Sutra and The Heart of Understanding
Originally written in Sanskrit, and translated eighteen times into Chinese since the second
century, The Heart Sutra is Buddhism in a nutshell.1 Its text can hardly fill a page, yet it contains
the gist of the massive Wisdom Sutras (600 scrolls in all). Copying or chanting the sutra is a
powerful experience for many Buddhists, a tradition dating back to Master Xuan Zang (602-664
CE). Driven by the urge to read the Buddhist scriptures in their original, the Chinese monk
traveled to India at great personal risks. He returned with 657 sutras, and the story that chanting
The Heart Sutra had protected him against demons, bandits, and dust storms on the road. There
had been two earlier translations of the text, but Xuan Zang retranslated it as the Heart Sutra. It
remains the most widely circulated Chinese version.
We do not know who wrote the original, but it is clearly someone who got to the heart of
the Wisdom (Prajna) tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana (i.e., greater vehicle) first
emerged in the 1st or 2nd century, and has a long history of following in China, Korea, and Japan. It
distinguished itself from earlier Buddhist schools which it called Hinayana (i.e., smaller
vehicles). Mahayanists stress the importance of practicing for others. They vow to be
bodhisattvas, or enlightened beings who help all sentient beings gain liberation from suffering.
According to the Wisdom Sutras, this requires the realization of emptiness (sunyata) in all
beings and phenomena (dharmas): all beings and phenomena are impermanent and
interdependent, and none can claim to have its own intrinsic nature or separate existence.
The idea of emptiness can be traced to the historical Buddha (circa 5th century BCE), who
was born Siddhartha Gautama, prince of a small kingdom in India. Siddhartha gave up his courtly
life after witnessing the plights of birth, old age, sickness, and death. Meditating under a bodhi
tree, he became the awakened one (buddha) who acquired the wisdom to end human suffering.
We suffer not only because we cannot escape old age, sickness, and death. Much of our suffering,
or dissatisfactions in life, springs from a false concept of the self and the egocentric attachments
that result from it. Liberation hinges on the wisdom to break free from such ignorance, and to see
things as they are. The so-called self or I that we grasp at can be broken down into its
component partsthe physical body and the psychological phenomena of feelings, perception,
mental formation, and consciousness. These component partsand therefore the totality called
self or Ichange from moment to moment, subject to a network of causes and conditions
rather than our personal will. It makes no sense, therefore, to be attached to such possessions as
youth, beauty, wealth, fame, power, or even knowledge, all of which are transitory as psychophysical phenomena or yearnings.
The full title of The Heart Sutra is Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra. This means a sutra that
gives the essence (hrdaya, or heart) of the perfection of wisdom (prajna-paramita) which
conveys us from this shore (of suffering) to the other shore (of liberation). A sutra is typically a
collection of wise sayings, a record of the Buddhas teachings in his literal words. The Heart Sutra
does not claim a direct connection to the Buddha, but gives instead the words of Avalokita, a
bodhisattva. Yet it is an authentic summary of the Buddhas fundamental teachings.
Being a highly condensed summary, The Heart Sutra can be a challenge to read. We study
the sutra along with the commentary of Thich Nhat Hanh (b. 1926), a Zen Buddhist monk from
Vietnam. In The Heart of Understanding, the ancient sutra becomes transparent in meaning and
relevant to modern life. You will encounter an interesting word, inter-being, which Nhat Hanh
coins to explain emptiness and to highlight the interconnectedness of all beings.
The following pages contain The Heart Sutra in Master Xuan Zangs
translation, and the full text of Thich Nhat Hanhs commentary in Chinese
translation. Both texts are taken from:
2002 150-92[For inclusion in
the coursepack for the English group: This selection is taken from Thich Nhat
Hanh, The Heart of Understanding (Berkeley, Calif.: Parallax P, 1988).]
Julie Chiu

See Red Pine, The Heart Sutra: The Womb of Buddhas (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2004).
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