Re: ON the other hand, dear mike.......

[Guest guest]

Dear Alice

You say:

>what u write of is of the unus mundus, that one world hidden w/in this one n

>one to keep close to our hearts,

*I am not sure, however, that it is... Let me get really boring and lumber

you all with my own translation of the famous 'Heart Sutra', so-called, and

then launch into a brief commentary on it (you all know where the 'delete'

button is, after all)...

*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*

THE SUTRA OF THE HEART-ESSENCE OF THE CONQUERESS TRANSCENDENT AND PERFECT

INSIGHT

In Sanskrit this is called the Bhagawati Prajñâ Pâramitâ Hridaya, which, in

Tibetan, means " The Heart-Essence of the Conqueress Transcendent and

Perfect Insight. "

It is in a single volume.

Thus upon one occasion did I hear:

The Victorious One was residing on the Vulture Peak in Rajagriha with a

large assembly of monks and Bodhisattvas, and was at that time in the rapt

concentration that examines all dharmas (phenomena) and is known as The

Profoundly Illumining.

Also at that time, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, looking

deeply into the profound practice of transcendent and perfect insight,

clearly perceived that the five aggregates are intrinsically void.

Then, by the power of the Buddha, the Venerable Shariputra addressed the

Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara as follows:

" What should be the training of a Son of Good Family who wishes to

undertake the profound practice of transcendent and perfect insight? " thus

he asked, and Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara replied to the

Venerable Son of Sharadvati with these words:

" Shariputra, a Son or Daughter of Good Family who wishes to undertake the

profound practice of perfect transcendent insight should perceive it

clearly in this way: They should unequivocally see that the five aggregates

are intrinsically void in nature.

Form is void and void is form. The void is none other than form, nor form

in any way different from the void. Similarly, feelings, perceptions,

mental associations and consciousness all are void.

Shariputra, this being so, all phenomena (dharma) are void. They are devoid

of characteristic marks, unborn, unceasing, pure, absolutely free from

defilement, and neither decrease nor increase.

Shariputra, this being so, in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no

perception, no mental association and no consciousness. There are no eye,

ear, nose, tongue, body or mind, no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings

or mental objects.

From the visual faculty through to the mental faculty and right on up to

the faculty of mental apprehension, all of these do not exist for it. It

knows no ignorance, nor any ending of ignorance, right up to the fact that

there is no old age and death nor any ending of old age and death.

Similarly there are no suffering, sin, obstruction or path, no primordial

wisdom, realisation or lack of realisation.

And, Shariputra, this being so, since there is no realisation, all

Bodhisattvas, taking support from and abiding in the state of perfect and

transcendent insight, because their minds are free from all defilement are

free from fear and, passing far beyond the deceptive and mistaken, come to

the transcendence of sorrow and misery.

All Buddhas throughout the three times, also, have attained to peerless,

utterly pure and perfect enlightenment - the realised state of perfect and

complete Buddhahood - by dependence upon transcendent and perfect insight,

and this being so, the mantra of transcendent and perfect insight, the

mantra of vast pure awareness, the peerless mantra, the unequalled and

all-levelling mantra, the mantra perfectly pacifying all suffering, and

which - because not false - should be recognised as being true, the mantra

of perfect and transcendent insight I now proclaim:

TEYAT'A GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA

Shariputra, it is thus that the Bodhisattva Mahasattva should train himself

in profound and transcendent perfect insight. "

The Victorious One then Arose from that rapt concentration and, speaking to

the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, said, " Excellent! Well

done! Well done! It is just like this, O Son of Good Family! It is exactly

as you have said! The practice of the profound and transcendent perfection

of insight should be practised exactly as you have taught it and all Who

Course in Thusness will rejoice. "

When the Victorious One had spoken these words, the Venerable Shariputra,

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and all that vast assemble of gods and men,

anti-gods, gandharvas and other such beings rejoiced, heartily praising the

words of the Victorious One.

" The Heart-Essence of the Noble Transcendent and Perfect Insight " is thus

complete.

Now this may be regarded by some of you as 'transcendent', but if one

simply takes it, line by line, it reveals the following:

" In Sanskrit this is called the Bhagawati Prajñâ Pâramitâ Hridaya, which,

in Tibetan, means 'The Heart-Essence of the Conqueress Transcendent and

Perfect Insight.'... "

Prajñâ Paramitâ is said to be the 'Mother' - or 'source' - of all

Buddhas... she is the primordial goddess, the vast infinity of possibility

out of which all and everything always comes, our very nature, our ground

and path and goal... This teaching is a quintessential exposition of her

apparent and non-apparent nature... She is called Bhagavatî, 'the

Conqueress' inasmuch as knowledge of her annihilates all ignorance and its

concomitant suffering.

" It is in a single volume... "

It is contained within the basic nature of all and everything - It is the

very basis of all they know and how they know...

" Thus upon one occasion did I hear:... "

This line (which opens all sutras and most tantras) is often glossed as:

'Upon one occasion I heard the thusness' - I heard reality itself teaching

about itself... It's also said to be the words of the Buddha's cousin,

Ananda (the Blissful), who, having requested the Buddha never to teach when

he was not present, then set about the memorisation of every word the

Buddha spoke. At the first council, where the texts were first compiled,

Ananda is said to have recited them all from memory, hence this line and

the following description of where the various teachings were given and who

was present...

As I said, all sutras and most tantras begin with this setting of the

scene, and the example in our text is as follows:...

" The Victorious One was residing on the Vulture Peak in Rajagriha with a

large assembly of monks and Bodhisattvas,... "

Gridhrakuta Mountain, the Vulture Peak of Rajagriha state, was the site of

many teachings of the 'perfection of transcendent insight class'... It is a

warning to the reader that he or she should be aware of this transcendent

insight within him- or herself if they really wish to benefit from the text

before them. The Buddha is described as being surrounded by a large

assembly of fully ordained, careful and discipline-respecting monks, and

also of Bodhisattvas - those whose entire raison d'être is enlightenment

for both themselves and others.

(The Buddha) " ... was at that time in the rapt concentration that examines

all dharmas (phenomena) and is known as The Profoundly Illumining... "

The Buddha - the profound awakenedness that is at the root of all awareness

- was, at that time, (which is this instant) examining the profound nature

and phenomenal appearance of all of the passing show, with its subjects,

objects, details, generalities, and so on. The teaching was not given by

this 'profound awakenedness' as such, but - rather - it stirred in

Shariputra, 'the Son of Shardhvati', (which is the name of a bright-eyed

bird in India and hence a warning to the reader to use their wits to the

utmost), a desire to enquire of the 'great being', the 'being whose entire

energy is given over to the dis-covering of enlightenment' and who is

regarded by all Buddhists as the manifestation of un-solicited and

all-embracing compassion (HH Dalai Lama and HH Gyälwa Karmapa are regarded

as incarnations of this Bodhisattva), that is to say, Avalokiteshvara ('The

Lord Who Gazes on Beings with Compassion') as to how one who has entered

into the family of those seeking enlightenment should go about training

themselves in the practice of profound and transcendental peerless insight.

Now it so happens, also, that at that very moment, Avaloketishvara is

himself meditating upon this very question, and has come to the realisation

that the so-called 'five aggregates' are void - that is to say that we

should come to that state wherein it is clear to us that the five

psycho-physical aggregates are intrinsically just that - collocations of

names and ideas with no real link between them, but that we like to

consider as 'our own' form, feelings, perceptions, habitual reactions and

consciousness...

The text says...

" ... Also at that time, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara,

looking deeply into the profound practice of transcendent and perfect

insight, clearly perceived that the five aggregates are intrinsically void.

Then, by the power of the Buddha, the Venerable Shariputra addressed the

Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara as follows:

" What should be the training of a Son of Good Family who wishes to

undertake the profound practice of transcendent and perfect insight? " thus

he asked,... "

What are we to do? How are we to understand this? Where should we try and

put ourselves?

Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva embodying Compassion - He can see the

struggle Shariputra is going through to try and understand this so... " the

Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara replied to the Venerable Son of

Sharadvati with these words: " Shariputra, a Son or Daughter of Good Family

who wishes to undertake the profound practice of perfect transcendent

insight should perceive it clearly in this way: They should unequivocally

see that the five aggregates are intrinsically void in nature... "

Like this, he says. Like me. Just relax. There's nothing to do or undo.

Look - it IS all void. This is what you have to understand. This is the

profound and peerless transcendent insight.

Then, seeing that Shariputra has suddenly grasped the point, he pushes it

home with the famous lines...

" Form is void and void is form. The void is none other than form, nor form

in any way different from the void. Similarly, feelings, perceptions,

mental associations and consciousness all are void... "

Notice how he cuts at the four extremes of logical discourse with this

revelation - Pointing out that form is void, he wipes out the eternalist

view that things exist in and of themselves. Pointing out that the void

itself is what assumes the appearance of form, he cuts through the

nihilistic vision that nothing exists or is of any value. When he points to

the fact that the void is none other than form, he is stripping away

attachment to the idea that reality may be both form and formlessness

simultaneously, which, of course, could never be the case - something

cannot simultaneouslyboth be and not be, or we would be able to see it...

we never have, and showing us that what is meant by 'voidness', 'openness',

is NOT 'nothingness' but rather an open-endedness that has neither

beginning nor end, neither centre nor circumferenc, neither cause nor

effect. And when he points out that form in not any way different from the

void, either, he cuts at the idea that maybe, since it is neither something

nor nothing, we are talking here of some 'other substance', 'something

else', but if this were the case, this 'other stuff ', this 'speacial

dispensation', would surely have been seen as well...

Since we may rest quite assured that the universe may be resumed into the

four qualities of solidity, motility, spaciousness and warmth, and summed

up in terms of awareness under the headings of form, feeling, perception,

reactivity and consciousness, and that theres nothing that falls outside of

these, no matter who is perceiving them, we may assume that the same is so

at every level of perception from pure intuition of presence right up to

the subtlest and most complex thought-patterns of discursive conceptuality.

He then continues:

" ... Shariputra, this being so, all phenomena (dharma) are void. They are

devoid of characteristic marks, unborn, unceasing, pure, absolutely free

from defilement, and neither decrease nor increase.

Shariputra, this being so, in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no

perception, no mental association and no consciousness. There are no eye,

ear, nose, tongue, body or mind, no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings

or mental objects.

From the visual faculty through to the mental faculty and right on up to

the faculty of mental apprehension, all of these do not exist for it. It

knows no ignorance, nor any ending of ignorance, right up to the fact that

there is no old age and death nor any ending of old age and death.

Similarly there are no suffering, sin, obstruction or path, no primordial

wisdom, realisation or lack of realisation... "

All phenomena are void. Why? Because nothing that can be found in any of

them can be established as being utterly and idividually itself -

Everything, right down to the smallest particles of anything, and right out

into the farthest reaches of space, is inextricably and utterly indivisibly

linked to every other thing in an endles concatenation of causes and

effects which are, themselves, effects of causes and effects and causes and

effects, ad infinirum. Therefore they are devoid of marks that are

characteristic to themselves alone, innate and undeniably individual, and

for this reason are best regarded as simple appearances which therefore are

not in need of coming into or passing out of existence since they never do.

Such appearances, having neither coming nor going, are thus innately pure

of any ideas we may wish to attach to them such as conceptions of pure and

impure, desirable and undesirable, and so on... What is more, they neither

increase by ramifying nor decrease by gathering themselves into one.

This being so, emptiness - open-endedness- cannot be considered as having

its own innate forms, feelings, perceptions, mental associations, or even

awareness, and the words 'eye', 'ear', and so on, simply refer to

collocations of smaller particles or to parts of larger wholes to which

they are in turn referent. The same goes for external phenomena and for the

apparent awarenesses that intuit them. For this reason, there is no such

thing as a genuine and indivisible 'ignorance' (which is regarded as the

root cause of the continuation of samsara - 'running around in circles' -

and nor are there 'old age and death' as such, nor any need to put an

ending to any of these since they do not have any real existence in the

first place.

In the same manner, suffering, defilement and obscuration are all concepts

without a verifiable absolute existence, and the same is true for any path

away from these, as well as all ideas of a primordial wisdom, realisation

or lack of realisation.

He then goes of to explain that it is exactly within this state where there

is 'not a tile above ones head, not an inch of ground beneath one's feet'

that the enlightened being 'establishes' itself...

" ... And, Shariputra, this being so, since there is no realisation, all

Bodhisattvas, taking support from and abiding in the state of perfect and

transcendent insight, because their minds are free from all defilement are

free from fear and, passing far beyond the deceptive and mistaken, come to

the transcendence of sorrow and misery.

All Buddhas throughout the three times, also, have attained to peerless,

utterly pure and perfect enlightenment - the realised state of perfect and

complete Buddhahood - by dependence upon transcendent and perfect insight,... "

Their minds free of all attachment either to wisdom or ignorance, presence

or absence, helping or not helping, Bodhisattvas generate what is known as

the great uncaused compassion whiereby all sentient beings are finally

brought to the shores of their own enlightenment...

In the Diamond Sutra there is a line which says: '...The true Bodhisattva

is one who gives rise to a mind that is unsupported anywhere...' This is

what is meant by total freedom from attachment.

" ... This being so, the mantra of transcendent and perfect insight, the

mantra of vast pure awareness, the peerless mantra, the unequalled and

all-levelling mantra, the mantra perfectly pacifying all suffering, and

which - because not false - should be recognised as being true, the mantra

of perfect and transcendent insight I now proclaim:

TEYAT'A GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SOHA

Mantra is a Sanskrit word meaning 'that which protects (tra) the mind

(manas)'... It has nothing to do with muttering quietly to oneself, though

this ma be one of its manifestations, but a lot to do with the revelation

and recognition of a certain approach, a certain mental state.

The mantra of the profound and transcendental peerless insight may be

translated as:

'Thus: Gone. Gone. Utterly gone. Gone completely beyond. That's it!'

which means what?

'Thus' - this is what I mean - this is what I'm talking about - Wake up!

'Gone' from attachment to things.

'Gone' from attachment to the void.

'Utterly gone' from attachment to anything at all.

'Gone completely beyond' even the slightest attachment to attachment or to

enlightenment - to any state whatsoever.

'That's it!'

Avalokiteshvara says: Take this as your path - take this as your model...

There is nothing.

" ... Shariputra, it is thus that the Bodhisattva Mahasattva should train

himself in profound and transcendent perfect insight. "

Just then one's profound awareness - primordial awakendness - arises from

its state of rapt observation of phenomena and acknowledges to its own

compassion and its penetrating insight that this is it:

" ... The Victorious One then Arose from that rapt concentration and,

speaking to the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, said,

" Excellent! Well done! Well done! It is just like this, O Son of Good

Family! It is exactly as you have said! The practice of the profound and

transcendent perfection of insight should be practised exactly as you have

taught it and all Who Course in Thusness will rejoice. "

The Victorious One, why? Because it is no longer taken in by its own

projections. 'All Those Who Course in Thusness' is the profound, tantric

explanation of the Sanskrit word Tathagatha, often more exoterically

translated as 'The One Who Has Thus Gone', meaning the one who left samsara

in an enlightened manner. The Enlightened Ones NEVER quit samsara. Wherte

would they go for a kick off? And to one who is enlightened there is

absolutely no difference between samsara and nirvana except that they never

get 'caught up' in the former.

The sutra concludes with the words:

" When the Victorious One had spoken these words, the Venerable Shariputra,

Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and all that vast assembly of gods and men,

anti-gods, gandharvas and other such beings rejoiced, heartily praising the

words of the Victorious One. "

This means that, when one's profound awareness has acknowledges the truth

of what is contained in this quintessential text, one's penetrating

insight, compassionate drive towards enlightenment for both oneself and

others, and all one's humanit frailty, benighted but powerful aspiration to

freedom, one's need to control and manipulate, one aspirations to all

freedom from bounds and so on, are all satisfied - filled with bliss...

" The Heart-Essence of the Noble Transcendent and Perfect Insight " is thus

complete.

All that need be known for the practice of Transcendent and Perfect Insight

has thus been set forth...

*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*~~O~~*

This has nothing to do with leaving this in favour of that or that in

favour of this.

I hope I have managed to majke that clear in my stumbling commentary.

Alice continues:

>however the western approach has not yet

>been fulfilled n as Jung points out n i repeat: Individuation theologically

>understood is INCARNATION

*This absolutely!

>n the idea of APPLYING compassion in pragmatic

>terms is what Judaism, Christianity, n Islam as the extraverted hemisphere

>have at least attempted: feeding the hungry, hospitals, education etc -

>whereas the East used to shrug n speak of karma n maya n walk on. " thy will

>be done on earth as it is in heaven in contrast to Lead me from the unreal

to

>the Real!

*I think the idea of karma has been drastically misunderstood both by

orientals and occidentals. Karma is not what you DID, it's what you DO -

what you are DOING NOW that is changing the ways in which you are

perceiving the situation. It is the perception that rules 'destiny' (if you

will), and we all know of those who come through hell breathing only love,

and those who live through heavens and only hate them. 'Since mind is

first,' says the Dhammapada, 'First pay attention to what is in your mind.'

The great teachers of Dzogchen and Mahamudra and Ch'an/Zen all tell you 'It

is not things that get in your way, but your attachment to them as good,

bad and indifferent. Even worse is your attachment to your attachment as

though it were some kind of a reality.'

By the same token, let me point out here that it is NOT the Void we should

be heading for. The Void is taught to help cut through attachment to

things. Once one has abandoned attachment to things, there is no need then

to establish 'voidness', 'non-attachment' as sometrhing in it's own right.

This is just pressing one's eyes and then claiming that there are two

moons... It's useless.

>They CAN be reconciled! but that's where Sophia/Tara comes in!In the new

eon, the two must come together:spirituous earth! of the alchemists. we

need to find the sacred also in the commonplace.

Boy oh boy! Are you ever kidding!

>I read in Patrul that to be given the privilege of coming into a body is

as rare as a

>walrus putting his head thru a ring floating on the vast ocean! [it might

not

>habeen a walrus, book is upstairs...but that's the impress i got]

*It's a blind turtle, actually, who only surfaces once every thousand

years. Chances of getting your head in *this* ring where all you need for

your own liberation is near at hand and already established within you and

all around you are pretty slim.

How's this blackboard tale! You're such a love, lady!

>i think, the Dalai Lama n Mother as examples have said that we can

>do no great things, only little ones w/great love.

*This for sure, but let us do always...

>The philosophy that u express is TRUE. it's like the outline for a great

>opus, but tho i believed it n agreed, i still had to get out of bed ev

>morning of my life and attempt to manifest, to fill it out w/'blood, sweat n

>tears etc. maybe i shld take my present predicament as a token of failure.

>only 1/2 of my body funct n i have a balance oprob - saturn in Libra!

*It's exactly here that it happens. I'm not suggesting anywhere else. Au

contraire!

>i remember my Teacher excl back in '45 " oh, alice, what a splendid, gorgeous

>steeple u have soaring into the sky! " n just when i was to look pleased, he

>added, 'but WHERE is the cathedral? " !!

>i disc cathedrals have crypts n foundations n i dug fr 26 yrs n now remember

>a dream of going down n finding sunlight shafting down onto masses of

>flowers, it took that long. n there's a long way ahead. stone upon stone. n

>every stone hand-hewn. makes one have to honor all those miraculous masons

in

>the middle ages!

*Perhaps it's true that, yes, I'm planting trees in the sky still after all

these long years. I'm not too sure, though. If I am, I'll certainly find

out about it tomorrow, won't I?

>thanks for listening to the old cailleach rambling - as time grows shorter,

>like SC i seem to have so much more to say! n only a left forefinger at that!

*Thanks for gracing us with your ramble. Would that all could ramble as

cannily!

>as the Bishop of Woolwich remarked:

>

>In we are n on we must!

*Is this, then, not the watchword of the day?

All my love (and please excuse me for yet ANOTHER 30-page earbang!),

m