The Heart Sutra

by Red Pine

  Ching-chueh says, “What does not exist earlier but exists now is said to be born. What already exists but then does not exist is said to be destroyed. The assembly of causes and conditions does not result in birth, and the dispersal of causes and conditions does not result in destruction. What is pure or defiled refers to the mind. But the mind is essentially no mind. Thus, what is purified, and what is defiled? It’s as if someone dreamt that the pearl of the moon was defiled by falling into muddy water, and they tried to wash it clean and then awoke and realized that the moon was not in the water and had never been defiled and that washing it hadn’t purified it, that it had always been pure.”

  Pao-t’ung says, “Let the Four Elements and Five Skandhas be born and die in vain. They have no effect on our dharma body. Like bamboo shadows on the steps, they can’t be swept away. Like the moon moving across the water, it doesn’t leave a trace. Our dharma body is pure. It has no blemish, stain or smudge. It can’t be damaged or burned. Like a lotus, it doesn’t touch the water. Nor does this body whose heart is pure and empty become greater for a sage or lesser for a fool. It is simply so and changeless.”

  Part Two

  Abhidharma in the Light of Prajnaparamita

  12/13. THEREFORE, SHARIPUTRA, IN EMPTINESS THERE IS NO FORM, / NO SENSATION, NO PERCEPTION, NO MEMORY AND NO CONSCIOUSNESS: tasmac shariputra shunyatayan na rupan na vedana na sanjna na sanskarah na vijnanam ,

  HAVING INTRODUCED Shariputra to the Prajnaparamita, Avalokiteshvara now reviews the major categories of the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma in its light, which is the light of emptiness. Thus, the focus here is “in emptiness” (shunyatayan), where shunyata is in the locative case. In the light of convention, objects are real. In the light of meditation, objects are not real, but dharmas are. In the light of wisdom, objects and dharmas are not real, nor are they not real. They are not real, because they are empty of self-existence. But neither are they not real, because they are empty of non-existence. Emptiness is what makes everything real. Self-existence and non-existence are what make everything false.

  When we establish a dharma that either exists or does not exist, we create a separation in time, in space, and in our minds. Emptiness is not space but the absence of space. Dharmas represent the creation of space, the conjuring of division into our awareness. Emptiness represents the removal of that space or division. Thus, where there is emptiness, which is everywhere, there are no dharmas. Dharmas as self-existent or non-existent entities are fictions. Dharmas as emptiness are real. Thus, the separation of dharmas from emptiness is impossible. Dharmas cannot be separated from emptiness. They are not outside emptiness, and they are not inside emptiness. They are emptiness. The same holds for emptiness. It is not outside dharmas and not inside them. Neither dharmas nor emptiness can fit inside the other. They are co-extensive. This is true of form and also true of sensation, perception, memory, and consciousness. They do not exist in emptiness; they are one with emptiness. And emptiness is one with them, with each of them, and with all of them. Emptiness is not just their common denominator, it is their only denominator. Dharmas are defined by emptiness alone, not by permanence or impermanence, not by purity or impurity, not by the presence or the absence of a self. Emptiness is their real nature.

  Conze says, “Everything that is at all worth knowing is contained in the Hridaya. But it can be found there only if spiritual insight is married to intellectual ability, and coupled with a delight in the use of the intellect. This Sutra, it is true, points to something that lies far beyond the intellect. But the way to get to that is to follow the intellect as far as it will take you. And the dialectical logic of this Sutra enables the intellect, working through language, to carry the understanding a stage further than the conceptual thinking based on ordinary logic can do” (Buddhist Wisdom Books, p. 99).

  Hui-chung says, “The nature of dharmas is fundamentally empty, thus it says ‘in emptiness.’ Form cannot be found, thus it says ‘no form.’ Likewise, the mind cannot be found, thus it says, ‘no sensation, no perception, no memory, and no consciousness.’”

  Te-ch’ing says, “The reason the true emptiness of prajna is forever free of any defect is because it is pure and contains nothing. Thus, there is no trace of the Five Skandhas.”

  Chen-k’o says, “Once ice melts into water, it becomes square in a square container and round in a round container. The square and round containers represent the world before us. Although the world before us is born and destroyed, pure and defiled, complete and deficient, it is like water that has become ice, it is completely hard. For practitioners who know this, the Twelve Abodes of Sensation, the Eighteen Elements of Perception, the Twelve Links, and the Four Truths are all clear. Still, the world cannot empty itself, it requires reflection to empty the world.”

  Ching-mai says, “When the sutra says that we do not see the appearance of birth of the skandha of form, nor the appearance of its destruction, the appearance of its purity or the appearance of its defilement, and that the other skandhas up to consciousness are the same, it is because their natures are empty. In emptiness how could there be birth or destruction, oneness or division?

  “If form really existed, it would be different from emptiness. The Five Skandhas would then exist in emptiness. But bodhisattvas use their true knowledge of reality to see that the skandha of form to which people cling is essentially empty and non-existent. It is because of the existence of form and the other skandhas that suffering also exists. But if form and the other skandhas are empty, then we are rescued from suffering.

  “The Madhyamaka Shastra says, ‘An effect arises from multiple causes, but these causes do not exist by themselves. But if causes have no self-existence, then they do not really exist. And if causes themselves do not exist, how can they give rise to an effect?’ Thus, the purity or defilement of form and the other skandhas does not arise from causes, nor does it not arise from causes.”

  14. NO EYE, NO EAR, NO NOSE, NO TONGUE, NO BODY AND NO MIND: na cakshuh shrotra ghrana jihva kaya manansi

  In analyzing the possible constituents of our world of awareness, early Buddhists did not limit themselves to the Five Skandhas but used several other conceptual frameworks. After the skandhas, the next most common analytical scheme involved a division of our awareness into the Twelve Abodes, or ayatanas. The word ayatana means “resting place” and refers to the location in a home where a family kept its sacred fire. Thus, its use by Buddhists was meant to appeal to Brahmans and at the same time to redirect their spiritual endeavors to the sanctuary within us all. But instead of focusing on one ayatana, the Buddha directed his disciples to examine twelve locations, any one of which could be considered the abode of the sacred fire of our awareness.

  As with the Five Skandhas, the Twelve Abodes also break down our experience into a series of components. But while the Five Skandhas summarize what we think of as the external world into one component and what we think of as the internal world into four components, the ayatanas divide the external skandha of form among ten of its twelve abodes and the remaining four skandhas of sensation, perception, memories, and consciousness between only two abodes. Obviously, such a scheme betrays a strong materialist origin that probably predated the Buddha and that he simply took over due to its general acceptance.

  This scheme usually begins, as it does here, with the six abodes of our sensory powers, or indriya: eyes (cakshu), ears (shrotra), nose (ghrana), tongue (jihva), body (kaya), and mind (manana). They are called indriya, or powers, because they are sufficiently miraculous to make us wonder if they were not conferred on us by the Vedic god Indra, the all-powerful King of Heaven. According to the Sarvastivadins, the first five of these powers can also be divided into two components: a primary component similar to what we would call a nerve and a secondary component consisting of that nerve’s organ of sensation. Unlike the first five, the sixth power, the mind, was not conceived as having any such physical or neurological basis. It was not based on the brain or the spinal cord but w
as purely experiential. And it was not only the source of the raw material for this scheme, it was the source of the scheme itself.

  But, as with the skandhas, in a world where nothing exists by itself, where every division of one thing from another is a misperception—or misconception—of the way things really are, there are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind. We cannot, for example, draw a line around the eyes that is not necessarily arbitrary. There is no point at which the eyes begin or end, either in time or in space or conceptually. The eye bone is connected to the face bone, and the face bone is connected to the head bone, and the head bone is connected to the neck bone, and so it goes down to the toe bone, the floor bone, the earth bone, the worm bone, the dreaming butterfly bone. Thus, what we call our eyes are so many bubbles in a sea of foam. This is not only true of our eyes but of our other powers of sensation as well, including the mind.

  When Hui-k’o asked Bodhidharma to help him make his mind stop, the First Patriarch of Zen said, “Show me this mind of yours, and I’ll make it stop.” Hui-k’o answered, “But I’ve looked everywhere, and I can’t find the mind.” Bodhidharma said, “There. I’ve stopped it for you.” Thus, in the light of emptiness, we say that the eyes and the other powers do not exist, which does not mean that we have no eyes, only that the eyes are not ultimately real, just a convenient fiction to which we give a name. In the comments that follow, readers should note that the Chinese prefer to call the Six Powers the “Six Roots,” or “Six Bases” of sensation.

  Hui-chung says, “This refers to the ‘Six Roots.’ People steadfastly cling to delusion as real. This is why the various kinds of bad karma arise. This is why they’re called ‘roots.’ As long as each root gathers karma and nourishes life, the countless obstructions of mistaken identity never end. These Six Roots of our knowledge are centered on the mind. If the mind can be stilled, the roots and their domains will be empty and suddenly clear. Thus it says, ‘no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind.’”

  Hui-ching says, “The tissue of the eye is the element of earth, its tears are the element of water, its warmth is the element of fire, and its movements are the element of wind. But is the element of earth the eye? No. Or are the elements of water, fire, or wind the eye? The Four Elements are not the eye. Each of the Four Elements has its differences, which we call its individual characteristics. When we combine them to form the eye, we call this its joint characteristics. In the absence of the Four Elements, there is no self-existent eye. When the Four Elements are present, the eye has no other nature. And having no individual nature and no other nature, the eye is then empty. But although the nature of the eye is empty, it is not the case that there is no eye. This is also true of the other senses.”

  15. NO SHAPE, NO SOUND, NO SMELL, NO TASTE, NO FEELING AND NO THOUGHT: na rupa shabda gandha rasa sprashtavya dharmah

  In addition to six powers of sensation, the Twelve Abodes include six domains, or vishaya. The word vishaya means “territory” or “dimension” and refers to the domains in which our powers of sensation function. These domains are shape (rupa), sound (shabda), smell (gandha), taste (rasa), feeling (sparsha), and thought (dharma). The reason these were called domains rather than objects is that an object presumes the further application of perceptual categories. Thus, there are not necessarily any objects, only domains. And each of these domains is separate from the others. The eye, for example, has no access to the domain of sound, and the ear has no access to the domain of shape. While this is obviously true for five of our powers, the Sarvastivadins argued that the mind is an exception, that it can hear and see, that not only can it think thoughts, it can also experience what arises when any of our powers comes into contact with its corresponding domain. Thus, it is able to fabricate a set of categories to use in the other domains of sensation.

  Together, these Six Powers and Six Domains comprise the Twelve Abodes by means of which we can trace and locate whatever we know of our experience. But like the skandhas, these ayatanas also turn out to be devoid of a self, or anything that might be called self-existent. Of course, someone might say we would not normally look for our self in the abode of the ear or in the abode of sound. Normally, we would look for our self in the abode of the mind or in the abode of thought. Surely this is where we can find our self. But what we find in our mind and our thought is the same as what we find in our ear and in sound: an ocean in constant flux. Just as our ear turns out to be nothing but a construct, and likewise sound, neither can we isolate anything we might call our mind or thought, much less our self. This is what an examination of the Twelve Abodes teaches us. They all turn out to be arbitrary distinctions cut from the seamless fabric of reality, or as Avalokiteshvara might say, from the seamless fabric of emptiness. Thus, Avalokiteshvara’s point is to push practitioners, such as the Sarvastivadins, one more step, beyond the Twelve Abodes to which they had become attached. Satisfied that there is no self among the Twelve Abodes, the Sarvastivadins stopped their self-analysis and assumed that the Twelve Abodes themselves were real. But the only sense in which they are real is in their emptiness. Thus, there are no eyes or ears or mind and no shape or sound or thought.

  Hui-ching says, “If the Six Roots [powers] exist, then the Six Kinds of Dust [domains] cannot be empty. But having determined that the eye is empty, its dust clearly does not exist. Why are they called ‘roots’? Because they can give rise to the various kinds of consciousness. And why are they called ‘dust’? Because they defile the pure mind.”

  16. NO ELEMENT OF PERCEPTION, FROM EYE TO CONCEPTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS: na cakshur-dhatur yavan na manovijnanan-dhatuh

  Although this line seems like a continuation of the previous two lines, it actually represents a different scheme of analysis. I’ve amended it slightly and added the word “perception” to make the meaning clearer and the language less awkward. A literal rendering of the Sanskrit would be “no element of eye up to no element of conceptual consciousness.”

  The elements (dhatu) to which this line refers present a more balanced and dynamic scheme than that of the Twelve Abodes, as they add the Six Kinds of Consciousness (vijnana) that arise when the Six Powers and Six Domains of Sensation come into contact. These include visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile consciousness, as well as conceptual consciousness. Together, these Eighteen Elements provide a more detailed explanation of any particular state of awareness, presenting it as a combination of one or more triads. Here, as was also common in such sutra collections as the Samyukt Agama, Avalokiteshvara condenses these eighteen and cites only the first of the Six Powers and the last of the Six Kinds of Consciousness. But all eighteen are meant.

  While the first twelve of these elements are no different from those dealt with earlier, the additional six provide a closer look at consciousness, especially conceptual consciousness (manovijnana ). According to the Sarvastivadins, this consciousness functions not only in the domain of thought but also in the other five domains, where it gives rise to the categories by means of which the other kinds of consciousness discriminate shape, sound, smell, taste, and feeling, and where it, in turn, arises as it comes into contact with these five forms of consciousness that then become its de facto organ of perception. Thus, according to this circular scheme, conceptual consciousness includes our consciousness of thoughts and concepts but also our consciousness of perception in general.

  In reviewing this three-part scheme, a number of commentators have described the Six Kinds of Consciousness as representing the subjective elements of our experience, the Six Powers as the objective elements, and the Six Domains as the conditioning elements. The problem with such a distinction is that it easily becomes counterproductive. This three-part scheme of powers, domains, and consciousness was developed to allow practitioners the opportunity to investigate the nature of their experience and ascertain for themselves the absence or presence of a self. To call certain elements “subjective” reintroduces the self in sheep’s clothing. The best approach is
to give each element equal weight. The same problem arises from distinguishing certain skandhas or ayatanas as internal or external. These are judgments, which can be useful up to a point, but which easily mislead us into sneaking a “self ” through the back door, and which should not be considered as anything more than convenient labels.

  Although all eighteen of these elements are not necessarily present at any one moment, and certain beings might lack one or more sets of elements, this scheme still provided as detailed an explanation of our perceptual experience as anyone might want, or need. In meditating upon these elements, we can see that they are equally impermanent, equally subject to suffering, and equally lacking a self or anything that might belong to a self. However, Avalokiteshvara goes further and denies that any of these categories have any validity to begin with. Such is the light of Prajnaparamita.

  Hui-chung says, “This refers to the Eighteen Elements. The sutra abbreviates and cites the eye element, but all the elements are meant. Because the Six Roots give rise to the Six Kinds of Dust, and the Six Kinds of Dust give rise to the Six Kinds of Consciousness, they are known as the Eighteen Elements, an element being what produces the different kinds of discrimination.”

  Pao-t’ung says, “Because we have eyes, we sense forms. Because we have forms, we sense perceptions. Because we have perceptions, we sense memories. Because we have memories, we sense consciousness. Because we have consciousness, we have the names and appearances of the Six Senses. Following such sights and sounds, we wander through life and death without cease. To put an end to life and death, if you can just see through one sense, you will immediately be at peace and resume being the person you were before the last empty kalpa began.”