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The Heart Sutra
"OH SARIPUTRA, FORM DOES NOT DIFFER FROM
THE VOID, AND
THE VOID DOES NOT DIFFER FROM FORM. FORM IS VOID AND
VOID IS FORM; THE SAME IS TRUE FOR FEELINGS, PERCEPTIONS,
VOLITIONS AND CONSCIOUSNESS."
In
this part of the Heart Sutra the Buddha expounds the luminous Dharma of
the Middle Way or "When coursing in the deep Prajna Paramita," so the
saints of three kinds have the occasion to relinquish their
less-than-perfect views. The sutra was translated by the Tripitaka
Master Hsuen Tsang who depended on the Buddha alone for its meaning and
therefore we should consider this teaching to be spoken by the Buddha.
The
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, while practicing deep Prajna Paramita,
attained radiant wisdom through a full understanding of the ultimate
Void of the five skandhas. The Dharma of Skandhas is a teaching of
existence rather than of emptiness, but due to the depth of his Prajna
contemplation, the Bodhisattva acquired full, complete understanding of
True Reality. He ended simultaneously the two kinds of birth and death
and the five fundamental conditions of passions and illusions and
irreversibly overcame all suffering.
Turning
once more to Sariputra, the Buddha reiterated the essential point for
the benefit of those not understanding clearly. Sariputra was the best
of the best, the most advanced Sravaka or "hearer", renowned for his
sagacity. According to an established Indian custom regarding personal
names, a person may decide to use either his/her mother's name, or
father's, or both. The word sariputra (Chiu Lu Tzu in Chinese)
literally means certain species of waterfowl similar to an egret.
Sariputra chose to use the name of his mother, who was said by those
who knew her to have luminous eyes like that particular bird. She had
the reputation to surpass her brothers in wisdom and keen spirit.
Sariputra's mother was an adept of the heterodox path and as her name
suggests, she was a person of the highest wisdom.
"Form
does not differ from the Void, and the Void does not differ from form;
the same is true for feelings, perceptions, volitions and
consciousness." This statement highlights and expands the foregoing
sentence of the Sutra, leading toward a deeper, sharper understanding
of the Sutra's essential teaching. This Dharma might not be clearly
understood without some explanation.
I
have already introduced the fivefold interpretation of the meaning of
Void or Emptiness, i.e., the obstinate voidness of worldlings; the
annihilation voidness of those travelling the outer or heterodox path;
the voidness understood by means of analysis as practiced on the path
of the two vehicles; the Void perceived by bodhisattvas as the true
substance of the universe; the supramundane Void of True Existence.
"Form does not differ from the Void", is an observation of
inconceivable wisdom rooted in deep practice of Prajna Paramita.
The
sense-organ group produce three types of experience: Touching combined
with seeing; one sense-organ door alone; activity of the mind alone.
This point relates to the six kinds of data, i.e., sight, hearing,
smell, taste, touch and thought, and the corresponding six
material-sense-organs, meaning eye, ear nose, tongue, body and mind.
All our experiences, physical and mental, are generated and accumulated
by this group. During their interaction with their objects the senses
are affected or contaminated by earthly views. The result then is dust
(attraction or aversion of the senses) which characterizes the sentient
sphere or Kamaloka. Dust of that kind is one of the major hindrances to
enlightenment.
Let
us proceed with an analysis of these three types of experience. The
first is experienced through contact with form, any form, by means of
combining seeing and touching and includes mountains, rivers, houses,
flowers, dogs, our body and all the other forms that have corporeality
and can be touched as well as seen; the result of that contact is the
dust of form.
The
second quality is produced separately by one of the four based on
touch, i.e., hearing, tasting, smelling and touching. Hearing is
accomplished by the ear and produces sound-dust; smelling is
accomplished by the nose and results in smell-dust; tasting is done
with the tongue, generating taste-dust, and touch informs of bodily
states thereby producing touch-dust.
The
third quality is the mental activity alone. It engenders mind objects
or thoughts or ideas and eludes both sight and touch. While each of the
five organs has its own specialized field, the mind knows and receives
all of them. Mind-object or mental formation is a shadow of the five
kinds of dust; the mind knows all of them, but they do not know, cannot
know one another.
The six kinds of dust generate three kinds of experience; but where do
the six kinds of dust come from? With our five physical sense organs,
we experience the material world. When a sense-organ relays information
obtained through contact to its corresponding consciousness, the dust
is produced. The six kinds of dust involve the participation and
combination of numerous forms in the process of generating the three
types of experience. How can form be considered the true existence of
the supramundane Emptiness? How can we call void what our eyes can see
and our hands can touch?
We
may believe we see with our eyes but actually, it is our seeing nature
that sees. A dead body, for example, though having eyes, cannot see,
because its seeing nature is no longer there. The nature as substance
has no specific residence. It is neither the brain nor the mind. It is
vast and boundless, signless, unattainable. Despite the fact that we
can see whatever is in front of us, we cannot see our own seeing
nature. Because our seeing nature cannot be traced and cannot be
fathomed, we assign to it the term Emptiness or Void.
We
say, furthermore, that Emptiness is the substance of our nature.
Speaking of the nature of seeing, the number of colors seen, as well as
their characteristics, are of no relevance. To put it simply, form is
nature is form. Nature being void, form is void also. What does it mean
when we say that form is nature? Because our six sense-organs, namely
eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind give rise to the six natures,
i.e., seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and knowing,
countless forms combine and manifest themselves as three kinds of
experience and in the process generate six kinds of dust. Yet form is
not separable from nature and nature cannot separate from form. When it
is separated from form, nature is non-form; form separated from nature
is non-nature,
We
have another example, in case some people are not completely clear
regarding the doctrine. Ask yourself, which comes first: Form or
nature? If you answer that the nature of seeing comes first, then
consider how can it manifest itself in the absence of form? If, on the
other hand, your answer is "form", then ask yourself, how can you
become aware of it without your seeing nature? There is really no
difference between form and seeing - all of it is relative dharma. The
nature of seeing, or the seeing consciousness is like this and the
hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and knowing consciousness also.
The just concluded study of form and nature according to Yien Yai
helped us to realize they are inseparable or nondual. Since Void is the
substance of nature, it must be the substance of form as well.
Accordingly, to perceive that "form does not differ from Void, Void
does not differ from form", is to understand that they are inseparable.
It is the Dharma of Nonduality.
Let
me give you another example: A mirror is made to reflect whatever is in
front of it, The "whatever" may be near or far, round or square, green,
yellow, red, white or all four. The mirror will reflect all with equal
clarity. Facing clothes, the mirror will reflect clothes, facing a
table the mirror will reflect a table, and when made to face the sky,
the mirror will reflect it. Mirror always reflects something and,
therefore, it is comparable to our Self Nature; the reflection can be
compared to dust. A person of mundane concerns will misunderstand the
situation, hold the reflection (dust) for the real thing, and struggle
to grasp it. Who would believe that mountains, rivers, the earth, even
the entire universe are a mere reflection or dust, and as such, they
must all rise and vanish in the cyclic existence? What this means is
that phenomena are the Dharma of Birth and Death. The mirror's
reflective capacity is like the True Nature of seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting and touching: being true Suchness, it is unmovable,
and cyclic existence cannot touch it. But without a mirror, how can
there be reflection?
Their
relationship is immutable yet clearly defined in terms of sharp
contrast. Similarly, form and mind-nature are one and the same. One can
became enlightened and see one's own True Nature practicing this
dharma, The Surangama Sutra says: "When you see light, your seeing is
not the light and when you see darkness, your seeing is not the
darkness; when you see void, seeing it is not the void and when seeing
a slab, the seeing is not the slab. When your absolute seeing perceives
the essence of seeing, the former is not the latter; they still differ
from one another; how can your affected seeing reach that absolute
seeing?" In the part of the sutra we are presently studying, "seeing"
applies in the first instance to subject seeing and in the second one
to object seeing. This point should be cogitated and comprehended
intuitively. Without form there is no nature - form and nature are of
the same substance and there is no inside or outside. This is the
stupendous Dharma of Suchness.
Let
us return to the example of the bright mirror. The worldling, unlike
the saint, is interested solely in the reflection, never giving as much
as a thought to the mirror's reflectivity. Clinging, grasping the
reflection, the worldling grasps an incidental occurrence on the
mirror's surface and mistakes it for the original. The uninformed fail
to understand that all that exists has its nature; earth has earth
nature; fire has fire nature; water has water nature; wind has wind
nature and consequently the mirror has mirror nature. Our True Nature
is also like that and yet most people are confusing illusion with
reality, quite unaware of their True Nature. They grasp and cling to
reflections and dust. For them the Tao of Bodhi is difficult to attain.
The Buddha made use of many expedients while teaching the Dharma of
Truth. He repeated over and over again so those who listened could
follow his example and attain enlightenment. Reflection in the mirror
is impermanent, but the mirror-nature is constant. Reflections come and
go, but the reflectivity of the mirror remains. However, the
enlightened practitioner in the tradition of Theravada holds form and
mind to be two, distinct and separate.
A
bodhisattva who attained the intermediate level of practice views the
reflection as the characteristic of the mirror's nature, and the
mirror's capacity for reflecting is not held as separate from the
reflection. There is a cohesive hold, meaning that form and mind are
inseparable. It is the material entities that are unreal; that is what
"immateriality of substance" means. Although it is true that a
bodhisattva is enlightened and the Mahayana doctrine more accomplished
then the Theravada one, there is still more that needs to be done. The
only complete enlightenment is that of the buddha, and it is attainable
only by means of mindfulness, by being observant and by awakening to
the Ultimate Truth. Form is mind, mind is form and they are neither two
nor one: That is the fundamental Buddhadharma. True Existence is the
supramundane Void, and the True Void inconceivably exists.
In
the forthcoming paragraph we will direct our attention to the
interpretation of "he perceived that all Skandhas are empty, thus he
overcame all ills and suffering." The adherents of the Buddha needed to
understand clearly that the form-skandha is the first one of the five.
The question is, why? Why is form different from the Void, and why is
the Void different from form? Form is one of the six dusts, and the
first of the five skandhas. To consider form as having independent
existence is one of the wrong views. Actually, form is not different
from the Void. Someone asked why we talk only about the skandha of
form; why not talk about all five?
Because
form as shape is most confusing, particularly when applied to the
materiality of the human body. Feeling or sensation, perception,
volition and consciousness are the domain of mind. Sound, smell, taste,
touch and mental formations are from the group of the six dusts also
referred to as the six forms (to summarize the forgoing discussion of
the three types of experience). The six dusts are generated by our five
material -sense-organs, i.e., eye, ear, nose, tongue and body; each of
these possesses both shape and form, being the first of the five
skandhas. When we add the six dusts to the five skandhas, we arrive at
eleven forms called collectively the Dharma of Form.
The
remaining group of four skandhas is called the Dharma of Mind. The
skandha of feeling and the skandha of perceptions jointly are amenable
to fifty-one mental conditions; the skandha of volition has the form
(or Dharma) of twenty-four non-interrelated actions. The skandha of
consciousness is controlled by eight minds. The Dharma of Form and the
Dharma of Mind jointly contain ninety-four Dharmas. In addition, there
are six inactive supramundane dharmas (asamskrtas), which brings the
number of Dharmas to one hundred, referred to as the Principal Sastras
(commentaries). The Buddha's teachings contained originally eighty-four
thousand of them, but Maitreya Bodhisattva, by condensing them, arrived
at six hundred and sixty Dharmas.
Vashubandhu,
the Bodhisattva of non-attachment, distilled their content further to
obtain one hundred sastras, simplifying it for future students. The
domain of the mind is vast; it contains four skandhas out of five and
its cultivation is the means to the attainment of the path. Returning
to the analogy of the bright mirror, the reflection or image is
composed of the ninety-four form and mind Dharmas, while the six
inactive supramundane Dharmas (asamskrtas) constitute the mirrorness or
True Nature of the mirror.
Bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara practiced the deep Prajna Paramita and perceived that
all five skandhas are empty. The radiant, all-encompassing wisdom is
the Dharma of Reality as Non-action. In terms of our analogy, the
mirror's True Nature is the Ultimate Reality. It reveals the five
skandhas as essentially void. But without practice and study, how can
we understand True Reality?
The
skandha of form embodies eleven dharmas, all of which are "not
different from Emptiness" therefore "form does not differ from the
Void, and the Void does not differ from form."
What
is the true Void? True Void is the luminous wisdom of the enlightened
mind; without wisdom, how could the Emptiness of the skandhas be
disclosed? And, for that matter, how could anyone overcome all ills and
suffering? In reality, to break off the eleven form Dharmas is far from
easy. Nonduality of form has the inconceivable, brilliant form of
supramundane Void - the True Existence. Such is the meaning of "form
does not differ from the Void, and the Void does not differ from form."
The Buddha was aware that some of his disciples continued approaching
form and Void as two, as left and right for instance, and therefore he
elaborated further, in depth: "Form is Void, and Void is form."
Form
and Void initially are nondual. All present form empty of self is the
supramundane Void of True Existence: It is the stupendous Dharma of
Nonduality and Nongrasping. Merely by comprehending this concept the
five skandhas are already broken off. That is the meaning of "the same
is true for feelings, perceptions, volitions and consciousness." Once
the skandha of form was disclosed as void of separate, lasting self,
the mind- skandhas, similarly, were found to be void. To break off one
skandha is to break off all of them.
"The
same is true of feelings, perceptions, volitions and consciousness";
feelings, perceptions, volitions and consciousness are, likewise,
recognized as void of selfhood: The Void is their essence. The Dharma
of the Five Skandhas is the teaching of things in general - one is all,
all is one. Consequently, by understanding one skandha one understands
all five. The Buddha continued to expand the scope of this teaching,
once more turning to Arya Sariputra. First, the skandhas were revealed
as void of self, and now Void is revealed to be their true essence.
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