Chinese Version by Master Yuantong
English Translation by Huei-Ping Chang
Table of Content
- Only by Knowing the Origin of Pain Can One really Feel Life
- Stay Away from Every Perverted View
- Only by Opening One’s Mind Can One Understand the Meaning
- Life Should Be Used to Benefit Living Beings
- Seize the Day and Life Will Be As Brilliant As Satin
The Navigation of the Heart–the Heart Sutra, Explanation by Master Longmen Yuantong
On the path of cultivation, we should keep on working without noticing the time. Although time makes people grow old day after day, we still have to self-observe and cultivate diligently. If we can get moved from the self-observation, we will be more diligent than others because we know that life is impermanent and short. When bitterness comes, no one can escape. So why not go to cultivate in this lifetime? Then, what shall we cultivate? We cultivate the mind! If we can let go of something, then we will have a little more space for our own life. In the cultivation of observation, the situation is Samantabhadra situation, and the act is
Samantabhadra act. If we don’t haggle, don’t differentiate, and don’t get selfish, then after our mind is open, we will feel life.
·Only by Knowing the Origin of Pain Can One really Feel Life
In modern society, the structures of ethnicities are changeable, and conflicts and chaos bring us a lot of unpleasant things, so the pleasant ones are relatively few. Under such a circumstance, the most important thing is to make our mind alive and open up the treasure hidden in the depths of our life.
Today everyone here is mindful and spend their time on the Heart Sutra. First we should know that this sutra aims to enlighten our mind that has been blinded for kalpas and teach us how to make use of it.
Some people are knowledgeable, but they are confined to a depressed castle of their own which prevents them from relieving pressures. Others try to cultivate their own minds but they lack wisdom. So they appeal to their own habits and knowledge and hence they seek and try everywhere and in the end they find it difficult to let go of causes and conditions as well as contaminations.
Though we cannot compare with others, we still try hard to make ourselves happier and live better than others. Thus a lot of pains arise. There are many origins of pains, and different needs decide different pains, partly due to different degrees of acceptance of different people, matters, and objects. The most difficult thing is to know oneself. Do you believe this sentence that I say? Who knows himself? People often think that they can do whatever they want to do and they hold a great amount of ideals. They have a lot of talents to show. But when they face a confrontation and can’t do anything about it, they withdraw. Then they may deviate when looking at the world, the human nature, and their own conscience. The more deviated they get, the more deeply they are lost.
Everybody likes to pursue happiness, and no one is willing to clearly see what pain is. No one has the courage to taste pain. So they often cheat themselves. Some people are afraid of seeing doctors because they may be unable to eat or sleep and even worry about death if the doctors declare that they are sick. They would rather be pressured by death than seek medical care. People may miss the chance of finding the origin of pain and even the chance of eliminating the pain through self-inspection.
When the compassionate Buddha came to the human world, he saw people face old age, sickness and death since their birth. All these are very torturing. Sickness is very painful, and no one is immortal. So the Buddha started to seek a way of liberation, which means a way to prevent people from being afraid of suffering, sickness and death is necessary. With such a cause and condition, the Buddha manifested and came to the human world. As a prince, he abandoned his noble position and sought a way of liberation through numerous tortures and hardships. In the end, he was enlightened and then started a journey of transforming living beings. Many people are familiar with these great deeds, but how many can make great vows as such for the suffering beings?
It’s hard for people enjoying blessings to understand what it is like to suffer. If you talk about suffering with a high-spirited and vigorous young entrepreneur, he wouldn’t understand. If you talk about the pain of sickness with a healthy person, he would not understand, either, unless he gets sick. Only when one gets sick will he know how precious health is. Only when one really experiences it will he awake. So the Buddha entered Nirvana in order to let living beings know that birth, old age, sickness, and death come very soon. Maybe you are still young, or maybe you have sufficient blessings, so talking about dangers and hardships with you wouldn’t make you understand. You will feel free and at ease, but this is not liberation.
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, When Practicing Deeply the Prajna Paramita, Perceives That All five Skandhas Are Empty and Saves All Suffering and Distress.
Stay Away from Perverted Views
One should really know the process of life and learn to make himself feel at ease, which is not easy. Prajna refers to wisdom. We should observe with wisdom in our daily life, and get to know that life will end as time passes by and will never come back.
Since death is inevitable, everyone has to observe with wisdom, which does not require us to learn to differentiate wisdom. Some people know that they are smart and better than others, but they should know that knowledge comes from accumulation and demands. When someone has invented something, he has to continue to research and invent another. At last, the future generations still have to face uncertainty about their future. If life is always in uncertainty, are we liberated?
Why were there so many practitioners in the past? When you have developed the innate perception that can penetrate life, you have transcended knowledge, and the wisdom at this moment can illuminate and see that all five skandhas are empty. With emptiness, the Wondrous Possession will manifest. So what the Heart Sutra teaches us is how to step toward the path of attaining Buddhahood. An old saying goes, “If we want to know all the Buddhas in the three generations, we should observe the nature of the Dharma Realm. All Dharmas are made by the mind.” Since everything is made by the mind, our mind can make us become a Buddha, and can make us become a devil, too. So we have to be careful.
Shariputra, Form Does Not Differ from Emptiness, and
Emptiness Does Not Differ from Form.
Form Is Emptiness, and
Emptiness Is Form.
So, too, Are Feelings, Perceptions, Actions, and Consciousness.
Observing with your heart can eliminate your delusion and manifest your real innate perception. Then you will know that only grasping your life well can you get into the real present moment. A calm mind can bring wisdom, and the Wondrous Possession will manifest. If your mind is chaotic, it’s impossible for you to develop the Buddha nature or manifest your dharma body. Then what is your retribution body? It’s that of an ordinary person.
If we do not subdue delusion, absurdity, and adherence, our thought will always be there receiving something. What do we receive? Retribution! All conditions we receive together with our false thoughts will fluctuate. Then we may think of delusion as reality and reality will be extinguished. Finally problems will arise. When the six consciousness arise, the seventh one will merge immediately and our mind is moved and will lead us to do whatever we want to do. Once our thought arises, the cause of actions is planted, and in the future we will not exempt from the effect.
Who can avoid the arising of causes and conditions? I tell you not to slaughter pigs, but you say it’s ok in the midnight and nobody will notice that. But someday when you get old, in the midnight you are haunted with the anguished wailing of the pig you killed. Is this a terrible scene? Of course it is. Who brought the terror? Now you are unable to recover from the sickness. You may think that this is because the spirit of the pig is demanding repayment of debt to you. Your doubt and fear arise and the sixth and seventh consciousnesses combine and cooperate, which make you think that this pig really has come back for you. So you can neither eat nor sleep. You will not feel relieved unless you transform the pig quickly. But how? Will you ask a dharma master to do it? If he is unable to do it, will you do it yourself? Why are you chased by a pig till you have no escape? This comes from the beginning of your consciousness. Note that once the cause is done, you cannot exempt from the effect.
Shariputra, All Dharmas Are Empty. They Do Not Appear or Disappear,
Are Not Tainted or Pure, Do Not Increase or Decrease. Therefore, in Emptiness There Is No Form.
·Only by Opening One’ Mind Can He Understand the Meaning
How do we eradicate causes and effects? Only vows can. After we did something wrong, we should repent quickly. What do we use to repent? Body, speech, and thought. Only honestly repent with these three can we completely eradicate our bad Karmas.
Our thoughts arise from the mind and start to do deeds, and then receive bad retributions. All these originate from the mind. No dharma should deviate from the mind. No matter what sutra you are abiding by, it shouldn’t deviate from your mind. If it does, you’ll not be able to benefit from it. How to allow a sutra to bring you success is very important. A practitioner should go through the six paramita acts–charity, abiding by precepts, tolerance, diligence, stability and wisdom–as well as the four boundless minds–mercy, compassion, joy, and abandonment–to achieve paramita and find ease and liberation.
When a thought arises, many will follow. When you are told to do something, thoughts may arise many times before you start to do it. If you observe carefully, you will know that when you are practicing the approach of Avalokitesvara, it’s important to practice deeply Prajna Paramita. After you really link up, you will be able to open up for development and then step toward the beginning of confirmation and enlightenment. To attain this goal, you have to be very mindful. A person has to have a decision to seek liberation and a virtuous friend to rely on. Also he has to be concerned about other ethnic groups that are neglected by society. All these can help elevate our quality of life and are called Bodhi mind, which may bring us to the way of becoming a Buddha.
Life passes day after day. Coming to the end of our life, we may look back what we have done before: internet cafes, drag race, eating and drinking as much as we liked, greed, and mutual deception. These have been done on our life journey. Have we wasted our life? If we do not work on the frame of mind, we will not succeed even if we live for a hundred years.
Some people want to practice, but they cannot endure the hardship and want to live a comfortable life as if they were at home with TVs, stereo systems, and air-condition. It is wrong for a practitioner to ask for a practice site that is as cozy as his home, because in so doing he is losing his blessings day after day. Some others save money every day to the extent of stinginess and then are unwilling to benefit others. Such a way of practicing is also wrong. If we want to cultivate the Path, we have to be really on the way of cultivating and confirming ourselves instead of making people see us cultivating. Without the path in our minds, we cannot see the Tathagata, and that is non-Buddhist. Where is the Tathagata? You have found it! There is a unique and most precious treasure in our home that is always with us no matter how things change. If it stays with us when we enjoy our life and make ourselves covered with dust and create bad karmas, then this won’t be the way we treat our treasure.
If we regard our life as the Great Prajna Sutra, the prajna will be very important. After cultivating the Six Perfections and All Heaps of Dharmas, we have accumulated the Three Roots—body, speech, and thought—with various kinds of causes and conditions to achieve the Three Bodies—dharma body, retribution body and transformation body. Manifest wisdom with virtue, love sentient beings more, and examine ourselves more, then this Great Prajna Sutra of life will be wide spread prevail in the world.
Some people like to cultivate very, very hard. But have they really been liberated? If they have, they must have made great achievements. If they haven’t, it will be very difficult for them to make achievements, because they are doing things with the basis of the Six Consciousnesses, and their cultivation is just a formality. They haven’t stepped toward the wide path of liberation. The genuine liberation is not abiding by form, bitterness, and joy. Life is full of bitterness, and when bitterness comes, do not abide by it and think of its source. This is liberation. When joy comes, we should observe the impermanent because it will disappear anytime. When it is gone, we should face it. So one who really lives at the present will not feel pained or scared when facing all the changes of situations at the present. Why is he not scared? It is because he has to take the pain that no one else can substitute.
We should not talk about people or matters in our own angles as if we were able to penetrate others and were enlightened people of great virtue or cultivators of a certain level. When problems arise, our capabilities of perception and observation may be gone. Why? This is because we only see small parts of others and we don’t examine our inner selves. So when facing problems, our capabilities of perception and observation are gone. When approaching our end, we don’t know anything and are just muddle-headed. A person with such a way of cultivation has actually taken a trip in another’s world.
When you possess the right understanding and right perception of Buddhism, you will be contented in poverty and devoted to spiritual aspects. You will naturally abide in Buddhism and someday when you are about to die, you don’t take anything with you. Make good use of your innate perception and prevent the Six (Improper) Consciousnesses from contaminating yourself, then life like this is a Prajna Paramita Sutra. With wisdom you will naturally be able to understand things, clearly differentiate things, and make good use of life. After such a change in life, use your self-examination of wisdom to get into truth, goodness and beauty and then you will be more perfect in dealing with people and matters.
What you really need is live out the elite of this sutra. See how Kuan Tzi Tzai Bodhisattva observes—he observes the heart, the impermanent and all the transformations, bitterness and emptiness in the world, and he does this in an unrestrained way. After you have made a little observation, you may find that your breath stinks. Then you will make some adjustment. In such a cultivation of observation, the situation is Samanthabhadra situation and the action is Samanthabhadra action in which there are no haggles, no segregations, and no selfishness. What will happen if you open your mind? You will feel life and will be touched from the self-examination. You will be more unrestrained and diligent than others, because you know that life is impermanent and short. No one can avoid bitterness and emptiness, so why not go and cultivate in this lifetime?
No perceptions, thoughts, actions or consciousnesses.
No eyes, ears, noses, tongues, bodies, or minds.
No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, or dharmas.
The word “practicing” in “Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita” means we should be responsible for what we do. If practicing has a drive and guidance, each choice we make is part of our life. The word “deeply” in the same quote also has a profound meaning—if we do not understand Buddhism in this life, and the dharma water does not flow into our heart, then it won’t be possible for us to be born as a human being again to hear dharma.
If you do not attentively self-examine and think in your daily life very often, then some day when you are about to pass away, you may wonder what you came to the world for. You have no idea. You don’t know when you are going to die. It is a pity that you came to the human world but didn’t cultivate. If you can wholeheartedly cultivate and do it harder and harder day after day, then under such a cause and condition, you will realize that only when you “practice deeply the Prajna Paramita” can you “illuminate and see that all five skandhas are empty.”
There is no realm of eyes, and even no realm of mind consciousness. There is no ignorance, and also no extinction of it, and even no old age and death and also no extinction of them.
Life Should Be Used to Benefit Living Beings
How can you illuminate and see your five skandhas without being attentive? When you are suffering, you may say, “This society is unfair; my master uses me as an ascetic practitioner; why should I do so much work?” But it never occurred to you that some day when some kind of disaster happens to you, someone will tell you: you used to vow, support, and offer help here, so now I will give you some blessing to prevent you from meeting disasters. Now, who is taking advantage? The ascetic practitioner or the volunteers who vowed to toil here? I don’t think Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will take advantage, because when you come and resolve to serve here bit by bit, they know the volunteers are here and will combine your services into merit water that keeps flowing into your body.
When you make a resolve, you can perceive and illuminate yourself with a flash of mind. It’s you that take advantage. Kuan Shi Yin Bodhisattva does not take advantage from you. Since he can deeply practice Prajna Paramita, he can perceive the bitterness, emptiness, and impermanence of life with his wisdom and innate perception power and then make up Four Boundless Minds and practice Six Perfections and All Heaps of Dharmas. Bodhisattvas have illuminated and seen that all the Five Skandhas are empty and have clearly known the bitterness, suffering, and joy in the world. Now you are offering such nice things to Bodhisattvas, but do they stick out their hands and say, “I like this one. I’ll take it now?” They don’t. If they do, you would have been scared away. Why do people hold a differentiation view for themselves?
No suffering, accumulating, extinction, or path, and
also no wisdom or attainment.
With nothing to attain, the Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
and the mind has no hindrance. Without any hindrance, no fears exist.
Far apart from every perverted view, one dwells in Nirvana.
Many know that life in this world is painful. But why do they still create karmas? Why don’t they create and cultivate blessings and virtues? Do not think that the blessings and virtues created now cannot be enjoyed. They will be used in the future. So when you say that you are cultivating, what are you cultivating? You are cultivating for yourself, not for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. You make a resolve here for yourself in order to get enlightened. Some day when you come again, no one will be more blessed than you. In fact, bitterness, joy and blessings are all created by yourself. No one will take them away from you. They are beyond control.
Seize the Day and Life Will Be As Brilliant As Satin
So we should know that those who can illuminate and see that all five skandhas are empty have to get enlightened quickly. We are here not to enjoy life. Delicious food that provides pleasure in the mouth is swallowed into the body and will be excreted. One who owns nicest clothing can only wear one suit in the end, and one who owns a garden villa will have to put it in someone else’s hand in the end. So what can one grasp? We should cultivate the Six Perfections and All Heaps of Dharmas and then rescue ourselves from being reincarnated life after life, kalpa after kalpa. Endless karmas as such are all created by ourselves, so we should rescue ourselves quickly from being troubled by karmas life after life. Open up your wisdom and the innate perception of life. Eradicate the inertia and bad habits of the past lives. For the time being you know that the past, the future, and even the present cannot be attained. Then what do you adhere for? Why bother? So, the first thing you have to do is open up your wisdom. Then how? You should hear a lot. How can you open up wisdom without hearing Dharmas? Think and practice after hearing Dharmas. Then you will get into Samadhi.
Hearing, thinking, and practicing can make you enlightened, so you should really experience and practice so that you can become an unrestrained observer in deep thoughts. Deeper observations can destroy your sea of ignorance which will be like a funnel that keeps leaking until you see the Prajna Paramita of your dharma body.
A practitioner should not keep planning for the future. It’s correct to vow to be a Buddha. Such a vow may always support you in your practice. But coming to worship the Buddha today is not practice. In practice you should keep going without noticing the time. Time passes day after day and ruthlessly makes people grow old. So you need to self-examine and practice diligently. What should you cultivate? The mind. If people can let go of something, their life space will be wider.
Those who resolve to practice Buddhism have to see through the origin of wisdom so that they can gain blessings and wisdom. In order to increase our blessings and good karmas, we have to make up the minds of mercy, compassion, joy, and abandonment that are required and replete for both monastics and lay practitioners. The souls of many young people today are empty and without dependence. They’re unable to deal with pressure. It’s impossible for a person to live a whole life without working hard. To step towards the journey of life, we need this Heart Sutra to moisten ourselves. The sentient beings in the infinite future will not live a simple life but a complicated one. We should transcend whenever a thought arises. Reincarnation again and again is the most painful thing. So, we are very lucky to be born human and have the opportunity to cultivate. But, are cultivators feeling better than before? If they are, they must have let go of something, good or bad, right or wrong, that couldn’t have been abandoned before.
What do we cultivate? Do we cultivate to be good at reciting mantras? When we are reciting mantras, what are the nature and character of the original form of this Buddha? What was he before he achieved this original form? Have you ever thought about that? How could he become the original form of a Buddha? This is what a cultivator should try to know and think about. If a cultivator has cultivated all the supreme dharma, but still doesn’t know the meaning of emptiness and doesn’t know how to get on the way to becoming a Buddha, then that will be useless. All he cultivates and knows are just causes. He is just abiding in a good place. This is not a way for liberation.
In contrast, a person who is willing to make a great vow has the nature and character of the Four Boundless Minds. If you benefit living beings without adhering to any phenomenon, you will get the real wisdom. The more you benefit living beings, the more dharma joy you will have. You will be wiser and will know how to contemplate and finally you will achieve the nature and character of your wisdom. Because you practiced the Six Perfections and All Heaps of Dharmas with mercy, compassion, joy and abandonment and ignored time, space, and everything, you have gained the fruit of liberation. The seeds of virtue have been planted, so the way for liberation has been completed.
All Buddhas in the Three Generations Depend on Prajna Paramita and Attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.
Speaking of practicing Buddhism, I will sincerely and earnestly tell you that we should practice both Shared Wisdom (teachings of emptiness that are practiced by beginners) and Non-shared Wisdom (teachings of emptiness that are practiced only by bodhisattvas). The former is for us to open up, think over, and study the dharma treasure together. Then we will deeply practice the latter to open up the nature and character of the dharma treasure. When we see those who are not enlightened yet, we should make a vow to be mindful of them and transform them by bringing them into the bodhisattva’s pure sea in the hope that they will also be able to wander freely in the seas of Ten Directions which are also the seas of the original nature of everybody.
It is important for a practitioner to examine if he can calmly open up the bodhisattva cool ground and the sea of wisdom during a flash of thought in the twenty-four hours of a day. If he can keep examining and exploiting, and then benefit living beings, then this bodhisattva’s “Non-shared Wisdom” is already a non-shared treasure which will benefit boundless living beings because of his exploitation. Such a dharma flow, whether it is shared or non-shared, will become a sea of wisdom fruit which is a very magnificent sea of fruit and a Buddha territory.
Hence, each sutra shows an original form and indicates that we should practice the Six Perfections and make up a Bodhi mind. But in the end we should keep in mind that our original treasure and dharma treasure are endless. As head of a household, one must make a choice for the whole family, so the choice he makes is very important. He may lead the whole family toward a replete road as he wishes. How does he make choices? He has to start from the mind and cultivate his wisdom nature. When he observes the environments around him, how will he attain what he will own, how will he make wisdom circulate continuously in society and among his dependents, and how will he exploit the true retribution magnificent land will all depend on cultivation.
The sages that manifest in this human world are protected by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as well as the Naga and Deva guardians and supported by virtuous people. The sentient beings in the dharma realm will get into the fruit sea of true retribution thanks to the boundless virtues created by the sages. You can self-examine and then see that all sentient beings are replete with the Tathagata sea which they haven’t attained yet. Based on equality and innate emptiness, you can exploit endless capabilities of mercy, compassion, joy and abandonment and then enter affinities to irrigate sentient beings. At last, your boundless, sea-deep bodhisattva love will manifest. Such a love may transcend any other
love in the human world.
Therefore, We Know That Prajna Paramita
Is the Great Transcendent Mantra,
Is the Great Bright Mantra,
Is the Utmost Mantra,
Is the Supreme Mantra,
Which Can Eradicate All Sufferings
and Is True, Not False.
Only the radiance emitted from this love can really perfect and smooth your nature so that you can attain the fruit sea. The magnificent true retribution territory is filled with compassion and wisdom. There is no secret in cultivation. All dharmas are created by the mind, and all Buddhas are established by the mind. No secret! A lot has been discussed in the dharma realm chapter and spiritual power chapter in the sutras. I hope you can clarify your mind and your original vow so that you won’t deviate from your cultivation.
Many virtuous practitioners have seen the essence of the true Prajna Paramita through the sutras. When you are saying the name of Kuan Tzi Tzai Bodhisattva, you should think to yourself, “Who is Kuan Tzi Tzai Bodhisattva? Am I like him? Alas! No.” Such a perception and reflection will start to take effect. You should contemplate: why are you not like him? In what aspects are you not like him? Think it over and breakthrough it so that the truth within you will manifest. If you can grasp the truth and get congenial to it, you will be able to endure hardship gladly no matter how much suffering you are going through and even if you eat one meal a day. For the sake of benefitting living beings, don’t regard whatever you do as suffering.
You are a bodhisattva in the human world because you vow to transcend life and death and attain Buddhahood together with living beings. The most important thing in cultivation is making vows. If you don’t do it at all, what are you cultivating? What kind of dependents will you have? So you should leave good karma and virtue to them. It is wrong to think that you are doing bad deeds but your offspring will do good ones. Also don’t wonder why you are doing so many good deeds but you have bad children and grandchildren. All these have their causes and conditions. It is because you had feuds with them in past lives. Do you want to get rid of the feuds? If you do, accept them first with the Four Boundless Minds.
All the favors and grudges in the world are connected with causes and conditions. The debt you have to shoulder results from the arising of your karma, then even a little bit of good thought will not come into being. If you can dispel this, you will not suffer from it, will not be confined by it, and will not be insulted by it. Since you are not confined, you are not in it, so you are willing to attain Buddhahood for the sake of living beings and will pray that they will attain Buddhahood too. The vow you make is the compassion of the bodhisattva original virtue and you are a noble human bodhisattva with incredible virtue.
Accept all dependents with the bodhisattva mind that can accept all sentient beings, since Bodhisattvas never leave sentient beings. Then you will be a noble human bodhisattva respected and relied by everyone who sees you. This is cultivation. I hereby encourage you all with this. Amitabha!
So We Say the Prajna Paramita Mantra,
Say the Mantra Which Goes:
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha.