Avalokitesvara, Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing Prajnaparamita, clearly saw that all five skandhas, all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering. Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself form. And so starts the Heart Sutra. Opening lines in a text which we chanted this morning and which we will chant later today. This day, many of us in the room here are engaged in an all-day meditation retreat, a one-day sitting.

[01:08]

Now, we have one-day sittings like this almost monthly, every month, except sometimes. But this all-day sitting has an extra little piece to it, an extra aspect, which is that it also marks the beginning of a five-week practice period, which focuses on the Heart Sutra as its topic. So I want to talk today about this Heart Sutra. Well, if you come to a place like the Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, you might find out about various teachings and texts and come to service and realize that there's a bunch of different things that we say aloud together.

[02:21]

I think it can honestly be said that there is nothing we pay more attention to than the Heart Sutra. This is the only Buddhist text that we chant here at the Zen Center every day. We chant it in English and sometimes in Japanese. Sometimes we chant it twice a day when we have noon service. And the teaching of the heart sutra is perhaps in some ways a core essence of our Zen practice. It's a fundamental teaching that motivates the spirit of our effort. But there's also one of those things that I can say personally, I've got the Heart Sutra memorized. I can chant it during morning service and also daydream. And I hope in this practice, in this time of five weeks of this practice period, this text, this sutra that's very, very familiar, and because of its familiarity, sometimes maybe not even thought about too much, I hope we can actually...

[03:35]

Think about it and try to realize the depth and power of it. And it's not just that the Heart Sutra is recited at the San Francisco Zen Center these days. It's been immensely powerful, immensely popular for millennia, I can say. Over maybe for... for a thousand plus years. Popular over centuries and centuries of practice, it's recited daily in Tibetan temples, in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, wherever the Mahayana school of Buddhism has spread to, it is respected and recited. And at a length of just about one page, well not even just, it fits on one page,

[04:35]

At a length of one page, this sutra, this text, distills the teachings of the Buddha to a kind of pure, clear, concise presentation. And it manages to do this in a shorter span than I think any other Buddhist text does. And it manages to do this at the same time without feeling superficial or commonplace. There's a kind of, somehow the cascade of words have a resonance and a challenge to us. So again, it begins. Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, when deeply practicing Prajnaparamita, clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering. And for those of you who don't maybe know this so well, I'm just going to quickly say something.

[05:38]

I'm going to even reduce it further. And by saying that it then quickly moves on to a list of the five skandhas, the 12 bases, the 18 ayatanas, the 12 links of dependent core origination, the four noble truths. And about each of these things, it says that they have no inherent being, that they are empty. It says then, with nothing to attain, the bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita, prajna meaning wisdom, paramita the perfection, relies on the perfection of wisdom, and thus the mind is without hindrance. And without hindrance there is no fear. Far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana. And then it says, all Buddhas of past, present, and future rely on Prajnaparamita and thereby attain, unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

[06:46]

And then it ends with a mantra, a very famous mantra for those in the know, which goes like this. Gatte gatte, paragatte, parasamgatte, bodhisvaha. Gatte gatte paragatte, Parasamgathe, Bodhisvaha. Some mantras don't lend themselves to translation. Some of them are, in Buddhist mantras, are inherently untranslatable. But this one can be translated. And it translates to, gone, gone, gone beyond. Gone beyond, going beyond. Enlightenment, hail. That's one way. That's one translation. If any student of the way, any student of Zen, had some sort of basic sense of that list of things which I mentioned, the five skandhas, the twelve

[07:59]

full chain of interdependent causation, the Four Noble Truths, etc. If you just set out as a goal, well, I'm going to understand what's mentioned in the Heart Sutra, you would have a quite comprehensive and deep knowledge of the foundations of Buddhism. But that's beyond the scope of what I can talk about today. Sanskrit name of the Heart Sutra is Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra, which translates as the Great Perfection of Wisdom Heart Sutra. Maha Great Prajna Wisdom Paramita Perfection Hridaya might mean heart and sutra, which means words of Buddha.

[08:59]

And in Japanese, which is Something, if you come to the Zen Center, you'll hear the makahanya haramita shingyo. And makahara hanya is basically a transliteration of the Sanskrit. And shingyo is heart sutra. But it's in the Japanese as well as in the English. In the Japanese, it's often just referred to as the shingyo, the heart sutra, gyo being sutra. And I want to say a few things. I want to say a few things that are perhaps maybe kind of academic about the Harajitra, just about the Prajnaparamita texts, because I hope they're interesting. So this teaching, Mahaprajna Paramita Haridaya Sutra, is a member of the Perfection of Wisdom, a Prajnaparamita school of Mahayana Buddhist literature.

[10:16]

And along with the Diamond Sutra, it is considered to be, perhaps, primary accessible representation of this body, of this corpus of religious text, Buddhist text. There are, perhaps you could count differently, but there are, I'm going to say, 40 Prajnaparamita texts. The first one to have been written, at least according to academia, is the Prajnaparamita in 8,000 lines. The Prajnaparamita in 8,000 lines was probably written around 100 BCE, about 100 BCE. And then that Prajnaparamita in 8,000 lines, and just to put it in perspective, the Heart Sutra, as we chanted here at San Francisco Zen Center, is the Heart Sutra in 14 lines, 14 shlokas.

[11:27]

verses. 250 words, but 14 verses. There's an 8,000 line version, which was perhaps the kind of original one. And then it went through a period of expansion, and it was elaborated into a version in 18,000 lines, in 25,000 lines, and 100,000 lines. This book here, called The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, is a partial translation of the Pashtaparamita in 25,000 lines, and it incorporates some portions of shorter texts. So we can imagine how large the 100,000 line version was. So it first expanded and became more elaborated, and then it went through a process of contraction.

[12:28]

In this expansion, when it went from 8,000 lines to 25,000, etc., to 100,000 lines, it didn't really change its message, particularly. But the main difference between the shorter and longer versions is that lists that in the shorter version are only hinted at or briefly enumerated are, you might even say, excruciatingly detailed. Excuse me, I shouldn't say that. In the longer versions. The Diamond Sutra, which is a text some of us are familiar with and which we chant every Friday here at the Zen Center. One exception to the day we chant the Heart Sutra is the day we chant the Diamond Sutra, which is a cousin to it. The Diamond Sutra is the Prajnaparamita Sutra in 300 lines. The Heart Sutra, as we chant it, was composed sometime between 300 and 500, maybe closer to 500 CE, 500 years after Christ.

[13:46]

Common error. And perhaps was written at around the same time that Bodhidharma lived, our first Chinese ancestor. After the year of 500 CE, a number of additional Prajna Permita texts were written, but they largely are exceedingly tantric and in some ways esoteric and not particularly accessible. This lovely, I'm sure, out-of-print book by Edward Konza includes most of the, maybe about... 25 of the shorter texts. And the whole corpus of the body of the Prajnaparamita Sutras reach perhaps a maybe even illogical conclusion with the Prajnaparamita Sutra in one letter, which is included in here. when deeply practicing Prajnaparamita clearly saw that all five skandhas are empty and thus relieved all suffering.

[15:21]

And a kind of striking, from the perspective of the history of Buddhism, a striking aspect or feature of this beginning is that nowhere are we told who heard or recorded these words. And this is at odds with the traditional opening lines used to indicate a sutra. The classic beginning of any Buddhist sutra starts with the words, Thus have I heard. And the I, in this case, is assumed to be Ananda, a disciple of Buddha. And with that, Thus have I heard, a sort of stamp of authenticity and confirmation of the I might say, legitimacy of what follows is implied. Ananda has heard this. There are four classic elements to a sutra, the form of a sutra.

[16:28]

There's the introduction, which includes, thus have I heard. And then there's the situation, which is the place, the company, the central figure carried forth. And then there's the main body, which might include a situation of a problem, and then the answer that the Buddha provides. And then at the end, there's approval offered. So for instance, in the Diamond Sutra, the Diamond Sutra includes these four aspects. It begins... Thus have I heard at one time, the Lord dwelled at Shravasti in the Jedha Grove in the garden of Anathapandindada, together with a large gathering of monks consisting of 1250 monks and with many Bodhisattva's great beings. So it starts saying, thus have I heard, and it sets out the situation where he was and who was there listening to it.

[17:31]

And then there's the situation of the problem. So at that time, the venerable Sabuti, came to the assembly and sat down and he did various things. And then he said to the Lord, it's wonderful, O Lord, exceedingly wonderful. And he goes on and then he frames a question. How should a son or daughter of good family who has set out in the Bodhisattva vehicle stand, help progress, help control their thoughts? And then after that third aspect of the sutra is laid out, at the end, at the conclusion, There's the approval in the very last words of the Dharma Sutra are, Thus spoke the Buddha, enraptured, the elder sabuti, the monks and nuns, pious laymen and laywomen, and the bodhisattvas, and the whole world, with its gods, men, assurers, and gandharvas, rejoiced in the Lord's teaching. Well, the Heart Sutra doesn't include that. It starts off with Avalokitesvara.

[18:36]

Bodhisattva, deeply settled in concentration. And it ends with a mantra. I don't know if this is a concern for us these days so much, but at the time that the Heart Sutra was written and first presented as a teaching, The question of authorship, of authenticity, was a loaded one. The Mahayana schools and students were somewhat... I don't know, I didn't live back then, so what do I know? But anyway, I read today, I read last week, that back then, various members of the Mahayana movement were concerned that their teachings could be... considered to be speculative or inventions.

[19:40]

And there was some desire to follow the form of the classic sutra layout. And so there is actually a second version of the Heart Sutra. We chant the Heart Sutra in 14 lines here at Zen Center, and that's the common version in Japan. But in Tibet, they chant the Heart Sutra in 25 lines. And that begins with, thus have I heard at one time. And it sets the stage with a question. And at the end, it doesn't end with a mantra, but it ends with the assembly expressing appreciation and respect for the teaching. And one of the things that's interesting, well, I don't know if it's interesting, but the longer version very clearly was written after the shorter version. And it's something that is interesting. quite interesting, and I'll just say briefly in passing, is that there seems to be a bit of evidence, maybe even persuasive evidence, that the Heart Sutra was written in Chinese.

[20:47]

And then back translated into Sanskrit in order to provide that legitimization, which if the words, if sutras are supposed to be spoken by It's pretty clear the Buddha didn't speak Chinese. So maybe he didn't even speak Sanskrit. And textual analysis has come to that conclusion. And if you read the definition in the Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism about the Heart Sutra, it says a text composed in China around the year 500. And there may be some, realizing and thinking that that might be so, perhaps it gives some support for the central role that Avalokiteshvara plays in this sutra.

[21:51]

Avalokiteshvara is a bodhisattva who is much venerated and worshipped in Chinese Buddhism. And I'll say a bit more about that. So who is this Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva? And what exactly is a Bodhisattva? Because just a little bit more about this sort of exchange at the beginning. When Avalokitesvara tells Shariputra that form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form, we need to know that Shariputra is considered in the sutra literature as Buddha's premier disciple versed in the teaching of emptiness. And so there's a little bit of almost a provocative act for Shariputra, by acclamation disciple of Buddha, most well-grounded in emptiness to be told about emptiness by Avalokiteshvara.

[23:00]

So who is Avalokiteshvara and what's a bodhisattva? So according to Mahayana tradition that we follow, that Zen is a part of, there are two kinds of bodhisattvas. And one kind of bodhisattva is like us, ordinary human beings who have an aspiration to study and practice and follow Buddha's teaching. And in this way, you and me and all of us in this room and everyone that we meet during the day, all of us are called and are bodhisattvas. But there's another kind of bodhisattva in Buddhism. There are bodhisattvas like Avalokiteshara and Manjushri and Samantapadra. Avalokitesvara is the bodhisattva of compassion. Manjushri is the bodhisattva personifying wisdom.

[24:03]

Samantavadra is the shining practice bodhisattva. And Avalokitesvara also is an emanation of Amida, who is right behind me. And so these bodhisattvas, these great bodhisattvas, being, mahasattva, bodhisattvas, like avalukatasarara, are not ordinary human beings. They are considered to be the same in realization as Buddha, and the same in terms of helpfulness, maybe even more helpful than Buddha. Because in order to help human beings cross over from this shore of confusion to the other shore of nirvana, of awakening They purposely don't enter, even though they could instantly if they wished. They do not enter into nirvana. They do not leave behind this world. And instead, you might even think that they travel back and forth between this human side of this river and ferry people across to the other side.

[25:15]

So Avalokitesvara, who figures in this sutra, prominently, has other names. It says Kanzeon or Kanon or Kuan Yin. And sometimes Avalokitesvara is shown in statues iconographically as having many arms, a thousand arms. Or we have a statue on the second floor in the waiting area for people for practice discussion. It has, actually it didn't count how many arms, but maybe like Avalokitesvara, Kuan Yin with maybe 40 arms or so. It's hard to count. You're not sure. You start not being certain if you already counted that arm. And sometimes Avaloga Desvara is also shown as having a head that's split open with maybe multiple faces or a crown of extra heads. And I don't know if any of you have seen that sort of painting or iconography.

[26:23]

I read that this is because when Avalukiteshara looked at suffering humanity, his head split open from the pain. Kuan Yin, Avalukiteshara is someone also known as he who hears the sounds of the world. And as Avalukiteshara has morphed into Kuan Yin, Kan On, Sometimes frequently shown it with a child on one arm and with feminine characteristics. And she's become a kind of the all compassionate mother goddess figure of Chinese Buddhism, perhaps the most popular deity in China and represented often in a flowing white robe holding a lotus. And abbess of Zen Center, just recently retired abbess of Zen Center, Linda Cutts, led a tour, a pilgrimage to China that visited sites of Avalokitesrara, of Kuan Yin.

[27:34]

And in Tibet, Avalokitesrara is equally held up high. And in fact, the Dalai Lama, who's here in San Francisco today, teaching over at the Civic Center, is considered to be an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. And at the Zen Center, when we want to offer a well-being ceremony for someone, we chant the , which is one of those not so easily translatable mantras, but it is a compassionate mantra dedicated to hearing the cries of the world and offering help. And nearly every evening, We chant the Dahi Shin Durrani, Great Heart, Compassion Durrani, and Avalokiteshvarazo figures in this one too. So, very important figure in Buddhism. And even though maybe at the Zen Center you come here and you don't think so much about him, but he's actually part of our daily practice in various ways.

[28:40]

So... He's a Buddha. Come back to this world of suffering and delusion and distress in order to help us. In order to help people. He's made a vow. He won't become a Buddha until all human beings are saved. Until there's not even a single deluded person lived on earth. And in some ways, this ava lo kiteshara bodhisattva spirit is not a personal spirit anymore. It becomes a kind of force or a power of awakening. And a force that keeps telling us to wake. So here we are today, Saturday morning, at the Zen Center, with me on my cushion and you on your cushions. I'm facing you, you're facing me, and perhaps, I don't even know, it might not even be so much fun. It's a beautiful day outside, and I don't know if what I'm saying is... I don't even know if it's worth saying.

[29:53]

But nonetheless, it might not be a comfortable posture to be in, and you might be wondering whether there might be something better to do today, but here you are. And this is the power of Avokaliteshvara. We might even think that we are somehow, without knowing it, we've been hooked. This is the power that keeps us practicing and which tells us to come to the Zen center, to wake up that spirit in us. This is Avalokiteshvara. And there is a koan, a Chinese koan, an encounter between two of our Zen ancestors named Ungan and Dogo. And Ungan was Tozan's teacher. Ungan and Tozan are in our morning chant, the lineage chant that we recite regularly, including this morning.

[30:55]

Tozan is the Chinese ancestor who gave us the TO part of the Soutou tradition. And Ungan was Tozan's teacher. Dogo was his brother, and once Ungan asked Dogo, he said, what does great compassion bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara do with so many hands? So many hands and eyes. And Ungan asked that question, and Dogo said, it's like a person groping for his pillow at night. That was his answer. This is not his answer, but this is my saying something about that. At night, we often turn and toss as we sleep, and sometimes we lose our pillow. And when we realize this in the dark, we don't need to turn the light on. We don't even need to open our eyes up.

[31:59]

We don't even actually need to wake up. We just reach out and sort of find that pillow and pull it close to us. And maybe this is an analogy for Zazen. In Zazen, there is no discrimination, there is a complete darkness. The Heart Sutra says and tells us there are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, and on and on and on. And these eyes and ears and nose and mind and stuff that we think we have are not independent. They work together. there's no distinction between the eye and the ear and the nose and the tongue and our whole body becomes an eye in the darkness our whole body becomes a tongue which tastes the food when we do anything our whole body functions together as one and this is how our life works like a person in the night roping for their pillow so after

[33:11]

Dogo said, it's like a person roping for his pillow at night. Ungan followed up. And he said, Ungan said, this is an American translation, I get it. I understand what you mean. And then Dogo said, well, how do you understand it? And then Ungan said, Entire body is hands and eyes. And then Dogo said, Well, you almost expressed reality completely, but there's still something missing. Ungan said, Well, that's my understanding. What about you? Ungan said, Entire body is hands and eyes. And Dogo said, The whole body is hands and eyes. In other words, he didn't say anything different, but it was a little different.

[34:15]

The two of them were in complete agreement. And their agreement is the same as Avalokiteshvara, helping us to remember to come to the Zen Center, even though we didn't ever even hear maybe the name Avalokiteshvara before we came here. And that The Heart Sutra is about transforming our life. It's a teaching about clearly seeing how things are. A teaching that is about how to remind us to live a way of life based on waking up. In our case, at the San Francisco Zen Center, zazen is the turning point in this transformation. According to Dogen, our great ancestor in Japan. Zazen itself is enlightenment.

[35:19]

Zazen itself is transformation, is awakening. And in our zazen practice, in our meditation effort, we might have confused thoughts. We might have fantasies, who knows what. Yet we let go of them. And in this moment of letting go, we have hopefully, perhaps, a moment of transformation. Our life effort stops being our personal drama. It becomes a living out the vow of Avalokiteshvara to wake up. And this is the meaning of our zazen life. So I want to say a little bit more. I want to tell one story. One more story. And it's a story about Suzuki Roshi. And in the same way that we say Heart Sutra, Well, heart means the essence. Heartwood is like this... In a tree, heartwood is... Peter, what's the heartwood? The core.

[36:21]

So the Heart Sutra is the core of what is teaching. In 250 words. In 14 verses. Here's a story that I... When I read, I thought, this is another type of, this is even, this is a real heart teaching. And it's, you might say, the Heart Sutra in ten words. And it's, I have to set the story up by saying that there is a Japanese Jodo Shin priest named Ogui, who came to San Francisco in the early 1960s. And the Jodo Shin, tradition is significantly different from the Zen tradition. They don't practice zazen for the most part. It's rather unusual if a Shin priest practices zazen. But Ogui was in his early 20s. And as he says here, reading from an interview that David Chadwick did with now Bishop Ogui, he said, I was quoting Bishop Ogui.

[37:35]

I could not hold any confidence in my life. I was unsure. I was in my early twenties and I was always thinking of going back to Japan. Suzuki Roshi knew me and he would give a talk to his English speaking students. And sometimes I would go. I thought my English was really bad. I needed help. So I thought I would go. And one time when he was, he, Suzuki, was speaking to us, something struck that made my life change so that I wish to continue my practice. Sometimes Suzuki Roshi would use a little Japanese along with the English to help him think, I guess. And at this time, he started talking and walking in front of people back and forth, slowly and steadily. And he said, I think in the early 60s, actually, at Sakoji Temple, They didn't always give the Dharma talk sort of seated like this. Sometimes it was like an electrone and it would stand and speak to the audience.

[38:40]

So Suzuki Roshi was standing in front of the room and he was walking back and forth and he said, and here's the Heart Sutra, a different version of the Heart Sutra. Today, today, wajana. Today, wajana. And then Ugui adds, Today wa in Japanese makes today the subject, the wa. And jana is like is with emphasis, is with emphasis. So today wa jana, he said. Today izu yapare today. Izu is just a Japanese pronunciation of iz. If you're struggling with your English and just learning how to speak it, you want to say the word iz, you might say izu. Today is a yuppare today. And yuppare means absolutely.

[39:42]

It's Japanese word means absolutely. Today is today. Then he walked slowly and steadily back and forth in front of us and he said, Today is not yesterday. Today is not yesterday. then he continued walking back and forth and he said today is not tomorrow and then he walked over in front of one other person speaking there and he grabbed him by the neck and he shook him and said do you understand and then he stood up and smiled at all of us, and he said, today is absolutely today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.

[40:44]

And then he said, that's all, and left. That was his Dharma talk. And if you count the unique words, he says today a few times, but there's less than 10 words in that Dharma talk. And Ogui said, I couldn't stand up after hearing these words. I was shocked. I had been thinking to myself, I didn't know enough English to teach Buddhism in America. But I knew many more words than Suzuki Roshi had said. So what have I been frustrated about? Because I don't have a big enough English vocabulary? Confidence in my English? Or was I frustrated because I don't know much about Buddhism? I'm quoting still Bishop Ogui. He said, Suzuki Roshi used just limited English.

[41:51]

Today is today. Today is not yesterday. Today is not tomorrow. That is all. Only a few words. I've studied English in middle school and college. What struck me and stayed with me all through my life was that I realized I wasn't discouraged because of my ability to understand the Dharma or because of the vocabulary of English. But I was discouraged because something was lacking in my mind. I didn't lack in Buddhism. I didn't lack in English. And that turned my frustrations around and gave me encouragement to try to be more alive and allowed me to stay in the United States. He keeps me going even today, and at that time he was a young 20-year-old Jodo preacher and priest, but now Bishop Agui is the head of the North American Jodo Shen school, so has continued with his practice. So, especially in

[42:56]

For all of us, it's just a challenge to realize that today is just today. It's not yesterday and it's not tomorrow. But I want to encourage particularly those of us who are going to sit the rest of the day, the rest of today, in the zendo to remember those words. Thank you.

[43:21]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.91