Prajnaparamita

You know, maybe just a little bit of background for the listeners here.

Nagarjuna, you know, and please fill in any details I'm missing, generally is thought of in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions as one of the main, I don't know, I could say it's sort of taking the Buddha's most subtle teachings on emptiness from the Prajnaparamita Sutras and elucidating on that and making it not necessarily more clear, but more robust, more penetrable.

So in Tibetan Buddhism, he's thought of that.

And of course, the way most Tibetan Buddhist teachers teach emptiness is according to Narva Jhuna, at least when they're teaching in a more scholastic or academic form.

Like I've used that a lot of the time to measure things.

And at the same time, I sort of came to the conclusion, hey, if something, I'm not so concerned with something's purity in the sense like, oh, this has to be traced back to this minute and this day and, you know, Bihar on this mountain, etc.

Because even in things like the Heart Sutra, you know, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, you know the way it's laid out that some of these some of these teachings were not happening in this in a sort of time dimension that you know the way we normally think of time and you know through you know dimensional physical space so you know that's when you get into i mean some of the mayona sutras as you know are even more far out than that i mean the president probably not as far as some other sutras But it always gave me, it always was interesting to me, this pursuit for like empirical, you know, a very Western perspective of like empirical, this is the evidence of this.

And, you know, I understand the rigor of that has value.

The Zen is known for these writings that involve anecdotes, that involve short aphoristic sayings, or these dialogues where answers are given that are seemingly just nonsense, and yet their founding document, according to these early records, is this complex metaphysical work, and it's a work that was never popular, by the way.

The Lotus Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, the Vimalakirti Sutra, all of these are historically more important than the Lanka.

And because of this mismatch between the nature of Zen as a school, at least in popular perception, uh, Zen as we perceive it as a living tradition, there's a mismatch between that and the content of the Lankavatara Sutra.

I think because of this, uh, that sutra has largely remained obscure, even among Zen students.

It is there in the Theravada school, the teaching of the three doors of liberation.

And in Mahayana, uh, the Mahayana tradition, the huge, uh, literature of the Prajnaparamita has explored very largely, uh, the teaching.

And especially when you study the Avatamsaka Sutra, the teaching of, uh, dependent co-arising has developed to its highest, and you can touch the nature of emptiness.

It's very deep, it's very wonderful, the teaching of, uh, emptiness.

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avalokiteshvara when the prajna paramita has been fully practised then we clearly behold that the five skanda are all empty vain and unreal so it is we escape the possibility of sorrow or obstruction That which we call form is not different from that which we call space.

Space is not different from form.

Form is the same as space.

Space is the same as form.

And so with the other skandhas, whether Vedana or Sanjna or Sanskara or Vijjnana, they are each the same as their opposite.

sariputra all these things around us being thus stripped or devoid of qualities there can be no longer birth or death defilement or purity addition or destruction in the midst then of this void there can be neither rupa vedana sajna sanskara or nor yet organs of sense whether the eye or nose ear or tongue body or mind nor yet objects of sense matter or sound odour or taste touch or ideas nor yet categories of sense such as the union of the object and subject in sight in smell in touch in taste in apprehension so there will be no such thing as ignorance nor yet freedom from ignorance and therefore there can be none of its consequences the twelve nidyanas and therefore no such thing as decay or death nor yet freedom from decay and death so neither can there be a method for destroying the concourse of sorrows no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as attaining as there will not be aught that can be attained the bodhisattva resting on this prajna paramita no sorrow or obstruction can then affect his heart for there will be no such thing as sorrow or obstruction therefore having no fear or apprehension of evil removing far from him all the distorting influences of illusive thought he arrives at the goal of nirvana The Buddhas of the three ages, relying on this Prajna Paramita, have arrived at the unsurpassed and enlightened condition.

Therefore, we know that this Prajna Paramita is the great spiritual Dharani.

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The Heart Sutra, Prajna Paramita Pradeha Sutra, Xingjing, translated from Sanskrit to Chinese by Shen Zong, translated from Chinese to English by the Rev.

Samuel Beale.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Avalokiteshvara when the prajna paramita has been fully practised then we clearly behold that the five skanda are all empty vain and unreal so it is we escape the possibility of sorrow or obstruction That which we call form is not different from that which we call space.

Space is not different from form.

Form is the same as space.

Sariputra.

Dissolve yourself, dissolve the phenomena." And from that unfabricated, you can call it emptiness, unfabricated equanimity, arises a Green Tara, meeting front video.

So you have visualize the Prajnaparamita word of form is emptiness, emptiness is form by doing that.

And when you visualize something, even psychology, they say if you visualize doing something again and again, it makes it easier.

Yeah.