The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra| A Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua 11
Channel: Chánh Pháp Minh
Date: 2020-12-14

The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra - A Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua 11

The Heart of Prajna Paramita Sutra

 

When Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva was practicing the profound prajna paramita, he illuminated the five skandhas and saw that they are all empty, and he crossed  beyond all suffering and difficulty.     

Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness;  emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness; emptiness itself is form. So, too, are feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness. 
  
Shariputra, all dharmas are empty of characteristics.  They are not produced. Not destroyed, not defiled, not  pure, and they neither increase nor diminish.

Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition,  formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue,  body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of  touch, or dharmas; no field of the eyes, up to and  including no field of mind-consciousness; and no  ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no  old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, no way, and  no understanding and no attaining.   

Because nothing is attained, the Bodhisattva, through  reliance on prajna paramita, is unimpeded in his mind.  Because there is no impediment, he is not afraid, and he leaves distorted dream-thinking far behind. Ultimately Nirvana!

All Buddhas of the three periods of time attain  Anuttarasamyaksambodhi through reliance on prajna  paramita. Therefore, know that prajna paramita is a  great spiritual mantra, a great bright mantra, a supreme  mantra, an unequalled mantra. It can remove all  suffering; it is genuine and not false. That is why the  mantra of prajna paramita was spoken. Recite it like this: 

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

The explanation of the Heart Sutra will be divided into two sections: a general explanation of the title, and an explanation of the meaning of the text. The general explanation of the title will be further divided into a discussion of the sutra title and a discussion of the translator.

Seven categories of titles have been divised for the three treasuries (tripitaka) and the twelve divisions of the sutras spoken by the Buddha:

1) The first kind of title refers exclusively to persons. The Buddha Speaks of Amitabha Sutra is an example, since both Shakyamuni Buddha and Amitabha Buddha are personages.

2) The Nirvana Sutra is an example of a title which is determined exclusively by reference to dharma. Nirvana, which signifies a dharma (dharmalaksana), is used for its title.

3) In the third category are titles comprised of analogies. The Brahma Net Sutra is an example of this kind of title. The text of the sutra employs in its discussion of the precepts (the rules of moral conduct taught by the Buddha) the analogy of the cylindrical net-curtain belonging to the king of the Great Brahma Heaven; the curtain is a manifestation of his adornments. All through the netcurtain are holes, and in the empty space of each hole there is a precious pearl, each the brightest and most valuable of all pearls. All the way around, the precious pearls illuminate each other with light, and the emptiness interpenetrates. This precious pearl illuminates that precious pearl – back and forth. That is what is meant by their “illuminating each other.”

Your light illuminates my light and my light illuminates yours. However, the lights do not oppose one another. One of them is incapable of saying, “Keep your light out of my light,” or, “I don’t want my light to shine on you.” There is none of that; they illuminate each other and the emptiness interpenetrates.

In other words, then, the precepts are like the light of the precious pearls; they illuminate each other. If you keep a precept, that is, if you obey a rule of moral conduct without fail, it emits light. Each precept you keep has light. Each of the ten major and forty-eight minor Bodhisattva precepts, which are explained in the Brahma Net Sutra emits rays of light, just like the pearls in the Brahma net-curtain.