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HEART SUTRA INTENSIVE
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
ShantiMayi presents another section of the Heart Sutra Intensive.
Here, ShantiMayi returns to the previous pearl (sentence) in the sutra. Remember that in an Intensive there can be a bit of jumping around from sentence to sentence. Bear with it and then the commentary is rewarding.
(1) Not created, not destroyed, (2) not impure, not pure, (3)not deficient, not complete
SM> This is so profound. It pushes one beyond appearances and belief. Transporting your view to a broad, undivided, un-partitioned, un-conceptual, viewless view.
(1) Where would creation begin or end? This is not only a statement of transcendence, it also applies to the trans-apparent. Here, the entire essence of experience is rendered in neither this nor that. Not neither this nor that. This and that. As well as none of these. All is like this. You can see why the great Masters said give up grasping and conceptual notions. Nothing can be taken, nothing can be added.
(2) Emptiness is neither pure nor impure. Everything is empty from beginning-less beginning to endless end and also centrally. To understand this well endows diamond clarity. It does not mean that you cannot improve your understanding. It does not mean that you cannot brighten your life through Noble Wisdom. But again, the laser kind of cutting through everything to the core of non-abiding and possibility, while relinquishing any conceptual clinging (often) comes by way of silence and observation. This may be achieved simply by reading the sentence again and again while sinking into the meaning rather than just remaining with the words. This point of purity being well understood, ushers in great compassion. After one comes to realize this sentence; only compassion. The Buddha Nature is revealed here in this statement. All who have come to truly realize, have this sentence spinning somewhere within, like a prayer wheel. This is profound in the most wonderful, most simple and in the deepest way.
(3) Nothing can be brought about or discarded. There is no deficiency, nothing can be or need be added. Not complete, this is the ever-ripening possibility yet to be expressed, forever and ever. Here the ego-sense dies a happy death. In such a wisdom gem, no one abides as a doer or a non-doer. This statement also does not conclude that we can just abuse each other and the environment. But like anything that becomes useless and/or lifeless, it will still remain, in a transformed manner. That transformation can be dust as well as any other expression, but still it will be. That being, though expressed in many or any form, is emptiness at all times.
Let us go on.
12 And no feeling, thought, impression, understanding
13 And no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind
14 No form, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought
15 No element of eyes and so forth to no-mind conscious element
16 No ignorance, no end of ignorance, and so forth to
17 No old age and no death, no end of old age or of death
Student> Out of everything, it seems that ignorance is the most persistent of all.
SM> Yes, boy it is!
Student> It is so easy to look at many objects and to see they come and go. A thought comes, a thought goes.
SM> You can see it in all things, like the seasons come and go.
Student> It occurs to me somehow that it is the most important to see that ignorance itself is empty.
SM> Exactly! Sutras echo all that is.
Remember, the sutras are not learning sutras. This is a mistake people make.
They echo you as you are and all that you innately come to realize within yourself.
First and foremost emptiness then ignorance appears to fill it, but it is still emptiness.
Like the blue fills the sky. Is there blue in the sky?
Student> It looks like there is blue in the sky.
SM> It looks like it but is there blue in the sky? Well here is the sky, where does the sky end? I don't see any blue right here. Do you see blue? Can you go get me a bucket of blue from the sky? Where is the blue in the sky? Where is the ignorance in the emptiness?
It seems to be there, but is it? No. This is what the mature and ripe heart begins to accept fully. There cannot be ignorance without emptiness. Emptiness comes, is realized by the movement and/or the passing of things, images and time.
Understand that emptiness is harmless, that emptiness is fearless, and emptiness is true in all. Emptiness is borderless. Emptiness is devoid of ignorance. Emptiness is clear and it leaves life's play the same as before, in every respect.
Nothing is gained and nothing is lost; only your foolishness is lost. It cannot be so painful.
Shall I say it again? Only your foolishness is lost. It cannot be so painful.
There is not any sound whatsoever that can disturb silence. The silence is never disturbed by anything and if we rest in the appearance of things we cannot accept it. Everything is empty of essential nature, always has been, always shall be, always, always; from beginning- less time until this moment, which is one and the same.
© (1999-2007)