… “Shariputra, therefore, because there is no attainment, Bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear,
having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of Nirvana.
All the buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom.
Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge,
the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled,
the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false.
The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared:
TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
Shariputra, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that.”
Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration and commended the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara saying:
“Well said, well said, son of the lineage, it is like that.
It is like that; one should practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have indicated; even the tathagatas rejoice.”
The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the venerable Sharadvatiputra,
the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, and those surrounding in their entirety
along with the world of Gods, Humans, Asuras, and Gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praised that spoken by the Bhagavan.
As usual we will go with a short meditation, and perhaps we will go through the Heart Sutra, we will just read all together. The Heart Sutra is one of the most known sutra, and this is one of the sutra which is almost whenever you receive any teaching, any special teaching is one of the sutra that Masters make sure that they go through this first, and also this sutra is known to remove obstacles. Whenever some people have some obstacles, this is one of the go to Sutra.
So it will be nice if we all can say/read, since you all probably have known the essence of the sutra already, it would be nice if you can just go through the sutra, you can just reflect on the meaning. I never read, I never say this sutra in English, so I don’t know how it gonna go, let’s see. In the monastery we’re all saying in different language not in English. But then, I’ve heard people reading in English in their own different styles, so don’t worry about the way you read, as long as you can read English, you should be proud and just read it as it goes.
So before that, let’s go with a very short meditation just to adopt a motivation. The reason why it is so very important to adopt motivation is because majority of the things that we do in our life is just to achieve something for oneself or to achieve something very mundane, something very temporary. So this Heart Sutra, this sort of teachings is not just to achieve instant happiness, not just to remove some obstacles, not just to have some happiness for this life, but this is to transform our inner mind. In a diluted mind which makes us suffer not just in this life, but in all the lives, not just for oneself, but all the sentient beings. So having correct motivation is very important.
So the correct motivation is that even the second, the minute, we spend thinking about such a profound knowledge which has a potential not only to bring peace within oneself, but in the whole world, not just to give happiness like temporary happiness, but which has a potential to bring ultimate happiness by removing all the negativities, which is why adopting a motivation is very important and we will say the sutra. So I just say a four line prayer, then we will do the meditation.
(prayer)
So let’s begin with our meditation. A short meditation to adopt a correct motivation. Three, two and one.
(short meditation within few minutes)
In this world, each and every activity whether it’s physical or whether it’s verbal, each and every activity, it’s induced by the motivation or maybe intention, so without intention or motivation nothing happens. Each and every action they take place in this world is because of motivation or intention. So correct motivation, the positive motivation or intention leads to a positive action generally. Negative motivation or intention leads to negative actions. So motivation or intention is very important, because without that nothing happens.
This also shows that our physical and verbal is just a slave of our mind. It is our mind which control, if the mind is something positive then physical and verbal expression comes out in positive manner, if the mind is negative then the physical and verbal turns out to be negative. And the mind is negative not because we are negative in our nature, the mind is negative because of the ignorance. The negative minds are of many there like attachment, jealousy, envy, ego, pride, greed; and all like there are many uncomfortable feelings or sensations, and also including the stress, depression, anxiety, and all these things. These all generate from ignorance, and that ignorance can be removed by the knowledge which is being shown in the sutra called Heart Sutra. So just let’s go through it.
I prostrate to the Arya Triple Gem.
Thus did I hear at one time.
The Bhagavan was dwelling on Mass of Vultures Mountain
in Rajagriha together with a great community of Monks
and a great community of Bodhisattvas.
At that time, the Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called “Profound Perception.”
Also, at that time, the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara
looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom
and beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.
Then, through the power of Buddha, the venerable Shariputra said this to the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara:
“How should any son of the lineage train or daughter of the lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom?”
He said that, and the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara said this to the venerable Sharadvati Putra.
“Shariputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom,
should look upon it like this, correctly and repeatedly beholding
those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.
Form is empty; emptiness is form.
Emptiness is not other than form; form is also not other than emptiness.
In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness are empty.
“Shariputra, likewise, all phenomena are emptiness; without characteristic;
unproduced, unceased; stainless, not without stain; not deficient, not fulfilled”.
“Shariputra, therefore, in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination,
no compositional factors, no consciousness;
no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomenon.
There is no eye element and so on up to and including no mind element and no mental consciousness element.
There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so on
up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death.
Similarly, there is no suffering, origination, cessation, and path;
there is no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no non-attainment.
“Shariputra, therefore, because there is no attainment, Bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear,
having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of Nirvana.
All the buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom.
Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge,
the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled,
the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false.
The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared:
TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
“Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that.”
Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration and commended the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara saying:
“Well said, well said, son of the lineage, it is like that.
It is like that; one should practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have indicated; even the tathagatas rejoice.”
The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the venerable Sharadvatiputra,
the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, and those surrounding in their entirety
along with the world of Gods, Humans, Asuras, and Gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praised that spoken by the Bhagavan.
Reflecting on the meaning while we are praying is very important. The very purpose of praying is also so that we can understand and we can reflect on the meaning with the sequence. There is a purpose of praying and Buddhist prayers are unlike other prayers, it is not praying this sutra, it not like we are praying some compromises with Buddha as it like I’m gonna offer this to you, you gonna have to give that to me or I’m giving it to you so that I can have that I can have this. Buddhist prayers are not like that, it’s more like reading the prescription as I said earlier, when we are sick we go to hospital, doctor give us the prescription, we get the medicine according to that. So these are the prescription letters which shows the medicines and which is for our own mental sickness, like it can be anxiety, stress, depression, anger, jealousy, envy and so forth. So these reading this sutra are like remembering the prescription and the medicine written in the prescription.
Just remembering that it’s not efficient to achieve real happiness and peace within our mind. So not just by remembering the medicines which is being prescribed in the prescription letter, this is here Heart Sutra, but to remember by knowing the medicine to apply, medicine of emptiness, medicine of compassion, especially medicine of the five paths, at least training towards them is what we are supposed to do to get rid of the issues or all the mental issues and the mental suffering emotions brings out. So it was really very nice to read the sutra with all of you, a very different feeling, it’s very nice and I’m really happy.
Now I think we reach, maybe, page number six. So before going to this one, I just thought to say, like just as a recall, all the problems and sufferings comes from negative emotions. All these negative emotions comes from ignorance and that ignorance is not other than ignorance of of inherent existence, ignorance of knowing the real nature of phenomena. So the real nature of phenomena is that, in a simple word, you can say that the real nature of phenomena is emptiness.
Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness doesn’t mean that the thing doesn’t exist. Of course everything exists, but at the same time thing doesn’t exist the way it appears to our mind. The way phenomena exists is very much like in a way of interdependence, nothing exist independently, but unfortunately that’s how it appears to our mind. When we look at the phenomena, it appears as if the phenomena exists by itself by its own. But that is something that doesn’t exist, nothing exists by its own, nothing exists inherently. Each and everything is empty of inherent existence, which is why the emptiness is there to eliminate the real ignorance.
Having that in mind, let’s go to this verse. It says:
“Shariputra, therefore, because there is no attainment, Bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear.
‘Shariputra therefore, because there is no attainment’, here it means the Avalokitesvara is saying to Shariputra, calls Shariputra by his name Shariputra. “Therefore, because there is no attainment’, earlier we talked about there is no attainment, of course, there is attainment, but here it means that there is no attainment which is inherently existed. Each and every attainment is interdependent.
So there is ‘no attainment which is inherently existed’. In many other religions, they say that the ultimate, highest achievement or the state of God is something that has not been attained, but there is something more permanent, the State of God or a Creator God like it is not like there was a person before and then he achieved the state of Creator God. The reason is those religions which believe in a Creator God, it’s very difficult for them, many of them don’t have the statue or any picture or a form of the Creator God because they find it contradictory. If Creator God has a body, there should be someone who created that body, so it’s more like there should be something or someone before, then they created Creator God has been created.
In the Islam, they don’t have anything, any statues, just the words in their Mosques and the reason is that they find it contradictory if they have a form of a God. For example, everything with our form has to have something before to form that. So before the formation of the cup, there has somthing, maybe a clay or something, to form this cup. As long as the cup has a form, before the formation of this cup there should be something before. So each and every phenomena is pretty much similar which is why they can’t say that Creator God has a form, which is why they can’t write a Creator God, they can’t express Creator God with the form, so the achievement or the quality of Creator God is not been achieved.
To use the word ‘achieve’ or ‘attain’, there should be a time when he or she hasn’t achieved. To say that the flower has grown, there should be a time when the flower was not growing, otherwise you won’t see that the thing is growing if it is already there for unlimited time. You can’t say that the sky has achieved, sky has attained or sky is growing because it is permanent, it was always there, so there’s no word for it. Like for growing, you can’t see growing because it was always there, it was permanent. So here, of course, there is achievement by applying the antidote, for example by practicing love and compassion, that anger totally can be eliminated, and the state of free from anger can be achieved, but here it says there is no attainment, it means that there is no attainment which is inherently existed, so each and every attainment is empty of inherent existence, that’s what it means. So that’s why
Bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear,
having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of Nirvana.
it shows about Bodhisattvas are, as I said, those practitioners who have Boddhicitta, the mind which desire to achieve enlightenment. So those practitioners, they rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, here the perfection of wisdom is the wisdom realizing emptiness. They practice and they rely on the understanding of emptiness to achieve the endpoint of Nirvana, so Nirvana is salvation, freedom from suffering to reach the state of Nirvana or to reach the state of total freedom, unlimited happiness. And the way to reach unlimited happiness is by removing all the negative emotions. So the way they remove all the negative emotions is by practicing perfection of wisdom.
‘the mind without obscuration and without fear’, here the mind without obscuration, the obscuration is the obscuration of ignorance and so forth. Of course they are all the negative emotions in there, but the main obscuration here is the grasping mind, that’s ignorant mind. And through understanding, they try overcome the fear, because sometimes when a person realizes emptiness for the first time, the person might have some fear because everything collapse. It’s more like you spend your whole life in a sort of illusion, it’s more like you spend the whole time dreaming things that there is no real. As I said that one of the very good example to have the glimpse of emptiness is to understand the way you feel when you just wake up from a nightmare, thing doesn’t exist, but we get that the thing that we see in dream doesn’t exist in reality, but still we have ignorance of the fact that there is a dream where ignorance of the fact that there is no real, there is not as it appears.
If we see someone chasing us to kill us, we run like there is not nothing, but when we wake up, we realize that “Oh, there’s nothing, there’s no one chasing us”. So that time you realize like a small illusion, we realize the illusion in which we were, and because of which it gives pain andhappiness as well. If you see that you win a sort of lottery or you get what you want, then you are so happy, but when you wake up, there’s nothing, there has a shift.
having completely passed beyond error, they reach the endpoint of Nirvana.
‘having completely passed beyond error’, so here error is again that ignorance which doesn’t understand, which is not able to see the real mode of existence, the real nature of phenomena, the interdependent nature of phenomena. Thus, by practicing as such those Boddhisattvas, ‘they reach the end point of Nirvana’ or in other word you can also call it ‘enlightenment, freedom from suffering’. So these two lines show the way Bodhisattvas achieve enlightenment.
And after this it talks about that it is not just Bodhisattvas but all the Buddhas of the past, present and future, all of them achieved, because understanding of the perfection of wisdom or understanding of emptiness is one and only way to achieve enlightenment. Thus, it says that:
‘All the buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom’.
It says that ‘All the Buddhas who dwell in the three times’: the Buddhas of past, the Buddhas of future and the present buddhas. Here also the reason why it says not just few Buddhas, it is not just few Buddha that achieve enlightenment through the practice of perfection of wisdom or emptiness, not just few Buddha but also each and every Buddha of past, presence, future who are completely awaken to the stage of unsurpassable, the stage of perfect, the complete enlightenment. So all the Buddhas, they achieve enlightenment by relying on the practice of the emptiness, or in other words, perfection of wisdom. So the practice on emptiness is one and only way to achieve enlightenment.
Some people say that “Oh, you just say the mantra, you will be free from suffering, all the sufferings; you just do some prayers and you can achieve the enlightenment”. No, of course all the positive things help as a condition, without a seed there is no way that you can grow a plant, without the apple seed there is no way that you can grow apple tree. But as a condition you might also need some other things as well, not just a seed, but you need a proper soil, a good weather, moisture, fertilizer, all these things. So like that, the seed is two: the compassion mind or the Bodhicitta and the wisdom realizing emptiness. So these two are the seeds, of course, you also need some other things as a condition. So without such seeds there is no way that you can grow an apple tree, similarly without thepractice on perfection of wisdom there is no way that one can achieve enlightenment. So which is why below this it is talking about the way to practice perfection of wisdom by naming mantras. Here it talks about five mantras, you can count,
Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge,
the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled,
the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false.
‘Therefore the mantra of perfection of wisdom’, one, ‘the mantra of great knowledge’, two, ‘the unsurpassed mantra’, three, ‘the mantra equal to the unequaled’, four, no it should be ‘the mantra of equal and unequal’, that’s how it should be. So the translation I think it should be ‘the mantra of equal and unequal‘, then it makes more sense.
So that makes it four and the fifth one is ‘the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering’, so here it talks about five mantras, it talks about the way to practice perfection of wisdom or emptiness by naming mantras. The reason why they name these mantras is because the mantra, as I’ve said in some of the earlier classes somewhere I’m not sure that I’ve said in this class, th emantra there is like two parts in there which shows the protection of mind or protecting mind is what it means by the literal meaning of mantra.
So here we talk about the five ways of practicing perfection of wisdom and all of them are named as mantra, which means protecting the mind because it is the way to protect the mind and achieve happiness, protect the mind from falling into the pit of negative emotion and the ignorance. So protecting the mind from going towards negativity protect the mind from falling into the ignorance.
So the first one is ‘the mantra of perfection of wisdom’ which means the practice on the perfection of wisdom. It is called mantra because it is the one which help us not only to get rid of the suffering samsara, but it also helps us to get rid of that self-centered mind – or maybe the selfish mind – which thing that only I wish to achieve enlightenment.
So the second one is ‘the mantra of the great knowledge’. So here the reason why it says the mantra of the great knowledge because these knowledge, these perfection of wisdom not only helps us to remove the ignorance of inherent existence, but it also helps us to get rid of the negative emotions like anger, jealousy, envy, ego and so forth. That’s why it is called the mantra of great knowledge, because it really helps us to eliminate all the ignorance.
The third one is ‘the unsurpassed mantra’. The reason why it is called unsurpassed mantra because there is no other method which is more effective than this to achieve enlightenment, there is no other method which is more effective than practicing perfection of wisdom to achieve enlightenment, which is why it is called the unsurpassed mantra, because it is unsurpassed, there’s nothing beyond, there is nothing better.
‘The mantra of equal and unequal’, the reason why it says the mantra of equal and unequal, here unequal is the is the achievement of a Hearer. Buddha’s disciples can be classified into three: Hearer, Solitary Realizer and Mahayana Practitioner, so these two are Hinayana Practitioners, then Mahayana Practitioner. So the Hinayana Practitioner is divided into two: Solitary Realizer, and Hearer. Hearers are the one who are near Buddha, received teachings from Buddha to be free from suffering just for themselves. So you realize that there’s also the same in achieving freedom from suffering just for oneself. But they usually practice mostly by themselves when the Buddha is not around which is why they are called Solitary Realizers. So that the achievement of Hearers and Solitary Realizers – the achievement of these Hinayana Practitioners – are called unequaled because these are not equal to the achievement of Buddha, because their achievement is much more lower which is why it is called unequalled and the equal is the equal to the Buddha achievement which is enlargement.
So this mantrais the practice of perfection, is such a mantra through which we achieve unequal attainment and also equal attainment which means that the attainment of not only the Hearer and the Solitary Realizer but also the Buddhahood which is the fourth one. And the fifth one is ‘the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering’, it is because the practice on the perfection of wisdom not only help us to remove our suffering, but also even the cause of the suffering which are negative emotions, which is why it is called the mantra that only pacifies all suffering. So these five points or mantras are also mentioned in some explanations, these are also mentioned by attaching these five to the five paths as I’ve mentioned before: the path of accumulation, the path of preparation, the path of seeing, the path of meditation and the path of no more learning.
So ‘should be known as the truth since it is not false’, these five points – the perfection of wisdom and the things that can be achieved through the practicing perfection of wisdom – these are the things we should be known as the truth. Since it is something that has been proven because there are many practitioners who have achieved in such a manner, and so it is not forced because it yields a result by practicing that. So all the Buddhas of the future, especially the past and the present Buddhas achieved in exactly the same manner. All the past and the present Buddhas and all those great practitioners, the way they got freedom from their suffering is by removing that negative emotion and the way they were able to remove this negative emotion is by removing that ignorance through understanding of the emptiness. That is what it means. So thus,
‘The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared which is:
TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
This is often known as the mantra of Heart Sutra, in a similar way that we chant the OM MANI PADME HUM mantra, it is also very powerful mantra to get rid of the obstacles.
TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
So here again, it also shows about the five paths, ‘TADYATHA’ is more like it is like that; ‘OM, there is A, O, M, there is three words, three letters or syllables, in there A, O, M which shows that the body, mind, speech. The impure body, mind, speech needed to transform into the pure body, mind, speech. That’s what it means OM. GATE is like gone, GATE again gone, PARAGATE is more like gone beyond. PARASAMGATE gone, completely beyond or thoroughly beyond, and BODHI like Buddha. So here there is GATE one, GATE two, PARAGATE three, PARASAMGATE four and BODHI that’s five, here again he talked about the five paths.
To achieve the Buddhahood we have to achieve five levels, five layers or five paths. So thus it is like that by practicing the emptiness you have to achieve GATE, the first path, GATE second path, PARAGATE, third path, PARASAMGATE fourth path and then finally BUDDHAHOOD. You have to go through path of accumulation and path of preparation. If somebody said is it the only thing to achieve Buddhahood, no you also have to go through PARAGATE which is the path of seeing. But not only that, you have to go to PARASAMGATE which is the path of meditation, thus you can achieve the state of Buddha. So that’s why the mantra:
TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
So after it shows “Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that.”
So here Avalokitesvara saying to the Shariputra “Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that.” Sothe way to practice the perfection of wisdom is what it shows over here, you should practice the perfection of wisdom in such a way to achieve Buddhahood. And in order to achieve Buddhahood, one have to go through the four paths: GATE, GATE, PARAGATE and PARASAMGATE.
Then the Bhagavan arose from that concentration and commended the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara saying:
‘Then the Bhagavan arose’, so at that time when the Avalokitesvara was saying all these things to the Shariputra, the Buddha was meditating, because of the power of Buddha they both were having question and answer. So then at that time when they finish the question and answer, then Bhagavan, Bhagavan is Buddha Shakyamuni, arose from the concentration meditation and comments. The Buddha makes comment to the Boddhisattava Mahasattva Arya Avalokitesvara, Avalokitesvara is Kwan Jin, Buddha awakened from his meditation and then he comment to what the Avalokitesvara said as an answer to Shariputra.
Buddha said : “Well said, well said, son of the lineage, it is like that.
It is like that; one should practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have indicated [or explained or answered] ; even the Tathagatas rejoice.”
So this is the words from Buddha, so this is what Buddha actually said just like Buddha was witnessing, and the other two are having question and answer. So when they were having question and answer, not just by themselves but by the power of Buddha, they were saying without their own power, it’s more like they were just saying the words were literally coming out of the mouth by the power of Buddha. So after finishing that Buddha said: ‘Yes, it is exactly like this, exactly as you have indicated’.
The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the venerable Sharadvatiputra,
the Bodhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, and those surrounding in their entirety
along with the world of Gods, Humans, Asuras, and Gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praised that spoken by the Bhagavan.
So here it says ‘Boddhisattva Mahasattva Arya Avalokitesvara and those surrounding the entirety along with the world of Gods, Humans, Asuras, Gandharas were overjoyed and highly praised that spoken by the Bhagavan’. So at that time when Buddha was meditating over there and Shariputra and Avalokitesvara having a question and answer, there was many Mahasattva Bodhisattvas at that place to receive the teaching, there was many Gods of the desire realm. Now here the Gods doesn’t mean the Creator God, the Creator God doesn’t exist, but here is a Holy God, Holy God means they also became the Gods many times.
God is just the high form of the being, we also became many time and we will become anytime in the future as well. So there was many Gods who also came to receive this profound teaching. There was many human, Asura is also a God, but Asura is the one with the lesser power, and Gandhara, this is just one another being. ‘They all overjoyed and highly praised that spoken by the Bhagavan’. So this is what the Heart Sutra pretty much is.
So in short, all you have to understand are:
- the ultimate nature of phenomena,
- the emptiness,that’s the main point, and the way that emptiness can be practiced in the
- five pathsto achieve the Buddhahood,
- and that each and every negative emotion arise from the ignorance and the ignorance arise by lacking of the profound reality which is interdependent.
So when we are lacking such understanding, we have all these issues and thus we suffer in this world. So perhaps I will conclude over here.
Questions and answers
- If the sky is permanent doesn’t makecontradict impermanence?
Here the permanence is something that doesn’t change by the cause and condition, impermanence is something that is changed by its causes. So impermanence has to be something which momentarily change so each and everything that we see with our eyes change everything, change all the times. Yes, the dust particles in the sky change all the time, the winds in the sky change all the time, but the sky itself never change, it was prominently there. But, of course, there is a very tiny classification that we have to make here, like there are things that people say and then people think, and then there’s a reality, for example, when we look at the dog, we see that “Oh, I can see a dog” then what you really see is the color and the shape of the dog.
If somebody say is the color and the shape that you see is what it really is, so is the color and the shape is really a dog? If the dog is color, the color of the dog is the dog? the shape of the dog is the dog? then no, the color of the dog is not a dog, the shape of the dog is not a dog. But still, people say that “We see the dog when we see the color and the shape of the dog”. So the same logic over here as well that when we look at the sky, we see something like some colors or this is exactly like when we look at the water, we see blue. But is there any color in there? No, it is just a reflection of the sky, isn’t it?
So when we look at the sky, if there is no dust or if there is nothing out there, then we will see nothing. So we might see that sky has changed this and that like that clouds might change. And in that sense, cloud is impermanent but not the sky. There was a good question.
- How is the one who is unequaled enlightenment? Hinayanacould get Buddhahood, not through Boddhisattva path?
There’s no way that unequalled achievement of the Hinayana whether Hearer’s path or the Solitary Realizer’s path, so there is no way that they can achieve enlightenment, the full enlightenment, the state of Buddhahood, unless they practice the path of Bodhisattva, they have to go through these five paths by path of accumulation, preparation, seeing, meditation. That’s when they can achieve the Buddhahood, that’s why it says GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE to achieve BUDHI.
So we must go through this four point. And are we on the first level? No, we are not on the first level because we gotta have Boddhicitta, the genuine Bodhicitta, that’s when one enter in the first path, then slowly, slowly, the one achieves the special insight or emptiness, that’s when one achieves the path of preparation.
When one see the emptiness really directly without any generality, without really relying on the conceptual thought, then one achieve the path of seeing because that’s when you see the emptiness directly. When you have seen emptiness, you have to train again and again, that is a path of meditation. Then you achieve Buddhahood.
- Dependent origination or interdependence has three layers, so which layers are there?
The gross, the subtle and then the more subtle interdependence. The gross is that the tree grows from the seed, we grow from our mother. The subtle is the parts. The most subtle has to go through the emptiness.
- Please save Buddhism in India.
Yes, that’s what I would say and also Buddhism can be saved everywhere for the benefit of beings or to bring peace and happiness. Then each and everyone has a little bit of responsibility, I’ll try my best to play my role to reach Buddhism to those who wish to understand, who wish to practice.
Noted down from the Dharma Talk of Lama Nawang Kunphel on 11 July 2021, organized by On the Road of Yoga.