My previous post is the complete text of the Heart Sutra. It is even denser and more packed with meaning than the Diamond Cutter Sutra. I have a book of the Dalai Lama's commentary on this sutra. Over the next few days, I plan on going through his commentary and posting my thoughts bit-by-bit online.
Today, the following sentence stuck out:
"Likewise, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are all empty."
Emtpiness is a central concept in Buddhism. To say that X is empty is to say that is is not ultimately real. It has no well-defined beginning and no well-defined ending. At the boundaries it is fuzzy. A leaf does not ever begin, it is comprised of soil and sunlight that came before it. It does not end. It returns to the soil. It is not well-defined at the boundaries. For example, where does the leaf begin and the tree end? If an insect eats part of the leaf, do we count the digesting pulp in the insect's gullet as part of the leaf? Do we count the chemical reactions that take place inside the leaf as part of the leaf? It wouldn't be a leaf without them. In a similar vein [sic], feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are all empty.
1 comment:
I have a couple comments here. First, your commentary reminds me that no matter how much we know, our knowledge is imperfect. No matter how good a theory, it can be improved. Each model is a story we tell to match the information we have. But the stories, the theories, the knowledge is not the truth itself.
Secondly, this passage brings to mind a contradiction I have come up against several times with the idea of Nirvana and emptiness. If all is empty, if things are neither defiled nor nondefiled, what is our obligation to each other. How does said obligation follow? I do not see the connection.
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