In this podcast I want to explain for you the meaning of the Heart Sutra. If you have studied Buddhism I'm sure you've come across the Heart Sutra. I’m sure you've heard a lot about form and emptiness, and about prajna paramita, the ultimate wisdom. Now what does it all mean?
The Heart Sutra is a very short text explaining the prajna paramita. It all sounds very abstruse. The key phrase in the heart sutra is shiki fu i kuu, usually translated as “form is not separate from emptiness.”
Shiki fu i kuu
kuu fu i shiki
shiki soku ze kuu
kuu sou ze shiki
Form and emptiness are the same. What does this mean? To understand it we have to understand what is shiki and what is kuu. Shiki, form, means also colour, like what you can experience, what you can see, what is visible, what is tangible. It’s like the ground that we walk on. Kuu is emptiness, shunyata. Kuu also means the sky, space. Space has no colour, space is invisible, in a sense, transparent. What is the meaning here?
Kuu is the foundation of love. Love in its pure form is purity itself. You can't see love. Unconditional love is not visible in and of itself. It is empty, it is kuu. But it becomes visible when it becomes form in some way, just like the light that you see by. You don't see the light, but you do see the light when the light is split up into its parts, then it becomes a rainbow. Then you can see it, it becomes tangible, visible, experienceable in some way. And so kuu, emptiness, needs shiki in order to be experienced. If there is no shiki, no rupa, no form, then there is also none of the other skandhas. So there is no experiencing. Nothing happens in life. Shiki, colour - if we say a person has a colourful life we mean that a lot happens. And a lot does happen in life, life is colourful. So Kuu, emptiness, which is the essence of love, needs something tangible, coloured, in order to be visible, expressed, touching, and so on.
If I give somebody a box of chocolates, it’s not the chocolates that matter really, it's the love. The love in and of itself is not visible. It needs the chocolates. The chocolates are necessary for the love to become visible. It's the same with this podcast. My love for you needs some expression of some kind, so I send you this podcast. The contents of the podcast, the ideas in the podcast might be interesting but the essential thing is that you get the message that I care about you enough to send you the podcast. So the podcast is my love for you.
It’s the same with everything of this kind. We live in the sky which is love but we walk on the ground which is form. And the two need each other. You can only express love through form. This is what all Buddhas rely upon, this is the fundamental. Without shiki there is no life, no birth, no aging, no disease, no death. To rely upon this is the great protection of the mind, the protection of the heart. It is the great mantra in that sense. Mantra means protector of the heart. So this is the meaning of the heart sutra. This is my complete commentary on the Heart Sutra in five minutes.
Thank you very much
Namo Amida Bu
Dharmavidya
David
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