Fame and Polemics: Lion's Roar of the Heart Sutra

[@DougsDharma]

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[@sonamtshering194]

My understanding is that once you have truly comprehended the Heart Sutra then you see no distinction between the Shravakayana and Mahayana. You see it all as Ekayana (term present in the Lotus Sutra)

[@DougsDharma]

Yes, this is one way to consider it.

[@prajnadeva]

Trivia: Heart Sutra is very popular for recitation, especially in east asia and Tibet and so on. Because it is the shortest declaration of ultimate truth and also has a mantra. Many see this as having magical power that can do things - from exorcising ghost to remove difficulties in life, you can use it for any purpose. The most famous recorded anecdote of this was Xuanzang, who received the sutra from an old monk in China. He journeyed to India and successfully return home, bringing scriptures, thus accomplishing his goal. He attributed this to his recitation of Heart Sutra during his journey. Now a man journeyed alone with just clothes, a horse and meager possessions, travel through desert, bandits, many nations, from Chang An to Nalanda and then return home, for around 17 years. If that's not the greatest advertisement for this Sutra efficacy...

[@xiaomaozen]

Thanks, Doug, excellent as always! 😼🙏 I consider the heart sutra as a wonderful example of a performative contradiction - or a petitio principii (depends on how you see it). And I fear only Vimalakīrti (see: thundering silence) has ever presented it in a more or less coherent and consistent way... 😂😉 🐱🙏

[@finnroohomebrewing]

Awesome Doug, a lot to unpack here. Looking forward to reviewing and putting it together, Cheers.

[@willmosse3684]

Thanks Doug - excellently explained and very informative! I’m a little unsure how to take this Heart Sutra after listening to this and the preceding video 😂. I’ve left a fuller comment on the Patreon, as I’m a member now! Cheers, Will 🙏🏻

[@Shonda-following.my.heart.108]

Excellent teaching! Thank you! ❤

[@handynas6529]

My understanding of the prajnaparamita is that it is synonymous with the wisdom portion of the threefold training that categorizes the N8FP and that what is described in the heart sutra is what one experiences when they attain the perfect wisdom ie nirvana, so all the negations are the raft simile as expounded by the Buddha in the Alagaddupama Sutta. Then again I have very little understanding of the prajnaparamita school of thoughts so I might be grossly incorrect.

[@DougsDharma]

That is certainly one way to frame it.

[@rupeeking8138]

You need to feel the Heart Sutra - same as all the others. The taste of a mango eludes even the most accomplished of writers - till you taste it. 😊

[@emilromanoagramonte9190]

Well said! Are we using the wrong organ to deal with this. It is not the brain it has to be your whole self, in total practice...

[@NeilEvans-xq8ik]

Thanks for another insightful video, Doug. Maybe check out the Short Morning Service from Throssel Hole Buddhist Abbey. A beautiful rendition of the Heart Sutra, or, as they call it, 'The Scripture of Great Wisdom".

[@JimTempleman]

The Heart Sutra is written from the perspective of one who is already enlightened. Once enlightened ("in emptiness"), all of these things go away (out of awareness), and you do not to carry them with you (any more than you would carry around the raft you took to reach the other shore). Once there is no more suffering, you don't need to follow the Third Noble Truth. It doesn't negate the Third Noble Truth, or any other Dharma. It just shows you a different perspective.

[@brimmedHat]

Thank you Doug

[@MundaSquire]

So clearly explained! Thank you. Am I wrong to think that the realizatIon claimed by the distinction as put forth by the polemicists in the Mahayana Heart Sutra is already inherent in Early Buddhism? It seems to me the compassion that comes put of this understanding is the rationale (oops) for doing away with attachment in the first place. Not sure my question is clear here, but in short that the Heart Sutra and the Mahayana sense of superiority is much ado about nothing and in itself opts for form over emptiness.

[@DougsDharma]

I'm not sure I quite understand your question. But certainly, any sense of inherent superiority of a view would cut against the theme of emptiness.

[@gvbraz12]

What camera did you use?

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

💙

[@keenanarthur8381]

With a few exceptions, almost any religious group I could think of is inclined to give itself precedence over competing groups in their region. I disagree with the common view of esotericism as “hierarchical,” even though esoteric teachings can in some cases be more restricted teachings due to the potential dangers associated with their inherent transformative power. Rather I think about it more in terms of what teachings are going to be most helpful for a particular group or individual. People are often too quick to jump into esotericism on the basis of arrogance without having the training and discipline and skills to receive esoteric teachings in a beneficial way. In regards to mantra repetition, in my tradition mantras usually have to be repeated hundreds of thousands if not millions of times over many months following a strict routine and set of disciplines designed to purify the subtle elements within the sādhaka before that particular mantra is fully purified and its liberating power can be fully integrated.

[@DougsDharma]

Yes, the breadth of different approaches gives a wonderful field of options to choose from.

[@ALIEN_857]

The chanting of the Heart Sutta is said to enhance one's sensitivity to unseen beings. In other words, it might raise one's sixth sense.

[@andrewyam7938]

Having read the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra and Lotus Sutra, it seems to me that the Mahayana Sutras contain a lot of the core teachings of the early Buddhist texts but repackaged in a way that allows eternalism to creep in, in the sense that they are trying to say that one's consciousness continues eternally as either a Bodhisattva until all beings are liberated from suffering (good luck with that, or perhaps the whole point is that this is never going to happen so one continues existing eternally), or as an "original consciousness" or "original mind"or as a Buddha each with their own paradise realm where they continue teaching eternally. Of course this is just a superficial impression, along with the impression that there is a lot of polemic against the followers of the earlier Buddhist teachings (the sravakas or hinyana). In some passages this goes to the point of saying majority of the sravakas will never get enlightened because they cannot understand this teaching, and that those who disparage or argue against these sutras are condemned to hell realms for a very long time, something the Buddha in early texts never did. But then in the lotus sutra there is some attempt at reconciliation by saying that there is really only one vehicle and that hinayana and Mahayana are both just skillful means to get people out of the burning house. Oh well, I guess as the Mahayana schools say, there are 84000 dharma doors to liberation. These sutras may be the best way for some, and the EBTs for others.

[@Chase_Istre]

The Perfection of Wisdom of 8000 Lines seems to be, at least in part, one of the oldest Buddhist manuscripts, surpassing even the Pali texts in its early dating (that is if going by manuscript evidence alone). It is a Prajnaparamita text dating to 2nd or 1st century BCE. Is the situation somewhat the same as for the Heart Sutra, that is to say is it a sort of text compiled to make a point against another school of thought-a doctrinal rhetoric? Or is it a text of its own, clear from some taint of doctrine?

[@oldstudent2587]

I have some problems with this. in 'early tantra,' if that's a permissible phrase, svabhava is very definitely 'self-generated' or 'self-created', and the argument against it is basically against the origin myths of the brahmins (in fact, this is expressed in thangkas by bodhisattvas holding the severed head of Brahma). Also, in early tantra, the three 'schools' or rafts or whatever, existed in the domain of a single teacher, and were taught to different students per the student's needs and predilections. Prajnaparamita and Avitamsaka both have very early roots, with physical copies of parts of each archaeologically dating to 1c. BCE. Tantra itself dates to 4c CE, at its very earliest and more prolific 7c-8c. The lesser and greater in mahayana refer to whether one individually transcends or takes the 'bodhisattva's vow' to not do so until all sentient beings can do so. I know that isn't what you study, but I don't see the heart sutra as a polemic against other sects. The 'polemic' in both Prajnaparamita and Tantra is about efficiency to achieve enlightenment. That became a goal after ossification of the Buddhist 'church' into a temporal power put that enlightenment further and further into the future of the passage through samsara for the unprivileged and always out of reach in a single lifetime.

[@DougsDharma]

What are we to do with the trope of ignorant Śāriputra?

[@oldstudent2587]

@@DougsDharma I honestly don't know. I wasn't aware that the phrase 'ignorant Sariputra' was in the sutra.

[@ClearMountainWay]

Regarding the Avalokiteshvara/Shariputra dynamics (the polemics) in the Heart Sutra: I always felt these polemics weakened the entire presentation of the sutra. Same with the Vimalikirti Sutra. A person of such enlightenment spends his/her/its time with egoic postering? Casually "roaring" one of the ten fetters? Really?

[@kevinj2525]

Some see only separation and differences. That's nothing new.

[@saralamuni]

The Lion's Roar is not holding to fixed views.

[@oumbronauta]

Buddhism is a form of yoga, Doug. To understand it, you need to go subjective. This struggle is like a wrestling match between the philosopher and the yogi inside you

[@DougsDharma]

No struggle here, actually! 😄

[@oumbronauta]

@DougsDharma yoga fire!

[@pearlyung]

Attachment is the cause of suffering, so I won't attach to even the teachings of historical Buddhism

[@radoskan]

That's the point… there is no "change" and there are no "four noble truths". It's all just made up. That's not to say it can't be useful for our troubled made up minds and world. That's the whole point for me. The imperative is: stop thinking about those unnecessary philosophical stuff, there is ultimately no ultimate truth, and move on to 1) do skillful stuff, 2) not do unskillful stuff. Since there is also no objective benchmark of skillful, let's define it: where there is dukkha, it's not skillful. Where dukkha gets less, that's skillful. That's basically the law of kamma. And then it's just trial and error. That's why the Buddhadhamma is conceptually soooo super simple but practically super hard - because it's just an ability, not knowing. That's why all of the Buddhadhamma is just made up and ultimately not sensible. It's just a raft. For me, all those explanations are the same thing. It's just that the Abidharma schools try to find some "ultimate truth" in some dharmas. Like why? What the fuck for?