Red Pine

I've rated this as 5⭐, but could just as easily have rated it 1, being the difference between what it probably means and what I understand of its meaning. I found it interesting while elusive, engaging while tiring.

I definitely gleaned some things from it, on an intellectual rather than a spiritual level, but as others have mentioned Red Pine's commentary is dense and certainly beyond my severely limited understanding of Buddhist thought.

However, if there's one thing I've taken from it, show more it's that the meaning of the sutra and the mantra are beyond intellectual understanding, but if I've understood this I can't have really understood it, so I seem to have got myself into something of a state of spiritual indeterminacy (I don't understand quantum physics either, but then if I said I did ...) show less

The Heart Sūtra is one of the most-studied scriptures in Zen Buddhism; while it’s one of the shortest, it’s packed with references to overloaded terms like emptiness. Red Pine unpacks a lot of the baggage, examining the original Sanskrit writings (and tracking down their variations) and creating his own translation from scratch, then going over it line by line in as much detail as needed to give the context of the words. His perspective seems generally Mahāyāna rather than show more particularly Zen.

I quite like how he’ll dig into Sanskrit etymology when he feels it’s necessary to examine the details of a verb conjugation to try and get at the original meaning intended by the unknown writer of the sūtra. He also provides the context necessary to see that the Heart Sūtra is as much an academic manifesto as it is a work of Buddhist scripture, and includes historical commentary as well as his own. (He even brings in some of the 7th century monastic infighting, which hilariously look a lot like modern academic pissing contests— I can see why Eihei Dōgen was inspired to start a back-to-basics movement!)

This is an excellent look at the scholarly underpinnings of the Heart Sūtra. It does a fairly good job of not requiring a background in academic Buddhism to understand it, though I want to grab a kyôsaku and smack a lot of these ancient scholars he quotes when they take the logical equivalent of a running broad jump with the word “thus”. show less

Six-word review: Enlightening explication of Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra.

Comments:

"Emptiness means indivisibility." (page 77)

"...ignorance includes not only the absence of knowledge but also the presence of delusion" (page 110)

When I listen to dharma talks, I often feel as if I understood everything while the teacher was speaking, and afterward I don't remember anything. I just have a recollection of some momentary passing light. This is what the teacher wants, I think: I'm not supposed to show more hoard the words, much less take notes. Still, while reading this book I didn't even feel as if I were getting whatever I wasn't getting.

Still--still. Something may have seeped through.

Here's why I love Buddhism:

"Fa-tsang says, 'Although the absolute and provisional are both submerged, their two truths are permanently present. Although emptiness and existence are both denied, their one meaning shines forever. True emptiness has never not existed, but by means of existence it is distinguished from emptiness. Illusory existence has been empty from time without beginning, but by means of emptiness it is seen as existing. Because existence is an empty existence, it does not exist. And because emptiness is an existent emptiness, it is not empty. Emptiness which is not empty, does not stop being empty. And existence which does not exist, exists but not forever.'" (pages 69-70) show less

The first foray into an unknown field of research is a challenge. Much of the time is spent searching out false leads and running into dead-ends. Up one hill only to notice several hills that follow in the distance. Promising lands up close are disappointing and barren. You are running half blind-folded and grasping at whatever possible trail you pick up. This was the feeling gathered from Bill Porter’s “Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits”. Anxious to find his quarry of show more modern mountain hermits in China; Porter’s book reads like a survey report pitched together with scraps of info from field notes and recorded conversations.

Is this sounding negative? It shouldn’t since this raw, indigestible writing agreed with me for a topic that tends towards idealization in the Western Buddhist community. “Oh! If only I could find silence and peace I could practice so much easier.” “If only I lived on some mountain, some river-side, some beach, some fucking other place.” If only I read more sutras, started younger, had the correct type of cushion, the right teacher …

In this book Chinese hermits, enigmatic as they may be, largely existed solely from the donations and support of larger monasteries or families. What was disappointing in this book was the lack of detail really spent on the lives and interviews but what information was gleamed from the wisdom of the hermits was a stark reminder that practice was practice. Taoist, Zen and Pure Land were simply labels that, when practice became organic and fluid, began to blur and blend into each other.

Q: Is Pure Land practice more appropriate for the present age?

Hsu-tung: All practices are appropriate. There’s no right or wrong dharma. It’s a matter of aptitude, your connection from past lives. Once people start practicing, they think other kinds of practice are wrong. But all practices are right. It depends on the individual as to which is appropriate. And all practices are related. They involve each other. They lead to the same end….The goal is the same. Practice is like candy. People like different kinds. But its just candy. The Dharma is empty.

__________________

Q: What sort of practice do you follow? Do you chant the name of the Buddha or meditate?

Chi-ch’eng: I just pass the time.

__________________

Te-ch’eng: I teach all sorts of odds and ends. You name it. Whatever seems to fit. A little of this, a little of that. This is what practice is all about. You can’t practice just one kind of dharma. That’s a mistake. The Dharma isn’t one-sided. You have to practice Zen. If you don’t you’ll never break through delusions. And you’ve got to practice the precepts. If you don’t, your life will be a mess. You’ve got to practice Pure Land. If you don’t, you’ll never get any help from the Buddha. You have to practice all dharmas….Its a system. All practices are related.

The wisdom of hermits isn’t austere. It is practical and rooted deeply in practice. A practice that is embedded in the Dharma but expressed in the daily working of a hard, cold and sometimes lonely life. In that way the practice of the hermits is not so far from our own practice at times. Maybe we need a tang of loneliness to view ourselves in meditation or the bite of wind to help us gasp the name of the Buddha.

Or maybe we just pass the time. show less