The Heart Sutra

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Buddha preaching Abhidhamma in Tavatimsa’ – Wikimedia Commons

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प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय

心經

བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ

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There is a text that came from the dawn of ages, whose author is unknown, but which has been widely accepted, practised, and chanted in Mahāyāna Buddhism as a condensed exposé of the teaching of Buddha. Although known and praised as the ‘Heart Sutra’, its original Sanskrit name translates as ‘The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom’. If the Sutra’s main teaching asserts that all phenomena is ‘Śūnyatā’, a term widely translated as emptiness, its wide implications extend to many other aspects in the understanding of our true nature. Originally translated in Chinese by a 9th century Buddhist monk called Prajñā, the text exists in a shorter and longer version. I am sharing here the standard long version that provides an elegant and story-like context to the main teaching. I have also chosen to give to the many Sanskrit terms their original meaning or context. Following the Sutra is a short text that I wrote, some words that the text has evoked in me. I hope that this presentation will give justice to the profundity of this text, and that you will enjoy the reading.

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“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”
~ The Heart Sutra

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Discover this milestone of Buddhist literature: the ‘Heart Sutra’… (READ MORE…)

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The Great Replacement

Posted on by Alain Joly

You can always add to experience. You can always have more thoughts. Or different ones. More refined ones. Changes can always occur and always will. You can always fall down to the lowest of the lowest, and judge yourself undeserving. And that is more thoughts about yourself. You can always imagine anything. This is endless, all this activity. It will never stop. It will never reveal any truth worth of the name. It will keep going, headlessly, aimlessly, meaninglessly, like an illusion feeding on itself in order to give itself a seeming reality. Go anywhere in your objective experience, be it your feelings, your sensations, your perceptions, your body, the world out there, none of these will bring an inch of the happiness you are desperately running after. This enterprise is doomed to bankruptcy. It will leave you broke, feeble, mortal, prone to regular fits of unhappiness. It will leave you with not a penny of certainty, not a pebble of solidity, and a very little share of that life-giving energy which you are naturally entitled to. So what are we going to do now? We cannot stop thinking, feeling, perceiving, doing. We need a new comer in the picture. A special adviser. A rock of solidity in our changing sea of uncertainty. Who is going to win the game? When we have turned round and around the table for a new name, a new shareholder, another hope, another fake answer, another bout of shaking certainty, then maybe, it might dawn on us that:

The prodigal son is already at home. Everything we need is present within and without, here and there, now and then, enveloping our vey experience with its all pervading knowing. This something cannot be named, cannot be emptied of itself, and will not make the slightest effort for you. It was here all along, ignored, unnoticed, yet having the dimension of a sky, the solidity of a rock, and the certainty of something that was here before the coming of universes beyond universes. It is like discovering in yourself the wisest of gurus present at hand, in all circumstances. It is your eternal refuge waiting for you to come in. But beware now, for that unfailing refuge, that wisest of gurus, that beloved amongst the beloveds, is you. It is you, you understand? Not something to be reached. Not something far and away. You have nowhere to go, nothing to be, no time to wait for, except being your own unfailing, wise, beloved self. You are it all. Here. Now. Whatever. Whenever. Wherever. Release that old, worn out Chief Operating Officer of yours, and replace it with being. Look around now and relax. Being is all there is.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Other ‘Ways of Being’ from the blog…

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The Wisdom of Humility

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Buddha as mendicant’ (Part) – Abanindranath Tagore, 1914 – Wikimedia

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To look into and understand the meaning and implications of being truly humble, of that state of humility which we often hear about — but rarely fully understand — is a precious thing. The word ‘humble’ finds its roots in the Latin ‘humilis’ which means ‘lowly’, literally ‘on the ground’ (from ‘humus’ meaning ‘earth’). Its etymology covers both the more active aspect contained in being ‘humiliated’, or being ‘humbled’, and the one that refers to the state, or quality, of being ‘selfless’. The first one gives the primary importance to the self that we are, to this separate entity that we believe to be, and which needs to be rendered humbler, smaller, lower. But why would we want to do that? Why, if it wasn’t for our deep intuition that this self is illusory, false, and is ultimately preventing our true identity of peace and happiness to be recognised and realised? 

This inherent peace contained in just ‘being’ refers to the second aspect of the word. Being humble is being without self, without the belief of being separate from objective experience. We are not this restless entity that wants to achieve, to aggrandise itself, and needs to be rendered low. We are rather this pure being whose very nature is complete, and already, unconditionally humble. Otherwise, why would Shiva or Buddha be portrayed as a mendicant? Therefore, the solution to our chronic state of suffering and conflict does not lie in having more, or less, or better ‘self’, but in realising, and living from, this deep and already achieved peace that we are. This realisation, and the action that is born of it, is what true humility is about. This simple phrase from the Bible made it crystal clear long ago: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)

I am sharing here a few quotes that will further explore this deep and essential question:

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“In a space of humility,
no conflict is possible.”
~ Éric Baret (‘Let the Moon be Free’)

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“Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. […] If we were incapable of humility we would be incapable of joy, because humility alone can destroy the self-centeredness that makes joy impossible.”
~ Thomas Merton (‘Seeds of Contemplation’)

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Discover many more quotes on this question of humility… (READ MORE…)

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