Exploring The Heart Sutra

Exploring the Heart Sutra offers readers an interdisciplinary philosophical approach to this much-loved Buddhist classic, with a new translation and commentary. Situating the Heart Sutra within a Chinese context, Sarah A. Mattice brings together voices past and present, Asian and Western, on topics from Buddhology, translation theory, feminism, religious studies, ethnography, Chinese philosophy, and more, in order to inspire readers to understand the sutra in a new light. Mattice’s argument for the importance of appreciating the Heart Sutra from a Chinese philosophical context includes a new hermeneutic paradigm for approaching composite texts; an argument for translating the text from the Chinese, rather than the Sanskrit; an extended discussion of the figure of Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion and main speaker of the Heart Sutra, as a distinctively Chinese figure; an inquiry in to the history of women’s practice, with a special focus on China; and a commentary on the text that draws on philosophical resources from Chinese Buddhist, Ruist, and Daoist traditions. Mattice presents the Heart Sutra in its depth and complexity, inviting readers to return to this classic text with fresh perspectives and new insights into its relevance for living well in the contemporary world.

Though "The Heart Sutra" is an ancient Buddhist scripture, scholars are now discovering how it offers insight into the nature of an ultimate reality perceived through intuitive wisdom. Fascinatingly, quantum physicists are increasingly discovering interesting parallels between science and the basic insights of "The Heart Sutra." In this important offering, Mu Soeng shows how the intellectual and the intuitive can begin to meet. In offering a commentary on this important piece of the world's great religious literature, "The Heart of the Universe" establishes a broad context to encounter "The Heart Sutra" on many levels -- historical, spiritual, and empirical -- each serving to interdependently illuminate the other.

Renowned for its terse declaration of the perfection of wisdom, the Heart Sutra is the most famous of Buddhist scriptures. The author draws on previously unexamined commentaries, preserved only in Tibetan, to investigate the meanings derived from and invested into the sutra during the later period of Indian Buddhism. The Heart Sutra Explained offers new insights on "form is emptiness, emptiness is form," on the mantra "gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha," and on the synthesis of Madhyamika, Yogacara, and tantric thought that characterized the final period of Buddhism in India. It also includes complete translations of two nineteenth century Tibetan commentaries demonstrating the selective appropriation of Indian sources.

Collects teachings as presented by the Dalai Lama in 2001 to more than eight thousand attendees, addressing such topics as the nature of emptiness and selflessness while providing background information on Buddhism and additional commentary. Reprint.

A guide to the famous Heart Sūtra that reveals the tenderness and compassion underlying the striking rhetoric of this popular Buddhist text The radical message of the Heart Sūtra, one of Buddhism’s most famous texts, is a sweeping attack on everything we hold most dear: our troubles, the world as we know it, even the teachings of the Buddha himself. Several of the Buddha’s followers are said to have suffered heart attacks and died when they first heard its assertion of the basic groundlessness of our existence—hence the title of this book. Overcoming fear, the Buddha teaches, is not to be accomplished by shutting down or building walls around oneself, but instead by opening up to understand the illusory nature of everything we fear—including ourselves. In this book of teachings, Karl Brunnhölzl guides practitioners through this ‘crazy’ sutra to the wisdom and compassion that lie at its core.

Penetrates right to the very heart of the Buddhist message and explores the essential teachings of the Buddha.

A pocket-sized presentation of the 3 most venerated sutras of Zen Buddhism—the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, and Platform Sutra—from a legendary practitioner and translator of Buddhist teachings Three classic Buddhist sutras, often linked to form a trio of texts that have been revered and studied for centuries, are now available together in this single volume. Red Pine, whose acclaimed translations these particular Buddhist texts are considered canon, provides a sensitive and assured treatment of the classic triumvirate in a gift-sized volume, perfect for sharing with anyone seeking guidance and peace. The Heart Sutra, with its profound and wide-reaching influence on Buddhism, offers the Prajnaparamita teaching of emptiness. The Diamond Sutra, said to contain answers to all questions of delusion and dualism, outlines the bodhisattva path followed by the Buddha. The Platform Sutra is an autobiography of Hui-neng, the controversial 6th Patriarch of Zen. His understanding of the fundamentals of a spiritual and practical life has served as the introduction to the teachings of Zen that students have been putting into practice for the past 1300 years. In addition to new translations of all three texts, Red Pine has included an introduction that ties all three together and just enough footnotes to explain what needs explaining but not enough to get in the way.