The Heart Sutra Explained

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.

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.

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.

Heart of Wisdom is based on an oral commentary to the Essence of Wisdom Sutra (the Heart Sutra), which was given by the author at Manjushri Mahayana buddhist Centre in England. The Heart Sutra, one of the best known and most popular of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, contains the essence of Buddha`s teachings on emptiness and the methods to develop the wisdom that understands this ultimate reality. In this highly acclaimed explanation of the Sutra, Geshe Kelsang reveals its explicit and implicit meanings with both clarity and authority, and relates them to the five Mahayana paths that lead to full enlightenment. Seen in modern light, Buddha had been able to perceive, even see the vast spatial distances between atoms and between sub-atomic particles filled with electrons and even sub-eletrons in a state of high vibration. This atomic condition corresponds to a similar pattern in the brains of living beings and to interstellar and interplanetary gaps. The subject of emptiness as the author explains deals with perceptions leading to concept of formation and creation of a world of sense ideas which is merely a random arranging of material resources in an otherwise empty space filled with vibrations of these very particles. This is a rather difficult subject handled facilely by the author.

The Heart Sutra is perhaps the most famous Buddhist text, traditionally regarded as a potent expression of emptiness and of the Buddha's perfect wisdom. This brief, seemingly simple work was the subject of more commentaries in Asia than any other sutra. In Elaborations on Emptiness, Donald Lopez explores for the first time the elaborate philosophical and ritual uses of the Heart Sutra in India, Tibet, and the West. Included here are full translations of the eight extant Indian commentaries. Interspersed with the translations are six essays that examine the unusual roles the Heart Sutra has played: it has been used as a mantra, an exorcism text, a tantric meditation guide, and as the material for comparative philosophy. Taken together, the translations and essays that form Elaborations on Emptiness demonstrate why commentary is as central to modern scholarship on Buddhism as it was for ancient Buddhists. Lopez reveals unexpected points of instability and contradiction in the Heart Sutra, which, in the end, turns out to be the most malleable of texts, where the logic of commentary serves as a tool of both tradition and transgression.

Winner of the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation The most influential Buddhist sutra in the Mahayana tradition, from one of the world’s preeminent translators of religious texts The Heart Sutra is Buddhism in a nutshell. It has had the most profound and wide–reaching influence of any text in Buddhism. This short text covers more of the Buddha’s teachings than any other scripture, and it does so without being superficial or hurried. Although the original author is unknown, he was clearly someone with a deep realization of the Dharma. For this new English translation, Red Pine, award–winning translator of Chinese poetry and religious texts, has utilized various Sanskrit and Chinese versions, refining the teachings of dozens of ancient teachers together with his own commentary to offer a profound word–for–word explication. Divided into four parts and broken into thirty–five lines to make it easier to study or chant, and containing a glossary of names, terms, and texts, The Heart Sutra is a wise book of deep teaching destined to become the standard edition of this timeless statement of Mahayana truth.

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.