Heart Sutra, Part One

When Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, was practicing the deepest wisdom, he clearly saw that the five aggregates are empty thus transcending distress and suffering.

Kannon, Avalokiteshvara, Kuan yin: all are names for the personification of compassion. This is the aspect of being that listens to the cries of the universe and replies with him or her self. We just don’t sit there; we are compelled to act to relieve the suffering of others. This is a key principle of Zen.

Even Bodhisattvas, awakened beings, practice zazen. This sutra teaches us that when they practice deeply and as they see into the essence of existence they see a single truth: all existence lacks a permanent foundation. All is one and all is process. Constantly changing, constantly moving.

As human beings we often miss this because of our perspective. We are often in a mental world, a dualistic world, a time-focused and time obsessed world. Self and other appear different, separate, yet, shift the perspective, change the paradigm, and there it is, revealed to us, our true nature.

If we were oak trees, our lifespan would be a very long event relative to that of a human being. Yet, even so, we would each still be born, grow, and die. Nothing remains forever.

To practice the deepest wisdom is to live the deepest wisdom, not just think it or even be aware of it or awake to it. The “deepest wisdom” must be us, revealed through the oneness of our actions. In doing so, we “transcend” suffering.

This is to say we still experience pain, of course, but we take care of the pain as it is and as it arises. If I cut my finger; I take care of the cut. My dog is hurt; I take care of my dog. I break a glass; I sweep it up. Nothing special, this is just the seamless activity of living and dying.

So each of the basic elements that comprise our human life: form, feeling, thought, impulse, and consciousness are also without an independent self-existence. They are “empty.” To realize this in our lives is to relieve our suffering in the deepest sense. Form comes and goes, as do feelings, as do thoughts, and so on. None of these exist independently of each other, each must have each other in order to arise and when the conditions for their existence are no longer there, they release, making room for others to arise. For us to become invested in maintaining a thought or a feeling or even our lives beyond our natural life spans or independent of each other is a sort of greed, certainly folly, and always results in suffering.