THE HEART SUTRA

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THE HEART SUTRA

For many years I recited the Hanya Shin Gyo, the so-called Heart Sutra, in Japanese, as I was expected to do in the Zen temples in Japan, where I was training, while doing doctoral research at Kyoto University.  I frequently complained to my Zen teachers that I wanted to be able to put this sacred text into my own language.  They always told me to go ahead and do it.  So I tried.  At the UChicago and the UWashington I sought the help of Sanskrit scholars.  We agreed that   every one of our explanations of the text's meaning seemed insufficient. It would remain the enigma it is today (even after I later came to my own feeble interpretation.)

Subsequently, I toyed unsuccessfully with the rhythm of the Sanskrit text, trying to put it into the same cadence that the scripture is chanted in throughout Asia. I assumed then as now that the Heart was chanted in Sanskrit and Pali in all Mahayana Buddhist temples at one time. But I never came up with an exact rhythmic match between the Sanskrit and other Asian languages. However, I found the exact same number of syllables in the Heart Sutra chant in Japan, Korea, China, and Tibet. I wondered how that came about.

Koreans and Japanese took their written languages from China, so naturally their version of the Heart Sutra is the same in cadence. Their transcription of the Heart Sutra is written character-for-character in Chinese.  Only their pronunciation of each character is different, while the number of syllables in their recitations of the Heart is the same.  But Tibet surprised me. Its language is totally different, but the monks seem to have used the 7th-century Chinese version of the Heart Sutra and adjusted each character's sound to Tibetan pronunciation, just as the Chinese and Japanese did.  

This was proved to me by personal experience.  On my first trip to Lhasa I followed the voice of a child monk who was chanting by himself in one of the rooms of the Johkang.  At first I just watched him secretly.  He had his eyes closed. Softly I joined my voice to his chant, using the Japanese sounds of "Hanya Shin Gyo" that I knew so well.  His sounds were Tibetan, mine were Japanese, but the number of syllables and the rhythm were the same.  Towards the end, at the "Gyate, gyate..." section, he opened his eyes and looked directly at me. We finished the chant together, at the same time, and smiled at each other. He was about twelve, I reckon, and I could communicate with him only by writing notes in Chinese, the language the government required all Tibetan children to learn, rather than their own. 

On page 11 of a 1985 edition of a sutra book I first compiled in 1970 for Zen students in the Seattle Zen Center (which later became the Temple of the Virtuous Rock, Tokugan-ji), the Heart Sutra appears in Romanized Japanese pronunciation. Students recited that version of the Heart every time they participated in any of the Center's activities. On the next page of the sutra book they could read my short explanation of the Heart Sutra's background and a tentative English translation of the text itself. This is what I wrote:

The Heart Sutra is a verbal description of the enlightened state of consciousness.  It was given by the Great Bodhisattva of Mercy, Avalokiteshvara [C. Guanyin, J. Kannon, etc.], who literally is the Regarder of the Cries of the Universe, whose mercy and compassion is inexhaustible.  His (or if you prefer, her) description of enlightenment comes at the end of the scripture on Perfect Transcendental Wisdom, the Prajna Paramita-sutra, while the historical Buddha Shakymuni, surrounded by his disciples, sat in deep meditation on Vulture Peak near Rajgir, in northern India. While watching the seated Buddha, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara experienced his most profound understanding of transcendental wisdom.  Shariputra, the most intelligent disciple, witnessing his two teachers reach such depths of wordless understanding, begins the Heart Sutra by asking the unanswerable question that the disciples asked constantly about the nature of full perception: "What is it like to achieve such transcendent wisdom?"  The verbal exchange between Avalokiteshvara and Shariputra, beginning with the latter's urgent question and followed by the Bodhisattva's answer, has been regarded, even by the Lord Shakyamuni himself, as the best possible example of a student and teacher exchange. It goes like this, in the body of the scripture itself:

Shariputra:  "Lord Avalokiteshvara, how can students achieve such enlightenment?"

Avalokiteshvara:  "Shariputra, all students must see the natural thusness or emptiness of all phenomena.  Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; emptiness is not apart from form, form is not apart from emptiness.  Feeling, perceiving, even consciousness itself, is empty.  All conditions of being [dharmas] are empty of self and have no characteristics.  The Buddha-Mind is unborn and undying; it is not impure or pure, it neither grows nor shrinks.  Thus there is no form, no feeling, no sight, no thought; no eye, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no sensation, no ideas; nor is there any such thing as hearing well or poorly, or of being wise or stupid; there is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no ending of suffering, or way to end suffering; there is no wisdom, attainment, or nonattainment.  Buddhas and Boddhisattvas awaken through transcendental wisdom.  Gone! Gone! Here, Fully Awake!  This, Oh Sariputra, is how we should live."

What I did not say at the time, when dealing with students' complaints that they didn't find the words "empty" and "emptiness" or even "selflessness" very satisfying, is what I really believe.  And that is, that part of me really misses form and self when I think they are gone.  To feel better, I find myself reassuring myself that any self or form by itself, even mine, will feel better if it agrees to accept all selves and forms as my own. I'll try to continue this Blessed Assurance as long as I live. I like to think of it as the thusness of things, or as the modern Japanese phrase "sono-mama" puts it so sweetly, Just As I Am.

Pentecost, Nembutsu & Zen

 

There's an old hymn, "The Holy Spirit," that some Christian Protestants sing on Pentecost Sunday. That day this year, in 2017, was just a little earlier this month, on June 3rd.  My wife and I were in the audience that morning at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, CA. The hymn is not great music, but it has some powerful lyrics.  For example: "[The Holy Spirit will remain with us] ... till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes ... and far surpasses the power of human telling." Old-fashioned English.  But it's message is about true transcendence of death, and way beyond that.    

The word "Pentecost" is derived from the Greek word for "fifty".  As a kid growing up in a Christian family, I understood that the first Pentecost Sunday marked the very moment, some two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, fifty days after Easter (i.e., after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus), that Christianity as a religion was born.  Pentecost is all about the Holy Spirit showing itself as "flames of fire" and "roaring wind" to Jesus' mother and brothers, his twelve apostles, and to a motley crew of about a hundred Jews and non-Jews. The New Testament says this frightening form of the Holy Spirit actually sat on the heads of this group of first Christians around 9 o'clock that morning, and made them seem like they were crazy drunk.  (It apparently created more chaos than Trump's first fifty days.)

In any case, the old "Holy Spirit" hymn is about the Holy Spirit that is still alive today. Christians who sing it believe that despite how illogical any description of the Holy Spirit may be, its power will benefit them even after death. They feel sure they will be transformed after they die into something better than they were when they were alive. Now, I don't know about you, but this sounds similar to the recitation of Amida's name in Pure Land Buddhism.  Jodo Shu Nembutsu seems to work in ways similar to the Christian Holy Spirit. I believe they both promise a true transcendence of death. 

At St. Margaret's on Pentecost, earlier this month, the hymn was sung at the close of the service.  Before that, scriptures were read and other hymns were sung, the celebration of Christ's body and blood was shared, and the Rector offered a short sermon about how the Holy Spirit works.  He said something to the effect that "the Holy Spirit can only blow into us if we open the window of our hearts."  That sounded good.  Everyone agreed.  But then he said, "However, another window has to be open in order for the roaring wind to blow out of us."  You could almost hear the audience muttering, "What the hell is he talking about?" He went on to explain that people at Pentecost became caretakers of the miraculous power that Jesus gave to human beings.  We have been in charge of how we live our lives ever since. We have the power to do good things with that power. The spirit of Christ will enter us if we let it.  But we have to let it go to others if we expect it to be of any use at all.  Letting it out helps us truly respect our families and others as the precious beings they are. We then see clearly that we are them.

I was born in 1935, one year before Rev. Reikai Nozaki started the Jodo Shu  ministry in America. My life took a direction that most Americans did not take.  It wasn't planned, but I turned out to be a specialist in East Asian cultural history.  Japan, especially, has been a great teacher for the Webb family.  The Christian narrative of our childhoods, with its long history of great music and art, is still very much part of who we are. But my study in college of the art and religions of the world, and especially my study of Japanese history and art, brought Buddhism very close and made it personal.  

My three major professors at Kyoto University insisted that I train in Zen temples while continuing my studies.  (Ironically, those great teachers all came from Pure Land backgrounds.)  The practice of zazen for fifty years has opened my window to a slightly different window.  But it, too, has an adjoining window to the world. Rev. Atone and Rev. Tanaka have helped me keep that window open. There's still plenty of wind blowing through my windows before that final transcendent death. Let's make sure all of us have our windows open, and show our children the value of keeping theirs open, too.

(Transcript of lecture prepared for the 80th Anniversary Celebration of the Jodo Shu Ministry in North America, Los Angeles, CA, in June 2017.)