The heart-shaped leaves of wisdom

Kalyani and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

(Gabrielgs/flickr.com)

The wisdom tree in Buddhism is the Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa), a kind of fig tree with broad heart-shaped leaves.

Each Buddha in past aeons -- as recounted by the historical Buddha Gautama -- had a kind of tree under which enlightenment was gained. The Sage of Shakya Clan (Shakyamuni) selected the pipal tree to sit under in his final struggle with obstacles, personified as Mara.

In the herbalists' Doctrine of Signatures, a now defunct way of understanding the plant world, foods reveal themselves by similarity to human organs. Carrots look like an eye when sliced, tomatoes red and four-chambered are good for the heart, figs dangling and full of seeds are good for men's health, pomegranates for women's health, and so on.

(Emily Hoang/EHoang/flickriver.com)

 
What was the Bodhi (enlightenment) tree saying by way of signature? The leaves dangled soft and forgiving in front of Siddhartha who sat rigid and determined under the tree. Then he softened. He did an about face and chose the path of serene-absorption (jhana, samma samadhi), the path of bliss.

He had been afraid of pleasure but then reasoned, What is wrong with joy (piti) dissociated from sensual indulgence; why fear such happiness? In this way he entered "absorption," just as he had spontaneously done as a 7-year-old child. He intuitively sensed that this was the way to enlightenment.

He emerged and set up the four "foundations" of mindfulness: body, feelings, consciousness [which emanates from the actual heart area], and phenomena. The various meditative absorptions had purified his heart/mind, intensifying his ability to penetrate to the truth. He followed the links of Dependent Origination pursuing a question that had motivated him for seven years:

"What is the cause of suffering?" He directly saw that whatever was arose dependent on supporting conditions. Following each link back he arrived at ignorance in past lives. He remembered those uncountable existences. he gained supernormal powers. He glimpsed nirvana.

With this insight he experienced a "change of lineage." He went from ordinary human being -- virtuous but flawed, corrupted by greed, hatred/fear, and delusion. He stepped out of the dream (maya, illusion) into the "awakened" state (bodhi). He took the stages of insight to the very end of all suffering.

The way is in the heart; look for it there (zazzle.com)

He became a samma sam buddha, a fully-enlightened teacher able to formulate and teach the path to humans and devas. How? His wisdom did not neglect the heart, compassion for others, loving-kindness, empathy, unbiased-equanimity. The marriage of wisdom and compassion is the path to awakening.

And what is the most famous Buddhist mantra and sutra? The epitome of the Heart Sutra, which is actually called the Heart of Wisdom Sutra (Prajna Paramita).  The Heart of Buddhist Meditation should have been a clue that Theravada feels the same as Mahayana in this regard. Wisdom and compassion are equally important.

The mantra epitomizing the 10,000 lines of the Heart of Wisdom Sutra runs: "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, oh what an awakening, it is sealed!" 

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, swaha!

"Pentagon Papers" (new play)

J-Powers’s "Pentagon Papers" opens on the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in.

For the first time on stage, the hidden history of the US War on Vietnam that destroyed more than one president is dramatized. Pres. Nixon, for example, referred to it as "silly" and "incredible" in grand jury transcripts made public in November 2011. It eventually lead to his resignation.

• Now playing at the Santa Monica Playhouse

Powers’s new play presents key passages from the recently declassified Pentagon Papers revealing the shocking secrets that led tricky Dick Nixon to create a team of Watergate burglars that eventually led to the destruction of his presidency.

“The truth will set you free,” said Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon's secrets. He risked everything, including his freedom, to expose this classified information. Unlike previous works on the subject that explore the courtroom effort regarding the right to publish them, "Pentagon Papers" dramatizes the actual secret history of America's involvement in Vietnam.

Performed by a cast of young actors, the production aims to inspire a new generation of Americans to demand honesty and transparency from US leaders. "Pentagon Papers" is presented in association with Vietnam Veterans of America, with production supported in part by a CCI ARC grant.

Gate II: Transformational Conference (Feb. 4)

GateCommunity.org

GATE (Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment) is a pioneering organization shepherding the emerging and rapidly expanding transformational entertainment and media genre and worldwide movement. The GATE 2 Conference is an evening celebration of transformational entertainment and media, Feb. 4, 2012. It will feature stellar presenters and performers -- Eckhart Tolle, Jim Carrey, Jean Houston, Don Miguel Ruiz, Marianne Williamson, and many others. The evening will provide inspiration to attendees to sharing the energies of their personal transformation. More

• The Aware Show.com
  

Regular $395, before Jan. 11, 2012 $295. For exclusive discount of 5%, contact John@gatecommunity.org. The 5% group discount is normally only available on a purchase of 10 or more tickets. Email GATE Executive Director Wendy Newman (wendy@gatecommunity.org). A limited number of Student Discounts of 50% is available for GATE 2 and the GATE Transformational Story Conference for full time students at an accredited educational institution. Email wendy@gatecommunity.org. Must provide a current, valid student ID.

Heart of Wisdom: Khema or Kwan Yin?

Wisdom Quarterly; new Mu Soeng (BCBS) translation. This analysis made possible by the efforts of Roshi Albrizze (PasaDharma Zen) who adopted this text, Thursdays at 7:00 pm.

The Heart of the Universe: Exploring the Heart Sutra (Read portions at: Tradebit.com)

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva [Kwan Yin],

Doing deep prajna paramita [perfection of wisdom],

Clearly saw emptiness of all the five conditions,

Thus completely relieving misfortune and pain,

O Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness,

Emptiness no other than form;

Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form;

Sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness

Are likewise like this.

Kwan Yin, 1000-armed Avalokiteshvara, Chenrezig (buddhasai.com)

O Shariputra, all dharmas are forms of emptiness,

Not born, not destroyed; not stained, not pure

Without loss, without gain;

So in emptiness there is no form,

No sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness;

No eye, ear, tongue, body, mind;

No color, sound, smell, taste, touch, phenomena;

No realm of sight...no realm of consciousness;

No ignorance and no end to ignorance...

No old age and death, and no end to old age and death;

No suffering, no cause of suffering,

No extinguishing, no path;

No wisdom and no gain.

No gain and thus the bodhisattva lives prajna paramita

With no hindrance in the mind,

No hindrance, therefore no fear,

Far beyond deluded thoughts, this is nirvana.

All past, present, and future Buddhas live prajna paramita

And therefore attain anuttara-samyak-sambodhi [enlightenment].

Therefore know, prajna paramita is the great mantra,

The vivid mantra, the best mantra,

The unsurpassable mantra;

It completely clears all pain; this is the truth, not a lie.

So set forth the prajna paramita mantra,

Set forth this mantra and say:

Gate! Gate! Paragate!

Parasamgate! Bodhi Svaha!

Prajna Heart Sutra.

Queen Khema listening to the Buddha's enlightening sermon. To cure her of vanity, he created a more beautiful woman then sped her through the aging process, which doubly shocked Khema allowing her to become detached and gain transcendent liberating-wisdom.

Heart of Wisdom: Khema or Kwan Yin?

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

As traditionally recounted, the Heart Sutra is set on Vulture Peak (one of seven hills that ring the city of Rajgir in India, which has never seen an actual vulture but has rocks that in certain light can look like vultures). This famous Buddhist city was the capital of Magadha, the country where the Buddha lived. This is where his beautiful chief female disciple foremost in wisdom, Khema, co-wife of King Bimbisara, was queen before becoming one of the earliest Buddhist nuns.

This later sutra created by the Mahayana tradition is, according to Mu Soeng (a scholar at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies trained as a monk for 11 years in Korean Zen Buddhism), the only text in the vast Perfection of Wisdom literature in which Avalokiteshvara ("the bodhisattva who looks down from on high") appears. Avalokita is a form of Kwan Yin -- and we speculate an echo of Khema, whose wisdom rivaled that of Sariputra, the Buddha's chief male disciple foremost in wisdom.

The appearance of Kwan Yin indicates that this sutra was a relatively late creation, a time when Mu Soeng points out, the sect (some might say cult) of Kwan Yin, the "bodhisattva of compassion," had become well established.

Kwan Yin has many names: Avalokita and Avalokiteshvara in India, Kuan Yin or Guanyin in China, Kannon or Kanzeon in Japan, Kwan Se Um in Korea, and Chenrezig in Tibet. She is first mentioned in the 24th chapter of Mahayana's Lotus Sutra that served as the basis for later Pure Land Buddhism's sutras.

In Sanskrit ava means "looking down" or "beholding," loka is "the world," lokita the "world's doings," ishvara is svara "sound." Mu Soeng concludes that she (although often also conceived of as male) is "the lord who beholds the doings of the phenomenal world and hears its cries with compassion."

This compassion leads her to help, and she is often called on. A common Indian motif to indicate this is showing a thousand arms (not literally 1,000 as it is often taken but rather "a large number") with an eye in each palm to skillfully offer help. In India this figure was male and became female as Mahayana Buddhism spread and developed in North and East Asia. Such was the division of masculine and feminine concepts, with compassion being decidedly feminine. Of course, both qualities and polarities are in each individual.

Mu Soeng is the author most recently of Trust In Mind: The Rebellion of Chinese Zen. He traces Mahayana Buddhism's evolution in medieval China using a Taoist model, which emphasizes harmony between the pole energies of yin and yang. The first is soft, yielding, receptive, and nurturing, the second hard, energetic, proactive, and unyielding. Kwan Yin (and Khema, too) is beloved for not only being very wise but for marrying that wisdom to compassion.

That balance was important to the later Mahayana Buddhism that saw original Buddhism as perhaps emphasizing wisdom too much. This extraordinary emphasis could distort the Buddha's teaching, which was always about compassion and nonharming (ahimsa). To make sure both aspects were developed, compassion was raised to being just as important as liberating wisdom. After all, ignorance is not the only problem in the world. Greed and hate are also sources of great suffering that can be corrected right away until mindfulness and enlightenment uproot ignorance.

The highest wisdom -- the factor that allows entrance into the gate of liberation without which such entrance is impossible -- is anatta, "not-self," called "emptiness." One is able to become a stream enterer, the first stage of enlightenment and liberation, because one has penetrated this profound teaching with insight. In brief, it means understanding that Five Conditions

1. form
2. sensation
3. conception
4. discrimination
5. consciousness

although they comprise what we call the individual "being" are, in fact, devoid of an abiding self.

Because this is so profound and counterintuitive a truth, it is not debated or the subject of elaborate reasoning (although such debate and reasoning is given in Theravada Buddhism). It is to be realized.

The means of realization is practice. The practice in particular are the levels of zen (jhana, dhyana, ch'an, samten, seon, thien) serenity culminating in insight-meditation. The key is Dependent Origination, which is not a philosophy to explain existence but a practice to discover the origin of suffering.

The weak link in dependently-arisen phenomena -- particularly that of the psychophysical "being" -- is craving (tanha, desire, "thirst"). It is our means of escape.

The Heart Sutra is not so much about heart (compassion) if one reads carefully, but it is all about transcendent wisdom. The wise monk Sariputra, "Marshal of the Dharma," is schooled by the caring Kwan Yin/Khema. For there is no wisdom without compassion, only cunning. And compassion devoid of wisdom is feeble fawning. Both are necessary, preferably in equal measure.

Compassion fit much better with the folk heritage of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, (and Western) traditions that are traditionally about seeking help from religion not so much wisdom, as was emphasized in India.

If Sariputra represents the dry, scholastic approach decisive in early Buddhism, a wisdom (prajna, panna, vipassana) tradition, Khema and later Kwan Yin represent a balance. For one who sees "emptiness" (shunyata or the impersonal nature of phenomena), logic, debate, or psychology take a back seat to caring and relieving the suffering of others.

Of course, both Sariputra and Khema were very instrumental in helping the Buddha establish the Dharma in the world -- the ultimate compassion of actually establishing an enduring means to permanently lead people out of suffering. They were titular heads of the self-governing Bhikkhu and Bhikkuni Sanghas (Monk and Nun Monastic Orders).

What became of history's Khema?

Khema seems all but forgotten or reduced to a footnote in early Theravada Buddhism. But it is clear that in her day she was the equal of Sariputra. Such is the strength of ingrained patriarchy in Indian and other societies that even the Buddha could not fully overcome it.

But equality will not overthrown for patriarchy, so Mahayana (later Buddhism) resurrected the feminine ideal until Kwan Yin is almost all one hears about, far beating out any mention of the historical Buddha.

The parallel to Christianity is striking because women (the Marys, particularly the leader's wife Magdalene) played a pivotal role in the formation of the tradition, then were excluded from taking any credit (and condensed into a sort of catchall Biblical Mary), only to be resurrected in a Kwan Yin (Vir Gin) form that overshadows Christ and even God.

The largest religion in the world today is Catholicism. And the most important figure in it is the Mother Goddess in the guise of the Mother of God. Welcome back, Khema (possibly the original inspiration for Gnostic stories about an important "Mary" from Magdala/Magadha?)

This would just another in a string of astonishing Buddhist parallels from its currently more popular sister religion, Christianity.

• Buddha, the Feminist (buddhistchannel.tv)

Heart (of Wisdom) Sutra

Dharmachari Seven


Materiality, "form," is empty, that is, utterly "devoid of self." (Photo: vox.com)

Gate, gate

Paragate

Parasamgate

Bodhi, svaha!*

All hail the perfection of wisdom!

Avalokiteśvara the bodhisattva was coursing through the wisdom that is gone and is going beyond. Looking down from on high, he beheld but Five Aggregates. And he perceived that in their own nature they were empty, without a being.

Herein, O Sariputra, form is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form. Emptiness does not differ from form; form does not differ from emptiness. Whatever is form, that is emptiness (without self). Whatever is emptiness, that is form. The same is true of sensation, perception, will-formation, and consciousness.

O Sariptura, herein, all phenomena are marked by emptiness. They are neither produced nor stopped, neither defiled nor pure, neither wanting nor satisfying.

Therefore, O Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor sensation, nor perception, nor will-formation, nor consciousness. There is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. There are no sights, sounds, fragrances, tastes, tangibles, nor mind-objects. There is no sight-organ element...no mind-consciousness element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance...no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is neither suffering, nor origination, no stopping, nor path. There is no cognition, no attainment, and no non-attainment.

.

O Sariputra, it is because of one's non-struggling that a bodhisattva, having relied on the perfection of wisdom, abides without discursive conceptualizations, in the absence of which one ceases to tremble, having overcome all that can upset, and so attains nirvana.

All those awakening as fully enlightened beings in the past, present, and future come to this ultimate knowledge, perfectly realized, having relied on the perfection of wisdom.

Therefore, the Perfection of Wisdom Mantra should be recognized as the great sacred sound, the mantra of great knowledge, the ultimate mantra, the unparalleled mantra, the allayer of all suffering. By the perfection of wisdom has this mantra been realized:

*Gone-and-going, gone and going

Gone-and-going beyond

Gone-and-going altogether beyond

O what an awakening, so be it!