Heart Sutra

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Comment by patrick winata on November 28, 2009 at 12:20pm

Thanks Andy,
I have searched for 19 years for a better English word for sunyata or empty, emptiness, void etc without success.
Changing is the most direct and important part of sunyata as I understand it. Please try it and let our friends try it and see how easy to understand the subtle Heart Sutra without going into lots and lots of jargons and details , which unfortunately will further blur the view and meaning of the Universal nature of all things = ever changing .
Thanks for your comment and interest.
Patrick .

Comment by Ken McLeod on November 28, 2009 at 12:09pm

Many people have queried the translation of sunyata as emptiness. Given the level of resistance to the translation, it probably is a perfect translation. By some miracle, it causes as much trouble in English and is does in Tibetan, and undoubtedly did in Sanskrit. It works because it doesn't give you anything to hold on to. Most of the proposed alternatives reflect, to one degree or another, an attempt to hold onto something.

Comment by Andy McLellan on November 28, 2009 at 11:57am

Patrick, replacing emptiness with 'changing' would seem to suggest that emptiness is synonymous with impermanence when, to my understanding, it is more than this.
I see emptiness (sunyata) as more equal to dependently-arising which might be a useful exchange if you do not like the term 'emptiness'. I agree it is not a perfect translation (unless you always say 'emptiness of self' or 'emptiness of inherent existence) due to the nihilistic nature of the the word in the English language.
Andy

Comment by patrick winata on November 28, 2009 at 11:46am

Hi George , Patricia , Ellen and Sharon,
After an absence of a few months, I am glad to be back again and to see a few interesting comments from you.
I would suggest, instead of treating empty or emptiness as an adverb , please try to use the English word Changing . Then I hope all things in the Heart Sutra becomes much easier to understand.
And what is more You can more easily use the essence of Heart Sutra to solve the problems and delusions in your lives.
As I don’t open this page so often , if you have an urgent or important question to ask please copy to my e-m address : patrickwinata@yahoo.com
Good luck to your search of the Truth ( Dharma) as taught by Sakya Muni .
Patrick .

Comment by Sharon on November 19, 2009 at 5:08pm

Thank you for creating this group. Funny I used to hate my computer & a lot of the time I am still all thumbs with it. However, now I am so grateful for all of the wonderful things I am able to connect with on line.

Comment by Sharon on November 19, 2009 at 3:27pm

Please include me in your discussions. Thank You

Comment by Ellen Fishman on November 1, 2009 at 8:39am

Read your entries Patricia and George .
Add to that I have been listening to Ken's podcasts = Red Pine Workshop.
What I come away from all of that,
is that is why we are on the Unfettered Mind site. The pragmatic approach is more in tune with the life we lead versus a monastic life.
Although we choose to follow the Buddhist methods as stated, they represent a place ,time and culture that is very foreign to our way of life here in the West.
So as you said George , "language is tricky".

New to this I am not as informed as the two of you but I do know that
learning comes in fits and starts . That sometimes one can experience a
almost regression in action before the new learning and behavior that
follows gets entrenched.
We in the West tend to see perfection as a linear path and a path that is
achievable not only in our lifetime but quickly.
Believe me, I am in that group 99% of the day.
It is that one percent of the time that I grateful for.
Ellen

Comment by Ellen Fishman on October 20, 2009 at 6:07am

Hi George,
I just finished my first read through of Ken's translation.
Whoa!
A thousand times I could read it and still find more to contemplate.

The phrase that kept repeating in my head while meditating was
form is emptiness; emptiness is form.

So thanks for the comments below, added some clarification.
Ellen

Comment by Patricia Ivan on September 1, 2009 at 9:46am

Hi again George

Thank you for all of your clarifications.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that feeling a lack of companionship or experiencing a lack of reference is not the same as knowing the emptiness of things as described in the HS.

I agree. Feelings are not empty, even if the feeling of loneliness feels pretty darn empty.

But feelings point to emptiness when we recognize that we attach to them, as existing, the very characteristics we attach to things.

Ironically, when I know loneliness as empty in this way, when I know my lack as nothing in itself, the heart opens to the experience of interconnectedness, lacking nothing so to speak.

Experience is heart-breaking, I agree, but “pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding” (Khalil Gibran) and language, I would add, is not benign in the process!

also sighing,
Patricia

Comment by George Draffan on August 31, 2009 at 11:48am

Thanks for renewing this forum, which has been empty lately.

There is a problem with talking about emptiness in English, because "emptiness" is a noun. There is no such a thing as emptiness. It should be an adverb -- a word to describe a quality.

Things are "empty" of three particular characteristics: things are not permanent; things are not separate from the causes and conditions in which they arise; things are not ultimately satisfying. These are the three marks of all things.

We have this odd word “emptiness” that refers to very different things and experiences. Feeling empty -- feeling a lack of companionship -- is not the same as "all things are empty.” Though when I hear about there is no thing that can make me ultimately happy, I feel a little lonely! This ties in with Ken’s blog post where he says “to have no range of reference is to cut oneself off from life.” But I think the lack of reference is a different emptiness than the lack of permanence or satisfaction. When I’m lonely, or angry, there something really vivid there!

Like everything that arises, feelings are empty (of permanence, separateness, and satisfaction), but feelings and things do exist -- they are experienced, they function. Tables are square and hard, eyes do see them, ears do hear birds that do fly in the sky, emotions do arise and feel good or bad.

The Heart Sutra says emptiness and form are not different. Things are not separate from their lack of certain characteristics. And things’ lack of those qualities is not separate from the things. You can't have a thing without its lack, and you can't have the lack without a thing.

Personally I find the Heart Sutra to be a little one-sided. It keeps saying things don’t exist. They don’t exist the way we think they do, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. The English doesn’t really work well here. At least it’s the compassionate one Avalokiteshvara who’s telling me -- I keep trying to hear what he’s saying!

We humans also lack permanence and separate existence. This lack we call "non-self" -- another adverb masquerading as a noun! But the sense of self certainly does exist: it’s experienced, it functions, it causes all sorts of problems. When we are not grasping at our sense of self, it stops arising in ways that make us suffer. We are "selfless" even though we are still there.

When we see that things are empty of the solidity that we usually try to impose, when we see the futility of trying to grasp and gain satisfaction from things that are impermanent, then we feel compassion. We have experienced the suffering that comes from grasping, and we wish that everyone could see the true nature of things, so that their confusion, grasping, and suffering would end.

This is all rather abstract. Yesterday I was arguing with a friend. Both of us were defending our sense of self, and experiencing hurt and anger. Then for a moment or two, I saw that I was defending an experience that lacked any permanence or any possibility of making me happy. For a moment I felt compassion -- here we were, stuck in our lousy sinking boats. And then my sense of self grabbed at its territory again, and confusion and anger rose right back up.

Experience is heart-breaking, language is tricky.

Ever sighing,
George

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