W. Logan Freeman A Response to The Heart Sutra The Heart Sutra is a difficult text.

And yet, it plainly contains in its brief verses the entirety of Mahayana belief and practice. Using your readings and the version of the sutra posted on the website, explore the notions of emptiness, the five aggregates (skandhas), and the nature of Buddhist enlightenment. This is a tall order, but you should have the chance to interact intimately and seriously with an important Buddhist text. Heres your chance. In Buddhist thought, there are said to be five Skandhas, or five aggregates (clumps, if you will), which collectively create the concept we have of our self. More concisely, they are what form the concept most people have of their individual-self. In order, the five Skandhas are: Form, Feelings, Perceptions, Mental Formations, and Consciousness. These are, which when clumped together, what form who we are; but do these things really mean anything? Or, do they form merely an illusion of a self? In the Heart Sutra - one of the most well known Buddhist scriptures - it is said that The bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, while moving in the deep course of Perfect Understanding, shed light on the five skandhas and found them equally empty. After this penetration, he overcame all pain (Hanh). Thus the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara achieved to rid himself from pain. Cessation from the suffering of life, by finding that which makes up the self is truly empty. Or the realizing of the no-self (anatman). This idea that life is suffering, has always been one of the core beliefs behind Buddhism. In the Buddhas original teachings, the fact that life is suffering is the first of the four noble truths which he presents to us, and furthermore, the main goal of Buddhism is to essentially reach a cessation from this suffering and achieve anuttarasamyaksambodhi (complete and total enlightenment). Our suffering... needs to be understood and, like a doctor, we are determined to understand it... As we do this, we see that the causes of our suffering are knowable (Coward, 223). We must understand our suffering, move past it, and see the emptiness of it. According to the Heart Sutra, we must understand the truth behind the five Skandhas (their emptiness), to rid our selves from the pain of life. We must shed light on the perceptions we have of ourselves and realize that they are empty. Its important to realize here, that the implication is not the five Skandhas dont exist, as they most certainly are real. Buddhism does not deny that we all feel and perceive things. To deny the feelings and thoughts of every human being is simply impossible. What teachings like the Heart Sutra are truly trying to say is that these things are empty. There is a difference between non-existence (nothingness) and emptiness. Things are empty, because everything comes from everything else (including the human self). As Avalokiteshvara said, ... form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. The same is true with feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness (Hanh). What is being said here is that everything is empty, because it is made up of everything else. The literal paper that you are holding right now, did not just come out of nothingness as paper. Before it was a tree, and before that a seed which

W. Logan Freeman required water and soil. Soil was formed through years of decay, perhaps even through the decay of human bodies. Each part made of component parts. Everything is empty because everything comes from everything else. This is what is referred to as pratityasamutpada, or dependent coorigination. This idea of all coming from all else. The thought that this paper is not paper, but all which came before it. The paper is therefore empty, much like all else. In fact, what we are taught by science, is not much different. It is as Carl Sagan said, We are made of Starstuff (Cosmos). What the Buddha taught us that we are caught in the cycle of Samsara, which essentially boils down to a cycle of suffering. As life is suffering. How do we detach ourselves from this? We realize the emptiness of all things, especially ourselves (the five Skandhas). Obviously this is harder than it sounds, or we would all wake up and reach enlightenment upon gaining a general understanding of it. Yet, it is possible. The Buddha himself managed to obviously do it. The Buddha realized this truth: that life is suffering, and set out in search of how to get rid of this suffering. It was in deep meditation that The Buddha found all his answers, and achieved complete and total enlightenment. As it was in deep mediation that Avalokiteshvara realized the emptiness of the perceptions of self. Clearly meditation holds a vital importance to reach enlightenment in Buddhism (it is also part of the noble eight-fold path). Yet, what is enlightenment? To the unenlightened, it seems simple enough but at the same time clearly a challenge. How can one truly rid themselves of all attachments? Of their self? One can suppose that is the struggle, and why many people who practice Pure Land Buddhism put off the search for enlightenment until their afterlife. It would require true dedications to the Buddhist way, and a strict adherence to the precepts. Though the Heart Sutra is not long, it holds much to it.