Teaching on the Heart Sutra, Part 3

Why do I ask everyone to memorize the Heart Sutra?

It seems we hear the Heart Sutra all the time.It's a very common sutra.So why memorize it?Chanting it and holding it in your heart are completely different in effect.The Heart Sutra is an inner language.What it does from the inside is repair our heart, repair how I see the outside, and turn the way I think from outward into inward.

So why memorize?Because an inner language is recited with the inner, not recited out there on the outside.If you can recite it from memory, that's the foundation.But reciting with your eyes closed feels completely different from reciting with your eyes open.And once I've explained it to you, using my explanation as the way to repair your mind is different again.

If you go by the version of the Heart Sutra as it was originally given...look at the sheet I handed out, everybody look carefully.One side is the original text, and one is an excerpt.Did you bring it?

Once you've read the original text, what I put underneath is what the Tripiṭaka original actually says.It starts from the opening narrative, goes through to the closing, and then you look back at the Heart Sutra we normally chant, which jumps straight in with "Avalokiteśvara, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā..." If you only follow the words on the page and chant them, your body and your heart don't respond.You must first look at the original Heart Sutra as translated in the Tripiṭaka.The whole scene takes place while I am in a state of meditative absorption, giving a spoken explanation for the mind, and that is how it turns into this.So from now on, when I teach the Heart Sutra, in the middle stage we will close our eyes and recite it inwardly.When we recite, I may adjust the order of some passages.But only our disciples recite this way.Outside, it's the standardized version.Every temple uses the same one, "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā...", recited straight down from the top.That is called chanting the Heart Sutra.

What we do is practice the Heart Sutra.It's different.We do the inner practice of the Heart Sutra, while nearly everyone else does outer chanting.So if you want to realize the dharmakāya, or liberate the soul, or see through the eight sufferings, you have to use inner practice to achieve it, and only then can you rise above suffering.Otherwise, however you chant on the outside, you only ever chant.You never understand where suffering comes from.

As for how to cut off the formation of suffering, you can't, it's impossible.So the Heart Sutra I'm teaching now differs somewhat from the original version, the version every temple chants, the version Buddhism chants.If it sounds smooth to you, makes sense, and moves you, follow my version.But outwardly, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.However others chant is fine.Don't argue with them and don't correct them, because nobody dares to revise it, and nobody dares to announce publicly that the order of a sutra isn't quite right.Nobody dares say it.But I feel that however the sutras were written, including the translations and the transmission over these two thousand and some years, there are inevitably some layout problems and some ways of saying things that have lost accuracy, drifted away from what the Buddha originally meant to teach us.

A single edition passes through many dynasties.It goes through many different versions, through the explanations and views of many Dharma masters, each saying it differently.Only someone who actually practices inwardly can bring out the true meaning of the Heart Sutra.Without inner practice, you can't understand how far the Heart Sutra's realm reaches.What can the Heart Sutra be used for?The Heart Sutra can see through where suffering comes from, so that you don't create suffering in the first place.You must first learn to build your defenses, rather than wait until you're suffering and then try to digest it.That's very passive.Because we haven't studied the Dharma, haven't studied higher wisdom, we wait until suffering arrives and only then think of ways to deal with it.Isn't that how it is?We only know suffering once we are suffering, and only then do we figure out how to handle it.Take someone who's poor.He was rich once, and that's why being poor is suffering for him.If back when he was rich he had thought about the suffering of having no money, wouldn't he have managed his money well, saved well, built a retirement fund for the second half of his life?Wouldn't he have prepared?Yes.Then he would never have run into the suffering of being old and without money.That's what the Heart Sutra says: you must not let suffering get onto you first and only then solve it.If you don't even let the cause of suffering arise, then in this life there is no suffering in your dictionary, and you never face what suffering is.

Of course suffering is complete within the twelve links of dependent origination.What are the twelve links?We are explaining the twelve links of dependent origination that the Buddha taught, and I use the twelve palaces of Zi Wei Dou Shu astrology to explain the twelve links of a human life, which is to say twelve stages.

The twelve links the Buddha spoke of naturally include birth, aging, sickness and death, and naturally include form, sound, smell, taste, touch and mental phenomena.When it is reflected in our actual society, it is the twelve palaces of our Zi Wei Dou Shu chart: the suffering of the self, the suffering in your fate, of siblings, of spouse, of children, of friends, of traveling away from home, of human relationships, of the wealth palace, of the health palace.These twelve kinds of suffering are produced within birth, aging, sickness and death from the moment we are born, circling around us without ever stopping.So there's suffering we can never finish eating.The hardest to resolve is the raging aggregates (五陰盛), because it's the most inexplicable.And the suffering of the raging aggregates arises from things, it isn't a fixed suffering.

Say you're drinking tea.This is my favorite teacup, my hand slips, and it drops.That's suffering that comes from conditions, a kind of parting from what you love, and that is the raging aggregates.It shatters on the floor.Whom do you hate?There's nobody to blame.Some people blame the wife for causing the bad luck, some blame the kids, and when there's still nobody left to blame, like me, an old man living alone, who do I scold?I scold myself: how could I be so stupid, so clumsy, dropping a teacup I'm holding in my own hand.The raging aggregates have come, and all you can do is scold yourself.Or take some people in business, or at a job.They get humiliated at the company and come home.At the company they can't blow up, not at the boss, not at colleagues, nowhere to blow up.And why?At home, the first person they see coming toward them is the wife, who might say, you must be tired, you're back from work?No.The husband comes home with a rage that has nowhere to go, and he may blow up at his wife.Everything looks wrong to him.After he's done scolding the wife, the child doing homework gets scolded too, and finally even the dog that didn't get out of his way gets scolded.The whole family gets scolded, and he vents his anger on his family.I've seen many men like this.That kind of man is just like this: if anything goes badly at his construction site outside, the first thing he does when he comes home is scold his wife and hit the kids.This sitting in the suffering of the raging aggregates brings it to the whole family, and he torments himself too.It's something he creates out of nowhere.That kind of man is the worst, and the whole family has to watch his face.

So around us there's a lot of this, what you might call inexplicable suffering of not getting what you want, the suffering of the raging aggregates.However you think about it, everything is within these eight sufferings.But why do I lift it up to twelve sufferings, twelve links?It's to match the rotation of suffering through the twelve palaces of Zi Wei Dou Shu.Because the eight sufferings don't mention the parents' suffering, the suffering of parents raising children, the suffering of a child rebelling against the parents.They didn't write that.So by the twelve links, our twelve sufferings are even more astonishing, finer than the eight sufferings.Birth, aging, sickness and death are of course in there as well.

So do we want to let suffering torment us, or do we want to avoid suffering arising?When your inner view of suffering no longer has that kind of feeling, nothing that happens in front of you turns into suffering.Then you have an immune system against suffering.Suffering is a very important factor in deciding reincarnation, and the eight sufferings are a very important factor in creating reincarnation, especially parting from what you love, not getting what you seek, the raging aggregates, and meeting what you hate.These are great forces of hooking and pulling.Some people love someone and can't have that person, so they make a solemn vow: next life, no matter what, I will get you.Then the other person is pitiable.Why?Because he made that vow to get you, you have to come down once more for him.So sometimes, about affinities, be careful not to latch onto a bad one.It isn't that you want to be reborn, it's that this affinity makes you come back to be reborn.Do you understand?So why do I have to enter samsara?Can't be helped.Someone registered you, that person swore a solemn vow that he would chase you down, and you must fulfill his vow, so you have to come down and get caught.It's an adverse affinity.But after he catches you it falls apart again, and you go back, and right away it's a divorce.Some are not even that short.It's because of the vow, not the affinity.He just wanted to get you, and once he got you, he lost you.He cared only about getting.He didn't cherish the affinity.A vow like that gives you a very short affinity.Some people are fine when they don't date, but the moment they date they get together quickly.That belongs to this short kind of affinity.

Because of a certain hooking vow, rebirth happens.Why?Just for that vow.So it's really pitiful.So when we come to be reborn, it's not because of my own problem.Somebody dragged me in, pulled me down.And when the person you helped says, in the next life I'm willing to be an ox or a horse to repay your kindness, you're in for bad luck.Why?Because in the next life you'll have to become a farmer.You were going to become a Buddha, but you become a farmer.Why?I made a vow to be an ox or horse, so this life you must become a farmer and raise oxen and horses, right?I go to your house to plow the field to repay you, and you must be a farmer, so that I have a field to plow for you.So you're unlucky and get dragged down again.That's why many Chan masters say, don't latch onto affinities without need.A Chan master known as Nine-Finger said that all affinities are not good affinities, every one of them is a bad karmic bond.That's what he said, and after practicing till he was eighty or ninety he found that not one affinity was a good one.The good ones: stay, don't leave.The bad ones: get lost quickly.If you stay by my side I hate you; both of us have to come down.You come down so I can hate you and keep you, and you also come down so I can keep you.So both cause the problem of your reincarnation, which is why we try not to latch onto affinities.But how do you not latch on?It's not like you're heartless.In today's society, people want to meet you, and you say, oh, sorry, I don't want to know you.Then you become a lonely old person, nobody pays attention to you, and you don't pay attention to anyone.That is not true practice.True practice is being firm inside while outside you cooperate in the performance, and the soul does not move.

When you want to hook me into reincarnation, you are hooking my mind, not hooking my physical body to go be reborn.Remember this.My soul doesn't move.Like Acalanātha, the Immovable.I don't move.Then I play a game with you, a dream, and on the outside I'm no different from you, but on the inside my mind hasn't run over there.It seems a bit hypocritical, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do.All of this is a game, a dream, we cooperate in the performance and everyone plays together.But I know very clearly that I am still firmly holding my mind steady and not getting lost.In this way, I avoid being hooked into reincarnation within the red dust of the world.And what does this rely on?It relies on the Diamond Sutra, the Heart Sutra, the yidam, firm faith, firm conviction, steadying your own mind so inside the realm you're not influenced by the outside.If we keep practicing with that persistence, we won't create a big contradiction between latching on and not latching on, and we won't be hooked into reincarnation by latching on.We also won't fall into samsara through gratitude, love, hatred, parting, and the hooking-and-pulling between each other.Up to here, do you follow?

Suffering is the mind suffering, not the body.So if there is suffering in the mind, whatever you put into your heart becomes suffering.If there is no suffering in the mind, nothing can make you suffer.When the mind is tired, it can't get up.When the body is tired, resting can get you back up.When the mind is tired, it's very hard to get up.So there is nothing sadder than a dead heart.How sad!Maybe just let the mind die.If the mind is dead, it won't be tormented, it goes numb.So the Western saying, nothing is sadder than a dead heart, is a very passive approach.If the heart is dead, you won't think about those sad things anymore.Put it the other way: forget it, my heart is already dead, however you talk about feelings with me, try to win me back, it's no use, my heart is dead, it has no feeling.In our practice we have to cultivate something very similar, but my mind isn't dead.My mind is firmly set in one place and cannot be shaken.However you sweet-talk me, yes, you're very nice, my mind doesn't move, it won't let you steal my heart.If you're not nice, if you attack me, I'm fine, my mind isn't stolen by you.If I argue with you, my mind still doesn't move.The same.

That mind is like what people call the steadying pill.What did he swallow?That mind is the steadying pill.In ancient times there was something called a steadying pill.How do you make your mind into a steadying pill?In Vajrayāna they say make your mind like a vajra.In the heart you place a vajra.That's why the vajra is held in the right hand, held at the chest.Because the final decision on everything is made here at the chest.If my chest, this mind, doesn't waver easily, doesn't drift easily, nothing can bribe me and nothing can hook me, then I won't fall into any suffering.The mind doesn't waver.But I'm not a block of wood.I cooperate in the performance.Yet I still don't move.So keep my mind unmoving, and that place in the heart is Akṣobhya Buddha of the East, the Immovable Buddha, right at the chest.In the allocation of the five Buddhas, Akṣobhya of the East, also called the Immovable Buddha of the East, immovable, meaning my mind won't be disturbed.If you practice this Buddha, my mind will not be disturbed.He is called Akṣobhya of the East, Immovable Buddha of the East, and he is in front, at the chest.Ratnasambhava of the South is on the right.Amoghasiddhi of the North is on the left.Amitābha of the West is in the back, behind.That is what "turn around and the shore is there" means.Turn your head and look, and you see Amitābha behind you.That's "turn around and the shore is there." Look at whom?Look at Amitābha at your back.It's not telling you to turn your head.It's telling you to look backward, to turn back and look inward.We always look outward.Turning back means looking in, not turning your head.Look inside.Look at whom?Look at yourself, and then you'll awaken!

Take my whole life from birth.Look at your photos.As a baby so cute, a bit goofy, everybody loved you.In elementary school mischievous and naughty, in middle school rebellious, in high school grinding for the entrance exams, in college eating, drinking and playing, after graduating, no job, drifting around.Your life passes by one scene at a time.So what did I come back to this world to do?Did I do anything wonderful?I haven't even finished touring Taiwan, never mind traveling the world or visiting many countries.No.And the food?I've never eaten dinosaur meat, so what are you?I don't know the delicacies of the mountains and sea, nothing special.How ordinary this life is, how plain, how dull, how colorless.This is the life of so-and-so.

If I look back, I'm just a walking corpse, just a machine for going to work and earning money, just a tool for having children.It seems I am nothing at all.I'm already several decades old, and it seems I've never created one colorful thing.Awaken!Look at yourself.Once you've looked and you awaken, all the decades before are like a dream.But the suffering hasn't been removed!Thinking of it, my heart is bitter and sour, and I'm getting older and older.As I told Brother Bai Yu earlier: you're seventy, don't push your old life.Hurry and come practice.Practice what?The Dharma of liberation.Life is impermanent, and it can end in one stroke.Better not to mention it, but you mention it, and he's in the hospital, and he panics.Heart surgery, or the blood vessels, at seventy-two, this is major surgery, and it's worrying.If only a year earlier, two years earlier, he had come to listen to this, wouldn't that have been good?Right?Of course I hope he recovers fully.If not, I dare not think about it.And if he does recover and leaves the hospital, what then?Keep busy with land, keep working as a broker?If he looks back at his life up to seventy-two, the candle is almost out, the oil is gone, and he's still desperately trying to shine.That's a very pitiable thing.

The ideal age is to start practicing at sixty, to begin letting go of many things, to begin cutting and discarding some things so you feel pure, comfortable, free to do as you please, at ease, holding the right to do whatever you want.That is your life.Don't be tied to somebody else's life again.For whom are you living?Live well for yourself.Up to sixty you lived for others, enough.After sixty, live for yourself, because there's not much left.Nobody gives you a guarantee that you can live another thirty years.Like the young fellow recently.How old was he?Thirty-something!Yes, and he hadn't yet reached the sixty I'm talking about for retirement.The rest of his life hadn't started, and it ended.Whom does he leave the suffering to?Family, friends, girlfriend, crying until they nearly die.What is this called?Too much latching on, and all the suffering is left to everyone else: parting from what you love.If today he had only three friends, it's simple, the suffering he releases is just those three people.And those three don't even love him, they'd forget him in three months, which is fine, he doesn't torment others.But he happens to be a public figure with so many people who love him, fans crying their eyes out, a huge crowd, so many people suffering for him.Is what he spread joy?What was the result?It turned into suffering, suffering from parting with a loved one.So what was that for?Torment.You say latching on?Being alive is good, right?Everyone's happy!But what about when the one you latched onto dies?Everyone grieves for him, and it becomes suffering again.Family suffers, fans suffer, girlfriend suffers, everyone suffers the same.

So you ask, what is good in this world?Only you know in your heart; it hasn't been your turn.Only your inner heart knows what would make you happiest.Only you know, but you have no qualification to be willful and pursue what you think is your greatest happiness, because you are all held hostage: by your children, by your parents, by your husband, by your wife.You have neither the money nor the license to follow your happiness, right?So your whole life has no freedom.As a child, no freedom: parents discipline you, school teachers discipline you, the men go to military service and the barracks discipline you, then in society the police manage you.You can't be willful.But you also can't find the happiness of letting yourself go!Yet pursuing your happiness, within the law, is your right.But if you haven't found your happiness before sixty, then please decide most firmly that sixty is truly yours, exactly a full sixty-year cycle.Some people with good fortune retire earlier, around fifty, but after retiring you need something to fill your spirit!If you have nothing, senile dementia comes very quickly.So the conscience of the spirit is worth more than everything outside.Someone says they retired with nothing to do, and soon they have dementia, right?Retire and plant some flowers and plants, refine your essence, practice Buddhism, meditate, whatever!Schedule your practice well, even qigong.

It's just like my plan, a farm resort for seniors, with the program all arranged for you.You get up in the morning and do morning practice, after morning practice eat breakfast, eat medicinal meals, drink herbal health teas.After that we go to the garden to enjoy the flowers, see if the herbs are growing well, prune a bit, water a bit, then do morning practice again, qigong, sitting meditation, begin the morning recitation and practice.When you finish, at noon you again eat the medicinal meal and drink the medicinal soup, take an afternoon nap.In the afternoon do the evening practice, then soak in an herbal bath, practice some exercises, recite the Buddha's name.In the evening listen to some Dharma.I think that's very good.This has been my ideal for twenty-five years, I want to create this.The log cabin has already been found, now I'm looking for land.Someone has built the cabin, so next is the land.Those who follow me later, live until death, and if you still want me to do the deliverance for you, no problem.One cabin per person, one cabin per couple.For the more urgent ones, set up a patch of herb garden and flower garden, and spend this life like that.I think that's very good.Don't be busy and toiling your whole life, and don't wait until your children send you to a nursing home, then it's too late, right?And if your children aren't at your side, and there are no other people either, then even more, don't die alone.So I don't want to die alone, which is why I want to carry out this plan.I told some wealthy older ladies, each of them said, I'll follow you.So everyone takes care of each other, which is very good.Shared ideals, shared interests, shared practice and cultivation, that's also very good.I think this is very good.

Because in real society, even children can't take in the elderly, and associations can't take in the elderly.Don't expect too much.When your children marry they have their own family, and you are an extra burden.So the problem of the elderly in Taiwan is now very serious.

I saw a report on television the other day.By next year and the year after it will be even worse.So many young adults can't take care of their elderly parents, they have to work hard for the economy, so they send the old people to nursing homes, which cost money every month, and the burden is heavy, because education costs for the children are heavy too.They can't afford both elder care and children.So in the end the only decision is to leave the old person at home and throw the grandchildren at you to look after, until you can't do it anymore.Your strength gives out, or you get sick.Then there are only two places to send you.One is a care home, because you have no use value, you can't look after the children for me.Second, I'd have to hire a caregiver to feed you, tube-feed you, clean up after you, and we can't do that.So where do you go?You have to choose between two: a care home, or being left at home alone.We might not think there will be such a day, but in fact that's how it is.Let's not even talk about life and death, just this stretch, getting through our old age, sixty, seventy.If your body is good, fine.If your body is not so good, like me, my body isn't good, and I may not even wait until eighty.At sixty-five I already feel poor, and whenever I feel unwell I lie down three days.What are we waiting for?There's no way.So this is a cruel fact that will definitely come.Please don't disbelieve it, please don't not believe it.

So these days, children supporting their parents is almost gone, very rare.That's why I say prepare some retirement money, live a free and willful life, and have a place where people look after each other.That is the greatest happiness.That's best.

So why talk about this section?I often say that while suffering hasn't yet appeared, I should already be practicing, practicing until suffering can't come near my body and can't enter my heart, my heart as strong as the Immovable Buddha, unbreakable.Then no suffering is anything to me.I can't even write the word suffering.This is using the realm of the Heart Sutra for inner practice.Because in our daily lives, the people we meet and the things we run into every day seem to create something painful every day.What is suffering?Discomfort.Why?Nearly everything has it.You talk with someone, it sounds unpleasant, uncomfortable, that's suffering.Or you go somewhere to handle business, say I go to the post office, and the clerk at the counter has a terrible attitude, so I'm in a bad mood, that's suffering too.You go to buy something and the shopkeeper is arrogant, buy or don't, whatever, your heart is very uncomfortable, suffering comes again, right?You pick fruit, the owner scolds you, don't squeeze it like that, buy it or not, up to you, you're hit, suffering comes again.Countless sufferings crash into you every day.Whether you hold onto it or don't, saying you don't hold on is lying.You feel unhappy the whole day, right?The next day you run into other things and shift your mind, and you forget these things.Everybody's the same.That knot is right there.Next time I won't buy from that shop, their attitude is awful.And this happens every day, in everything, not only in buying and selling but in many other matters, so every day we have a lot of suffering around us, as many as mosquitoes.A mosquito bites you, your body itches like crazy, another bite, here it comes again.So our bodies are covered in bumps of suffering.So how do you keep suffering from tormenting you?Close your eyes!Let them bite!Chant the Heart Sutra, and after chanting, swat the mosquito dead, deliver it, free it from suffering, put some ointment on the skin, anti-inflammatory, reduce the swelling, and that way we are both liberated.I'm no longer in pain, the mosquito is full and becomes a well-fed ghost, fine.So I oppose many passive sayings, like let the mosquito bite you, otherwise you catch dengue fever in Kaohsiung.Go ahead and let the mosquitoes bite you and see.Release a poisonous snake and chant the Buddha's name to it and it won't bite you.Come on, you go chant, and see if it bites you.People who say such things don't dare go near it.That's unreasonable Buddhadharma.Compassion has true compassion and false compassion, and that is false compassion.So I oppose this kind of traditional Buddhist theory, it is simply wrong.It's like China and Taiwan alike, a lot of taboos are unreasonable and should be discarded, keeping the healthy ideas that help me.Only then is it good Dharma.

Each era has a different background.When the Buddha taught, it was over 2,500 years ago.From then until now, first the cultural background is different, second the people are different, third the habits are different.Of course the audience he taught was different, right?Then those words and the cultural background carried over to today, with different audiences, different jobs, different backgrounds, different levels of education.At that time many Indians were illiterate.Were the people the Buddha taught all literate?So he explained through description, describing until you understood.So the Buddhadharma has a lot of descriptive language, it's not dogma.Descriptions, like when I teach Zi Wei Dou Shu and keep describing, describing the Tian Tong star as such and such, and then giving case examples.In order for you to understand the Tian Tong star deeply, I have to bring out a big pile of descriptions.So when the Buddha was first teaching, he had to keep giving descriptions, and if they still didn't understand, then myths were made up.For these illiterate people who hadn't studied, however I explain they don't get it, so I could only shape some mythical image for them.Like that elephant, the elephant stands for boundless strength.So the elephant is called...the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra is as mighty as that elephant, very powerful, with strong execution.He is called great practice (大行, xíng/hàng), and the practice (行) is the practice (行) of action, a very strong power of execution, so the elephant's power is called Samantabhadra.Over 2,500 years that became Samantabhadra Bodhisattva riding on an elephant.I describe his strength as this great, and how does it turn into a person?It's like in the traditional anecdotes: someone coughs and spits up a few threads of phlegm "like goose-feather streaks of blood." Passed along through many mouths and ears, it gradually becomes "spat out a goose feather," and by the end it becomes "spat out a whole goose."

So this is where Buddhadharma goes wrong: later people made it too fantastical.So when you read the sutras, you must look at things from the Buddha's standpoint, and explain things with descriptive language.Then, as you study and learn the Dharma, first, you won't go off the rails, second, you won't become fixated, third, it will be lively and vivid, fourth, it can go deep into the heart and bring real change.If everything is based on matter, still an outward practice, it's all useless.So I teach everyone the Heart Sutra to change your concepts, to practice from the inside and transform from the inside.Only when the mind changes can your views on everything change, and then fate changes, concepts change, and wisdom rises.Then when you face everything, your height is different and the angle you look down from is different, and your suffering no longer exists.

Why does suffering exist?Because of clinging.You stare at the suffering and won't let go, and so suffering torments you.That's clinging.So turning the thought is a very important idea in the Heart Sutra, how to use the Heart Sutra's concepts to shift, to turn the thought.The cause of suffering is clinging.So whether the Heart Sutra or the Diamond Sutra, both tell you not to stubbornly stay stuck at one point, which makes both sides suffer.Sometimes letting go at the right moment is liberation from suffering.If you grab something and won't let go, the thing gets crushed and your hand gets sore, both sides lose.Sometimes not picking it up at all is the best way to avoid getting touched by suffering.So the cause of suffering is clinging, and "let the mind arise without dwelling anywhere" says exactly this."Without dwelling anywhere": my mind should not stay on anything.If my mind is tied down by many things, then losing any one thing, any one thing breaking, any one thing leaving me, will make me cry.That suffering is because your mind dwells in many places.So the more children you have, the more suffering you have.Is the eldest doing all right?Is the second doing all right?Is the third doing all right?What if you had eighteen!You'd have no time at all.The parents visit the eldest today, the second tomorrow, the third the day after, then the fourth, and in a month spend about eighteen days visiting eighteen sons who all live in different places.So your mind is cut into many pieces and your suffering hangs on many of them, because every one of those sons will torment you, good ones, bad ones, the one without a job.The parents worry that the son has no job and the grandchildren can't be fed, ah!Torment!Then let's sell the ancestral property and give it to the eldest.Before long, the third one phones: his rotating savings club collapsed, the bank is demanding payment, so let's sell another piece of ancestral land to pay it off.Every day tormented like this, isn't it so?When you put your mind on many sons, your mind will never be happy.So take the mind back, don't send it out so much.So how to take the mind back is also the main thing the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra teach.So use this attitude to look again at what the Heart Sutra says and what the Diamond Sutra says, as a method of self-cultivation.This is called the practice version of the Heart Sutra, not the chanting version.

Last time we covered "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty, and transcended all suffering and distress, Śāriputra." This line has a problem.I'm not saying the sutra has a problem, I'm saying it doesn't flow, and it might need an appropriate adjustment.When you do inner contemplation and recite, going by my arrangement flows better.Otherwise look, you suddenly jump to "Śāriputra," which is strange and doesn't connect.But the concept I explain, just practice it yourself.If a fellow practitioner or someone with affinity asks, then explain to them why I arranged it this way.If not, we don't go correcting other people.Only to my disciples do I tell this arrangement.Second, the disciples of the inner sect have a practice version.It's different.The practice version goes deeper, and many more mantras appear in it.Why only the inner-sect disciples?Because it hides too many secrets.It isn't something to spread widely.But there are people who don't keep the precepts, go out and talk wildly, and even debate with others.

In mainland China I met a Taiwanese businessman.I told him how the merit of dedication to self-nature sentient beings is formed and why it's effective, and he went out to challenge temples, do you know that?This Taiwanese businessman went to all the temples in Shenzhen, called the abbots out to debate, picked fights, and even knocked them down.Later one monk, another disciple of mine who is also an abbot of a Vajrayāna temple, came to complain to me, crying terribly.He said, "Master!Why did you teach that disciple?" I said, what?The temple abbot told me, Master, a disciple of yours came to challenge me.I said, who goes to a temple to challenge people?Calls out the abbot to debate, and even wins the debate.I only talked to him for three evenings about the Dharma, correcting things that were wrong before.I didn't even accept him as a disciple!And he went off like that to challenge people.He only had to ask the abbot, how do you dedicate, by what right do you dedicate?What do you use to dedicate?They couldn't answer, and then, what is a sentient being?Nobody had ever heard an explanation of what a sentient being is.The detailed version of the Heart Sutra does say where sentient beings are.To be continued in the next installment.

Now I'm going to teach a practice version.I hope everyone uses the practice version of the Heart Sutra.After I finish teaching, I'll test whether you can recite it from memory, and then we'll start practicing meditation.Our chanting of the Heart Sutra will shift from outer chanting to inner chanting: from looking with eyes open to eyes closed, and then reciting the Heart Sutra for our own hearts to hear.This is called inner practice of the Heart Sutra.Gradually all sufferings will surface, be extinguished, surface, be extinguished.After you extinguish the new sufferings, the suffering you are facing will gradually disappear.This suffering is because your mind is tied to it, so the suffering won't leave you.Thinking of it day and night: others think about a lover, you think about hardship, so the suffering never leaves you.Invite the suffering over, give it a teaching, chant the Heart Sutra for the suffering to hear, and the suffering is gone.Through the realm of the Heart Sutra suffering no longer exists, and you have dealt with the suffering in your heart.

Second, the karmic creditors inside your body.You have to start talking to them yourself: it's no use clinging to me, it's your own attachment, because of your attachment you can't be liberated either; you cling to me and make things difficult for me, we both lose.Better listen to me recite the Heart Sutra for you.They think about it and agree, clinging to you doesn't do any good for me, and I've missed several chances at rebirth.All right, all right, it's all wiped out, never mind, I'll bless you too and recite a mantra for you, see you on your way.And so the karmic creditors leave.

So why does practicing the Heart Sutra remove obstacles?To remove obstacles means the obstacle is suffering.You use the Heart Sutra to turn suffering into nothingness, and then suffering won't entangle you, suffering won't appear again, because you have extinguished this suffering.But suffering is also the means by which karmic creditors torment you.Since this suffering has been extinguished by you, the karmic creditors have no reason to exist, so your fortune turns better, your obstacles are removed, so the merit of the Heart Sutra is very great.That's why in Tibet, at the end of every year, they hold a grand Heart Sutra obstacle-removal ceremony.We were going to do one today, but the preparations weren't complete.

In the past I sometimes held Heart Sutra obstacle-removal ceremonies, in the Tibetan way, burning an obstacle-removal fire offering, with an obstacle-removal mantra wheel, doing the Heart Sutra.Now I'm giving you the inner version, inner obstacle removal, giving a teaching to your own heart.Don't have me teach for you.Learn to give the teaching to your own inner sentient beings, your inner karmic creditors, your inner realm of suffering, and do the obstacle removal that way.That is what giving a teaching means.The one inside your belly understands you best, so for the one in your belly you must give the teaching yourself, and that one is most able to accept it.

All right, let's get to the main topic, we've said so much already.The very first, Avalokiteśvara.I hope that wherever I teach, you memorize up to there, that's easy to memorize, right?You must memorize it, that is my requirement.And why are there blank spaces on the handout I gave you?So that you can revise and add.All right, today up to here, this line needs some revision: "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā." Of course all the sutras say "practicing Prajñāpāramitā." This "when" is like this.So most of it is this line, "when practicing Prajñāpāramitā," which is no problem."Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty" is no problem."Transcended all suffering and distress, Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form."

From "transcended all suffering and distress" to "Śāriputra," and then it becomes "form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form." Doesn't it get confusing, what's being said?Isn't something missing?Definitely something is missing.Why is something missing?In the process of translation, sometimes a line could not be translated, so they skipped it and connected directly to the next passage.In translation, some things really couldn't be translated, because it was translated from Pāli, so they filled in by translating from Sanskrit into Chinese, and some used rather obscure words that you simply couldn't translate, so you get "transcended all suffering and distress, Śāriputra..." and suddenly it becomes "form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form." So what does "Śāriputra" stand for here?There must be something, but it wasn't explained.Only a practitioner can explain what connects "form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form," and also "transcended all suffering and distress," is that it is because of the śarīra (Śāriputra) that one can transcend all suffering and distress.Get this straight.

So the first, "Avalokita," is to contemplate in reverse, to turn the contemplation back.One who can "turn the contemplation back upon the self" is called a "self-at-ease Bodhisattva." The self-at-ease Bodhisattva is one who practices cleansing, at ease and not bound.I talked just now about being willful, defying the norm, doing what I want, being happy.So looking back at the one who is not bound and who knows well how to practice, the "Bodhisattva," is a practitioner.Don't think it means that thing sitting on the altar.A practitioner."Practicing the profound": going deep, reflecting, "practicing" means carrying out, associating, with the eyes closed.All right, I'm in meditation, I'm no longer thinking about outside matters, I'm thinking about inside matters."Practicing the profound" means carrying out very deeply, hypnosis, first-level hypnosis, intermediate hypnosis, advanced hypnosis, deep hypnosis.Sleep, light sleep, second-level sleep, deep sleep, sound sleep.So "practicing the profound" means when you reach sitting meditation, the deepest meditative state of samādhi, settled and fixed.That is called "practicing the profound."

"Prajñāpāramitā" means when I enter this very deep meditative state, what am I pursuing?Higher wisdom and the awakening of the spirit.This is the world of high wisdom.I enter the world of my mind, not the world outside.The moment the eyes close there is only the inside.When the eyes are open, everything is outside influence.When the eyes close, only the inside remains, and only inner matters are left.For the translated sound, just grasp the sound.It isn't a rule that it has to be that character.It's only a sound.So "jia-wa-la" can also be "wa-jia-la," you take the sound, not the character.So up to here, in plain language: when I sit quietly on the meditation cushion with my eyes closed, I am unbound, I am joyful, no one controls me, and I am someone who wants to practice inwardly.When I carry out very deep reflection and contemplation, I am opening my high wisdom and the world of my spirit.I'm giving you the plain-language explanation.So close your eyes and think about what I just said, and you have completed "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā."

All right, five minutes for everyone.Close your eyes.I'll recite once first.Settle down, let go of everything, close your eyes, the outside world has nothing to do with you, only you yourself.Close your eyes, open them and the atmosphere is gone.Close your eyes.Now, as you close them, before your eyes there is a field of darkness, and everything outside has nothing to do with you, only your own feelings.Suddenly you feel that in this world there is only you, and nothing has anything to do with you.So I won't be bound by anything.I am a very willful, very free practitioner.Now I no longer look ahead with my thoughts, no longer look around me.I will go deep into my own inner depths, because I want to develop the world of my spirit and raise my wisdom.I will enter the depths of my own heart, everything is calm.Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā.All right, up to this passage.

All right, you can open your eyes.Did you briefly get some calm, briefly feel yourself, briefly feel that this is me, the me right now, with no connection to everything outside?Because with eyes closed it's dark, yet there is still the feeling of me.How was it?All right, this is "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā." Then, when you enter a deeper level, your mind lights up and starts to awaken.That's "illumination," clear mind and seeing nature.From "contemplating" to "illuminating." Just now I looked at myself.In the practice version for inner-chamber disciples, "contemplating" goes from outside to inside: from the skin you look at the flesh, then the blood vessels, the nerves, the bones, the marrow, the five organs, the six viscera, and finally you see everything is gone.You look in step by step like this.In ordinary practice, you look, look, and how long you look depends on how long you can look each day, until one day it lights up and illuminates and sees the five aggregates, all material things.For the inner-sect disciples, you look until your five organs and six viscera are all gone, glowing, glowing until only light remains, the five aggregates are all empty."Contemplating" still uses visualization."Illuminating" means it lights up, it clearly surfaces.That's called "illumination."

So for this section, "transcended all suffering and distress, Śāriputra," is the śarīra over here?Or over here?Everyone think about it."Śāriputra, transcended all suffering and distress," so "form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form," right?All right.Isn't that much more reasonable?Reasonable, now there's an order, right?Yes.Now tell me, why can the śarīra transcend all suffering and distress?Everyone say something!What I mean is that Śāriputra should be moved over here.Only with the śarīra can you illuminate and see the five aggregates as empty, and only then can you transcend all suffering and distress, and only then does the idea of form not different from emptiness, emptiness not different from form come out.You can't go transcending all suffering and distress for no reason, "Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness," when you don't even know what Śāriputra is.How could it transcend all suffering and distress?How could the idea of form not different from emptiness come out?Because you have already turned.The thinking of my person has become the thinking of the śarīra.It has changed, there's no me, and what's left?A point of light.

Put simply, the śarīra: from ancient times until now, when high-level practitioners are cremated in the funeral furnace, what comes out afterwards, bead by bead, is called śarīra.That's the traditional explanation.Everyone knows it that way, right?What's called a Dharma master's śarīra refers to this, right?Second, in the explanations of the Heart Sutra, "Śāriputra" is said to refer to a bird in India whose eyes are very bright, just a small bead like a mung bean, very bright, and the eye of the śāri bird is called śāriputra.But that is unreasonable!Why would a bird's eye appear here?There's another explanation: that bird's eyes are extremely sharp, sharper than an eagle's, able to perceive every tiny detail, nothing escapes its eyeballs, which shows the śarīra can perceive everything and nothing can hide.

Second, the śarīra is the spirit-light.Before cremation, it is a point of light, and not just one point.Within the body it is the original light-point of life.You just see the light, only the light-point, and everything else is gone.You see one bright star, a very bright star, like a pearl.What is that?That is the living śarīra.You see your own śarīra appear.That is the maṇi-jewel I am teaching now.Then your whole thinking is on the maṇi-jewel, and there is no you, no matter of any kind, only this light there.So that is form not different from emptiness: this bead seems to have form, it's white, but it also feels like it doesn't exist in the void.Emptiness not different from form: in the midst of no matter at all, it seems to have a different realm, and it makes you feel dizzy and swaying.Is this bead me?Or am I this bead?Nothing else exists, only this bead of spirit-light remains.That is the śarīra.

Then, cremation, what burns out is the physical śarīra.And there's the "Sarvatathāgata-hṛdaya-guhya-dhātu-karaṇḍa-mudrā Dhāraṇī" (the Dhāraṇī of the Casket Seal of the Secret Whole-Body Relics of the Heart of All Tathāgatas), the whole-body śarīra.So reciting the "Dhāraṇī of the Casket Seal of the Secret Whole-Body Relics of the Heart of All Tathāgatas," this mantra is called the whole-body śarīra mantra.May the spirit-light in your body all become śarīra like this, whole-body śarīra.Wow, that would be extraordinary, extraordinary.So when you practice the Heart Sutra up to the śarīra, you must keep practicing up to the Dhāraṇī of the Casket Seal of the Secret Whole-Body Relics of the Heart of All Tathāgatas.These are all connected.You also have to practice the dharmakāya śarīra mantra.At this section you begin to practice it, so that after the śarīra arises, you can transcend all suffering and distress, and form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, and only then does the realm that follows come out.

So, sorry, I'm going to rearrange it, change it.The practice version is different from the chanting version.Move Śāriputra over here, and erase Śāriputra from there.I may add a plain-language note: "illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty," Śāriputra moves to here, "Prajñāpāramitā," contemplate, practice, illuminate, see.When I practice to Prajñāpāramitā, I see the śarīra, the śarīra emits light, illuminates and sees that all material things with form are in fact created by energy and are not real things.Do you follow up to here?This is the principle of light.When I feel my body is fine, nothing wrong, and the doctor asks, are you in pain?Yes, I don't know where the problem is.First, an X-ray, it shines through and sees your body, and only then do you know where the problem is: a bone is crooked, a bone is broken, a blood vessel is blocked.If that's not enough, use deeper methods: ultrasound, then CT, then MRI, and you can see right through the problem in your body.

This illumination is like taking an X-ray.The śarīra is the X-ray.When the light from the śarīra shines into your body, you look, and in fact this flesh body does not exist.That is "illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty." What do you use to illuminate in order for the five aggregates to be empty?

X-ray, CT, shine through and it's transparent, isn't it?Only with this can you speak of the five aggregates being empty.It can even illuminate things until the five aggregates are empty.So what must you use?The light of the śarīra, to look at everything, so that everything becomes five aggregates empty, and only then can you have the ability to transcend all suffering and distress.In the end I know that, so it turns out, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form.So that's how it is.You only know after illuminating.If you haven't illuminated, how would you know?So the stomachache turned out to be from a lot of stuff in the belly.It turned out like this.He must have been X-rayed.So you must use light to illuminate until the five aggregates are empty and transparent, and then solve my suffering.

Seeing a doctor works the same way, doesn't it?Find the problem, and then you can transcend all suffering and distress, and ask the doctor to take care of my pain.So it turns out form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.Without illumination you can't see it, you can't find where the cause of suffering is.This is a very special way of teaching the Heart Sutra.Why do you memorize it?The second version is what you recite to your inner practice version, and then your sufferings come out one by one: repaired, come out, repaired, nowhere to hide.Until all suffering is extinguished and your wisdom rises.Because if your wisdom doesn't rise, you're wrapped in the burden of suffering and can't walk out.You can't walk out because you're snagged by suffering.You're unhappy because you're entangled in suffering.Once you take the suffering away, you become free.Why?You become lively, you walk out, you become enlightened.Isn't that so?So there are many things we can't do because we fear suffering, and we are even bound by past experiences of suffering.

So sometimes, say a brother is asked to help move the timber and says, don't bother moving it, leave it there, we'll talk later.Suffering makes people not move.Why?Carrying it makes my arms sore as hell, so first of all, let's not carry it.That's fear, the suffering of paying with labor, being exhausted, and he uses that line to refuse doing this thing.That's the principle, right?That's what it means.So sometimes when you're asked to do something, it's also asking you to face this suffering and resolve it, not to run away.When it doesn't count as suffering, it won't entangle you or bind you, and you really do more.So the ascetic monks of India, or in Nepal and Tibet, many practice austerities, deliberately facing suffering, deliberately seeking out suffering to endure, so that he feels this isn't suffering, it's no big deal.Then he levels up, and from then on no suffering can bind him, he no longer has fear of suffering, so the mind gains freedom, and attainment appears right there.

Of course this isn't the best way.The best way is to understand where suffering comes from and not let suffering arise.That is the highest level, rather than deliberately looking for suffering to endure.So later, when you practice, dig up the stone slabs and stack them well, then next class lay the slabs out again, carry out all the bricks and stack them, the following week lay the bricks again, and gradually you feel it's easy, no suffering at all, and you've succeeded.So practicing the Heart Sutra is to extinguish suffering.When suffering is extinguished, it can't tie you down.Then the ghost of poverty won't find you, the ghost of bad luck won't find you, the factors that make you suffer won't exist.The karmic creditors won't take revenge on you, they won't know how to start, because the karmic creditors' revenge is to make you suffer, and suffering no longer has any reason to exist in you, so when the karmic creditors find you they have no moves left.I give them a teaching and deliver them, and the suffering doesn't come to settle accounts with me.That's why.So everyone understands, all right, go on vacation, stop pestering me, and your luck turns and your heart is happy.Other bad luck keeps its distance as well, which is why it's called "transcended all suffering and distress." But the prerequisite is that you must reach "Śāriputra," and only then can you "illuminate and see that the five aggregates are all empty," and only then can I "transcend all suffering and distress." You must reach the śarīra.Only then can you illuminate the five aggregates as empty, and only then can you transcend all suffering and distress.I must have the practice of the śarīra, using light like a demon-revealing mirror to shine through to the five aggregates being empty.Also to deliver, to transcend all suffering and distress, extreme distress, suffering and distress, hardship, or bad luck, and so I understand: form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.None of it is substantial.I was the one who drew it in to torment myself.

Because I've opened my wisdom and I see it clearly, right?The moment the light shines down I see it, so that's how it is.So what we're memorizing today is two passages: "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā," this one I won't change.I originally changed it this way, then decided not to change it.Memorize the original version first."Illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty," this would need Śāriputra first, "when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā." You memorize it however you memorize it, and when you do inner practice use my version.Don't use it when you chant the Heart Sutra outside, or you'll chant it wrong, right?We still go along with local custom, but when we sit in meditation, you recite my version, and it makes sense.Why?When I'm practicing deeply and doing my practice, and I enter and open the world of wisdom and spirit, at a certain depth I see the light of the śarīra, and I use this light to illuminate everything, and find that the five organs and six viscera, the body, the bones, the whole material world do not exist, they will vanish.When I understand this, I can transcend, deliver the suffering within me and the calamities I suffer.Now I finally understand: form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form is emptiness, emptiness is form.Everyone memorize the original version.Write this down.In meditation use my version, "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty, transcended all suffering and distress, Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form." Memorizing this is enough.Then when you reflect, when you settle down with your eyes closed in contemplation, follow my meaning.The reason I'm not making you memorize the special version is that I'm afraid you'll be attacked, so unless you don't speak outside, memorize my version.

The ordinary outside version can't be used for inner contemplation because it has a break.That jump is unreasonable and has no continuity.If you don't have the light of the śarīra, you can't illuminate and see the five aggregates as empty.It's not that you illuminate the five aggregates as empty first and then the śarīra comes.You must first have the light of the śarīra, and then you can illuminate and see the five aggregates as empty, and then transcend all suffering and distress, right?Only then do you understand the principle of form not different from emptiness, emptiness not different from form.Then it holds together.

Question to the Master: before the śarīra appears, it's very difficult for us.If you don't have it, just keep chanting, chant long enough and maybe it'll come.Śāriputra, Śāriputra, Śāriputra.For this passage's śarīra, I have specific training for the śarīra, which is practicing the maṇi-jewel, and also three mantras called the dharmakāya śarīra, whole-body śarīra, and offering śarīra.These create the śarīra.Once it appears, you use the śarīra's light to illuminate, and you can illuminate what is real and what is false in this world, and also illuminate ignorance.

Question to the Master: for the whole-body śarīra mantra, the whole-body śarīra mantra of the five-wheel stupa, if I recite this mantra without stopping, can it also produce śarīra?Because it is the whole-body śarīra mantra.You have to reach the point where you have this concept.That is why we start practice with the Heart Sutra.At the start of practice you have the concept, and when you recite the whole-body śarīra mantra, then it can blend in.Otherwise, you just keep reciting the whole-body śarīra mantra for no reason, you don't know its real meaning, and it won't manifest.

So all the mantras I'm giving you now take this as the starting practice.This is the method and ritual for liberation, freeing from suffering, and removing obstacles.So sometimes everyone feels it's too simple, just recite it and that's it, but actually no.Truly entering practice and attainment relies on this.If you understand this, you will understand the Diamond Sutra.The Diamond Sutra has a practice version too, not a chanting version.If you later want to do meditation, then learn meditation, and meditation must be coordinated with breathing, with vase breathing, then recite the Heart Sutra, then turn the Dharma wheel.Keep going through these steps and you will succeed.

And if we are already over sixty, we shorten the time of practice.So for now, treat this practice as the first step of turning the Dharma wheel, the initial turning of the wheel.Everything is done in front of the chest.Reciting this mantra wheel, you must do it from the chest: "Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the profound Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated and saw that the five aggregates are all empty, transcended all suffering and distress, Śāriputra, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form...." and at the end the heart mantra.For the heart mantra, I'm not changing it for now.The closing mantra: "Gate gate, pāragate, pārasaṃgate, bodhi svāhā." My mantra is different.In my mantra there are śarīra things inside.So I want everything to form this śarīra, so using the light of the śarīra to illuminate and see the five aggregates empty and transcend all suffering and distress is no problem.

The procedure goes like this.And when sitting in meditation, since you probably can't do full lotus, if you can, use full lotus, because only full lotus keeps you upright and the spine straight.As for breathing: for men, inhale through the right nostril into the belly, and as you inhale the belly expands, and exhale through the left nostril.Wash the vase!Breathe in to wash, wash the vase, wash it clean, then out through the left nostril.For women, inhale through the left nostril, wash the vase clean, the vase is right here.This is Avalokiteśvara's nectar vase, also the long-life vase.The four-armed Avalokiteśvara holds the same vase.Any vase held is either the long-life vase or the nectar purification vase.That is the origin of the Dharma, it appears from here.When practicing, right leg over left, then pull the ankle up from here, full lotus like this, soles facing up.Eyes closed with just a tiny bit of light.When you finally do deep reflection, fully closed is fine.Breathe for six seconds as the standard.Inhale through the right nostril to the belly, the belly swells.Exhale the same way through the left nostril, the belly draws in.

How do you count six seconds?"Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ," one syllable per second, exactly six seconds.You can also recite Vajrasattva, "Oṃ vajrasattva hūṃ," one syllable per second, also exactly six seconds.Use the Vajrasattva heart mantra to wash the vase, cleanse the impurities inside the vase in my body, and clear karma along the way.Exhale is also six seconds.Inhale, here.Exhale, also six seconds.All of it six seconds.If you want to circle six rounds, six seconds, and out, also six seconds.It's best to let it circle around and wash, wash the vase clean.Practice like this, and later practice inhaling through both nostrils and exhaling through both nostrils.So this cleanses our central channel, cleanses my nectar vase.Why?To prepare to hold the nectar water.For the ambrosia, the empowerment of pouring nectar over the crown, the nectar must come down from above to enter the vase.If it's not washed clean, the nectar can't get in.Avalokiteśvara's nectar drips three drops from the center of the brain, and it becomes the nourishment that grows the śarīra.The śarīra doesn't just pop out naturally.It's like raising pearls, you raise it like that.Once it's grown, it shines, illuminates and sees the five aggregates empty, and only then are you qualified to transcend all suffering and distress.There is a procedure for this.

So the practice version I'm teaching, you've never heard it.The Heart Sutra can be practiced like this.Because on the sheet I gave you, the Buddha spoke while in meditation with his eyes closed.So at the end, look at the first handout, look at the very end, and recite the last part once.

At that time the World-Honored One arose serenely from samādhi and praised Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva Mahāsattva, saying: "Excellent, excellent!Good son, it is just as you have said, just so, just so....

The World-Honored One arose serenely from samādhi, which shows that before he rose, when he was speaking of this realm, he was speaking in meditation.Then who is Avalokiteśvara?In terms of my own meditating self, it is myself giving a teaching to myself, with all these realms produced here and spoken, because he saw the śarīra, saw the śarīra emit light, illuminate and see the five aggregates empty, and so he praised, to transcend all suffering and distress you must use this method.So I finally understood: form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, form is emptiness, emptiness is form...there's nothing to cling to.After that come his reflections.Because after being enlightened by the light of the śarīra, he saw that this world and the inside could both be nonexistent, just a point of light like this.

Then he realized that all material things with form..."not different" means not distinct.In the end it all changes into nothing.Everything you possess becomes nothing.The body dies and rots and is gone.I saw that the organs also vanish and rot away.In the world I saw, many buildings collapsed and were gone, many animals died too.So form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form.

So in this realm, there is no distinction at all.Form and emptiness are the same, no distinction.Under the X-ray everything is transparent, no distinction.So only in that realm do you have that feeling.If you haven't reached that realm, you don't have this ability.So slowly appreciate it, slowly chew over the flavor, slowly practice, and now you formally step onto the path of practice, formally step onto it.

This is personal practice, personal attainment.For you it is hard to encounter in a hundred thousand kalpas.I have never taught the practice of the Heart Sutra to the outside.

First, to avoid shaking other people's views.

Second, I felt it wasn't worth teaching this, the conditions were not complete.

Third, not to pass it on: the final age has arrived, everyone should go strive for their own practice.

Last period: because I'm teaching you in this life, in the next life it will probably be hard to meet again.Since there is an affinity to reach here, I follow that affinity to pass on the practice version of the Heart Sutra.Hearing it is your good fortune, and being able to practice it is your good fortune too.

In the past sixty years I haven't taught this.I only taught it this year, and only to this group, and after this I may retire, and it will be very hard to hear it.So affinity waits for no one.If you understand, then go contemplate well.Don't say that because sitting meditation needs a posture, you won't think about it.Contemplation can be done anywhere.Give inner teachings, do inner liberation, do inner removal of all suffering and distress, and naturally things will go smoothly.Why?I keep saying it: that suffering binds you, so things don't go smoothly, just like blocked channels and winds.The suffering ties you down, and where is that suffering?That is where your luck is bad.

Then when the great fortune wheel turns around, it will turn to the wealth palace, to the health palace, and you see on which point the suffering lands.If that suffering isn't taken away, it's like a leech, a bloodsucker, always sucking your energy, so how could my luck be good?So now turn the suffering into something that isn't suffering at all, and then this obstacle is gone and the blood path opens.This is the reasoning behind removing obstacles and turning fortune.Others won't say your luck is bad.Only you feel your luck is bad.Others can't feel where you suffer.Only you know your suffering.

So why not extinguish this suffering?Then your qi and blood flow, your obstacles are gone, and what should be accomplished will accomplish itself naturally.

So today think about where your suffering is, and illuminate that suffering, illuminate until the suffering is gone, and that's good, the matter is solved.Second, illuminate to the end, and only light remains, nothing else, and your dharmakāya appears.Of course to study the dharmakāya there are many details in it.I may add a lot of mantras or other things at different places in the sutra.For example, at the śarīra I will add the śarīra mantra, and it will appear at the end of it.

"No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind." What will be added there?Mañjuśrī, the mantras to cut off the ear faculty, eye faculty, nose faculty, tongue faculty will be placed in there.There are also many different weapons inside.That's it for today's teaching.

Excerpted from a teaching by Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche on 2020.9.19