Teaching on the Heart Sutra, Part 4

Earlier we spoke of the eight sufferings — or twelve sufferings — we face.How do we go beyond them?The wisdom of practicing the Heart Sutra lets us first transcend suffering and all the thoughts of affliction and obstruction.Once you transcend them, you'll see that behind the suffering and these afflictions and obstructions, there is happiness.What you run into in front of you, what happens in front of you, is usually worldly, unsatisfying — so you feel suffering.But once you can transcend this unsatisfying mode of thinking, behind it is actually joy, happiness, with no bondage.So —

"Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva" — in plain language — means: when I quietly turn and look back at myself, I'm examining myself, looking at myself.No outsider is present.I quietly sit alone on a meditation cushion and look at myself.I am a bodhisattva at ease, unrestricted by anyone — I am practicing.Then —

"while coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā" — I've reached the deepest layer of thought.Eyes closed, still, not wanting to see anything, I just think about my own heart; nothing else."Coursing deep" means that at my deepest state, another kind of view, another kind of seeing, arises inside me — different from what you usually see.Let me say it again: based on your current emotions and mood, everything your eyes see and your ears hear is completely different from what you see, hear, and think once you settle down, close your eyes, and layer by layer go inward.You rarely sit quietly and do that other, inward thinking.The you who normally handles all the outside stuff versus the you who is willful and at ease, sitting quietly — never mind if the sky falls, never mind day or night, never mind anyone's interference, never mind whether you have to run to the bank for the 3:30 check — just sit quietly.At that moment the thoughts that surface in your inner world are different from your usual thoughts.That is another kind of brain wisdom.

So "Avalokiteśvara" is you quietly reflecting on and observing your own innermost heart."Coursing" goes all the way to "coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā" — the deepest act of reflection.Then from the inner reflection, projecting outward, you see that the outer world gradually no longer exists — this is "illuminated the five aggregates as all empty." Only you are left; everything else is gone.

Now, I want to transcend the suffering and calamity I'm feeling.To what level must I practice?I must practice to "Śāriputra" — the spiritual seed of wisdom, popularly called the Golden Luminous Pearl, or the Maṇi jewel, or Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva's night-shining pearl.I must practice to the level of "Śāriputra," the dharmakāya relic, before I can "cross over all suffering and calamity" — before I can liberate all sources of suffering, before I can find out where the causes of suffering come from.Only then can I see through: what has been tormenting me isn't something I should accept; the things that make me suffer are things I'm doing to myself.Only then can you find the answer.Up to this point — memorize this sentence.

This is the first dhyāna, the first stage of practice.We cultivate this stretch of awareness: "Avalokiteśvara, while coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated the five aggregates as all empty, crossed over all suffering and calamity, Śāriputra." But in practice, I suggest moving "Śāriputra" forward.Last time I said: "Avalokiteśvara, while coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated the five aggregates as all empty, crossed over all suffering and calamity, Śāriputra" — rearranged becomes: "Avalokiteśvara, while coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā, illuminated the five aggregates as all empty, Śāriputra" — and only then can one cross over all suffering and calamity.When I quietly sit alone in self-reflective meditation, keep observing my innermost heart, down to the deepest layer of thought, the outer appearances my inner self projects — appearances I used to see — suddenly cease to exist.Only I am left.This feeling will remind you: this is the present moment, nothing is beside you — you've exiled yourself.As I said, when only you are left, from just you alone, you then enter nothing.At that point, if I want to resolve the suffering hanging in my heart and the calamity I face, what do I do?Turn it around: I must practice to the spiritual seed of wisdom before I can cross over all suffering and calamity.That is: to cross over all suffering and calamity, I must use the Śāriputra — Kṣitigarbha's Śāriputra — to liberate sentient beings and remove their suffering.Can this way of thinking be established?At the deepest level of practice, this is where "Śāriputra" cultivation begins.In this middle section you cultivate "Śāriputra" — the construction of the Śāriputra and Maṇi jewel goes in here.Later there is no second "Śāriputra" before "Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form."

Here you start to cultivate the Śāriputra.After cultivating for five or ten minutes, you jump to "Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form; form is emptiness, emptiness is form." Because I use the Śāriputra's light to look at the world, I see that "form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form" — matter and energy are just that: matter is destroyed and becomes energy, energy is destroyed and becomes matter; a person dies and becomes a ghost, a ghost comes alive and becomes a person.This relativity jumps out at you — nothing to make a fuss about.

In class I've said: where there's male there's female, where there's birth there's death.All of this is nature's law — nothing special.You see the front, you also see the back; you see the face, you also see the reverse; you see happiness, you also see suffering.You stand on top of happiness and suffering, not on the suffering side, not on the happiness side.Clear so far?

Practicing the Heart Sutra — the first concept to set, you must write it down: "I stand on top of happiness and suffering to look at happiness and suffering.I'm not choosing the suffering side, and I'm not choosing the happiness side." This way you can gradually accomplish transference of consciousness.Some people, after a breakup or divorce, become what?CEOs.Why?No husband making trouble.They turn all their spirit, emotion, and drive into something retaliatory: I'll make a lot of money, become a rich woman.She stands on the happiness side; her ex-husband stands on the suffering side — why?Still broke.She lost the marriage but gained huge success.She stands on the happiness side and starts being willful: I do what I want.One man isn't enough — hire three hunks to strip.Being willful, what can't be done, right?

OK, now go into contemplation: I, so-and-so, am looking at myself now.Looking where?At my heart.Where is the heart?The chest.See the chest.What next?Why look?Look at what I've done this lifetime.Having lived to this age, how many joyful things have I accomplished, how much suffering have I faced?Keep looking into the deepest layer.Keep looking down and down, until finally you find that this whole process is like a dream.It happened; the me of now doesn't belong to the past, nor to the future.All this doesn't exist for me now — it's already happened.You go back to being young, before marriage.Back then you were single.Why would that moment have created the you of now?Already old, with kids, facing what?It's all just stuff in your head, feelings in your heart.Gradually, by the end, there's nothing worth watching.Your documentary is like this.Your whole life process is like this — this movie isn't any good.By the end it seems meaningless.The plot gets thinner and thinner; you see there's nothing left, the film goes black and white, gone, over.After it ends, "the five aggregates are all empty." Everything past, yesterday's affairs, is past.I was only daydreaming.What's the point?That's "illuminated the five aggregates as all empty." Ah!Those bad memories or images from the past — the moment I recall them they appear; recall again, they come again.Or I think, I don't want this image, make it disappear.So I decide: I want to transcend these past afflictions, obstructions, sufferings, and calamities.What do I do?I must emit light from inside my heart.When this light shines down, my past bad memories will all be destroyed, all gone.So I must practice to where I have the Śāriputra's light, only then can I transcend this suffering.That's what the first section up to "Śāriputra" is talking about.Usually, before you sleep, use my method to practice this section first — practice to "Śāriputra." It's a skill.

Then from "Śāriputra" you start again.Once you see the Śāriputra and start cultivating from there, the situation changes."Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form" — oh, so that's it."Feeling, perception, formations, consciousness are also like this." The things I imagine, everything I do, is like this — good, bad, good, bad, good, bad.Only memory is left, and it's all useless.Gradually this feeling emerges.When these bad things are filtered out, the Śāriputra appears and I see light.The rest I don't bother with.In the light, the so-called eight sufferings don't exist.Gradually you can leave suffering.

As I said, if you want happiness or suffering, you have to look down from above, analyze which side is happiness, which is suffering.Hardest to cultivate is when happiness and suffering tangle together.What's called happiness, what's called suffering, mixed together — suffering with a touch of happiness, happiness with a touch of suffering — not big happiness, where you throw everything off and laugh heartily.You can't get happy.A little bit of happiness, suffering comes, right?Three or five seconds of happiness, then you think of something bitter and it knocks the happiness out.Happiness and suffering are always mixed, impossible to separate.So you have to start classifying: where is suffering?Where is happiness?Why bitter?Why happy?Only when you can classify can you qualify to pick up and throw away.

The reason we can't pick up and can't put down is you can't distinguish suffering from happiness.Suffering and happiness are mixed, so we accidentally throw away the happiness, right?You want to grab happiness?But it has suffering inside, so you take suffering along with it.Sometimes we do a happy thing, but the aftereffect is suffering.Men and women having children — isn't it like this?Suffering first or happiness first?Happiness first, of course — that's why you want kids.Then the kids keep manufacturing suffering: get up at midnight for formula, diapers; by elementary school they rebel, and so on, and suffering comes.So bitter and sweet are mixed because you can't use wisdom to distinguish them.Only when you jump above them and sort them clean do you have the standing to say: I'll throw out suffering, or I'll grab happiness.You have to practice this, right?

Actually, for many people, their suffering isn't suffering and their happiness isn't happiness.We see suffering coming behind happiness — so what happiness or suffering is there?You must classify them separately, cut them down the middle so suffering doesn't contaminate happiness and happiness doesn't contaminate suffering.Once cut cleanly, pick a side: I stand on happiness.I already know what suffering is and what happiness is.Gradually something like mind-reading emerges.When I look at this situation — is the outcome good or bad?When I do this thing, is it right or wrong?Does it create a happy or painful result?You'll know clearly.Wisdom grows.When you cultivate the Śāriputra, what arises?The spiritual seed of wisdom — a different kind of thought and behavior, not your current thought and behavior.So what do you see?Your state of mind is different.What I'm showing you today is a practice: at the obstruction point between suffering and happiness, can you turn it into a plain-language self?Can you do self-reflective thinking?

I — the process of suffering and happiness I face, up to how I feel them — so how much suffering, how much happiness?Suffering can be stated; happiness can't.Suffering can be enumerated — how many sufferings — but can happy people enumerate how many happinesses?Suffering can be classified into eight or twelve sufferings, but no one talks about how many happinesses there are — it's just inexplicable happiness.Some people are delighted just picking up a pet; others are miserable because of a pet, allergies, having to care for it, wait on it every day.So suffering and happiness are blurry.But you have to go through this part.My current feeling is only up to this part.So if you're suffering, jump over here — this is the result.

Process, dependent origination, beginning.When you meet suffering, what result does it produce?A bitter fruit.Because this suffering contaminates everything you have, the result is bitter.In the present you are bitter.So this is always your obstruction point — always holding onto suffering, your conclusion is always suffering.You can't pass the suffering barrier.On everything you have to sprinkle a bit of bitter-melon powder.So if the suffering in your heart isn't removed, whatever you bring over you sprinkle berberine, bitter-melon powder on it — still bitter.So take this suffering away and rebuild.Everything comes in here, is rebuilt, and the outcome will be different.This one life of ours is to run into this processing zone and come back out.

So if you want to get something, do not place the thought "can't get" in front of you.It will block you forever — you'll never grab the thing on the other side.Place "poor" in front — you'll be poor forever.Why?That poverty is blocking you in front.You can't become a rich person.Because the first mental state that surfaces is the obstacle, and it comes out first and knocks you down.You can't walk out of that feeling.If I hold berberine in front of you, you immediately feel bitter.If I put a sour plum in front of you — everyone think of a sour plum, 10 sour plums in front, that very sour kind, think for a minute, sour, sour.Have you tasted berberine?If not, picture Western medicine on your tongue — Western medicine is very bitter, right?Bitterness comes!That means sour, bitter, sweet, spicy are all creatable.Then simply: can wealth luck be created?Yes.Just like this.Every day pick up a gold ingot, bills, and stare — stare until your eyes cross — and the smell of money ink comes out.People are strange — things with the same smell come to them.So rather than worry over there, better to think of the feeling of getting money.

What I'm saying, take it in.This is how to change your fate."Prosperity to Me" — how do you use it?There's a utility pole in front, facing your doorway.Everyone says if your house faces a utility pole it's bad — "piercing-heart calamity." Today someone says, tomorrow a friend who's studied feng shui comes over and says your feng shui is bad, you face a utility pole, bad for the heart.Oh dear, really?Lately it's been hitting my heart — said it for a year, no wonder I got sick.So how do we do feng shui?Stick up "Prosperity to Me," every day going out — "Prosperity to Me" — happy as can be, no illness at all, actually better.Facing a wall-knife — "Prosperity to Me." Sleeping under a beam — "Prosperity to Me." Doing homework, place "Prosperity to Me" in front.Nothing to do, pull it out — "Prosperity to Me." A photo of someone you dislike — paste "Prosperity to Me" on their forehead.Does it bring prosperity?Yes.This is how we use it in feng shui — when you hit a sha, turn the sha into wealth.Sha is a force — it slashes over, so let it slash over bringing money.Just think "Prosperity to Me," then you don't think of suffering, and that breaks through — you pierce to the other side.Thinking of bodhisattvas, buddhas, wisdom — all can create the bodhisattva realm here.Place a bodhisattva, you become the bodhisattva realm.Place money, you become the money realm.Place sugar, you become the sweet world.Turn it like this.

Keep this one.Nothing to do, put in your pocket — "Prosperity to Me." Someone you dislike in front — "Prosperity to Me" — then you won't get worked up.If there's money, everyone's fine, right?I want to get mad at you — block it — "Prosperity to Me," great.Every moment, "Prosperity to Me." Dog barking — "Prosperity to Me," how useful.If you don't take this out, barking is annoying, so many irritations, no money and the dog's still barking.Dog's barking, it's "Prosperity to Me," chant like this and it's Oṃ Jambhala Jayah Svāhā — isn't that it?So what do you do?To change your destiny, your heart has to go first; it has to leave suffering.If your heart doesn't leave suffering, nobody can save you.Isn't it useful?Demon-revealing mirror — "Prosperity to Me," at every moment "Prosperity to Me." Place it where you sleep — "Prosperity to Me" — so what you look at outward is different.Can you feel it?Place this in front, look at the front then the back, nothing can attack you — because everything is "Prosperity to Me." Isn't it useful?Sentient beings come to settle scores, just about to strike — "Prosperity to Me." Because mental projection: I have a persecution complex, so I get persecuted.I think therefore I am.The principle of the world is just this: what I think of doing really becomes that way.So every day watch happily — "Prosperity to Me." This is the way of turning thought in Heart Sutra practice.I realized this principle yesterday.Today I immediately found it.Not many copies — one each as a protection amulet, better than anything.Place "Prosperity to Me" between you and the target to turn it — this is the Heart Sutra's way of transforming thought.

When Heart Sutra practice reaches "Śāriputra," you look at everything through the Śāriputra, shining with light, like an X-ray.The Śāriputra has an X-ray function.He doesn't look with the eyes; he looks with the Śāriputra's light.The things seen are all "five aggregates all empty" — the thing vanishes when seen.Look at a beautiful woman, look through — only bones remain; this isn't real: "form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form." What's seen isn't its original prettiness.The concept is different, right?When your gaze is elevated, your state of mind turns, all bad things become good.Just remember "Prosperity to Me." From now on at New Year, don't say "Congratulations, get rich" — change to "Prosperity to Me." So when you meet me, bring money to me — "Prosperity to Me." How useful, holding "Prosperity to Me." From now on this diagram is useful — remember the front all says "Prosperity to Me." Because what our eyes meet faces the future, and life with money is happy — first solve this."Prosperity to Me," "Congratulations, thank you" — "Prosperity to Me." "Congratulations, get rich" is telling others to get rich, right?So change to "Prosperity to Me." This was invented by our Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara.All "Prosperity to Me." "Congratulations, get rich" — you're wishing them wealth, but I don't have any, right?Why be so dumb?From now on we change.

The gaze of this "Śāriputra" is different from all our gazes.The Śāriputra bird — its eyes are as bright as pearls, bright even at night, so the world it sees is wondrous.The Śāriputra is like a kind of bird in India called the Śāriputra bird.Its eyes are bright like pearls.Like a hawk — from the side it sees the finest detail clearly.You must have that bird's eye sharpness to see everything in this world.What I'm calling the Śāriputra is different — this bird has supernatural powers.Its eyes look out like X-rays, nothing escapes.I say: practice to be like this bird's eyes — that's called the Śāriputra, so powerful one look and nothing can hide.Happiness actually contains suffering inside; behind suffering is happiness.Then don't bother with any of it — transcend it and it's happiness.Swim across this shore, cross over and it's happiness, a country of freedom.Strive forward.Walk like this.The method of self-cultivation uses the Heart Sutra to cultivate yourself, raise your wisdom and confidence, then transform your thought — no longer deciding with the fleshly eye.

When Heart Sutra practice gets to the middle stage, it isn't seeing with eyes — that's worldly seeing.Not listening with ears — worldly sound.Not speaking with the mouth — ordinary speech is worldly speech.Not thinking with an ordinary head — all different.That's an upgrade.So your view, your way of seeing, the things you choose, generally won't be off.Your heart is no longer an ordinary person's heart — it's a different heart.What your heart thinks, what the mouth says, what the ears hear — once you've seen everything, you'll find the facts aren't so.We've been hypnotized.The truth of many things isn't like this.You must gradually raise wisdom, gradually raise your station.The Buddhas of the three times all cultivate like this.By the end, wisdom keeps growing.He transcends many thoughts and can tell you many wise things, many methods of leaving suffering.By then it's quite something — very powerful.

Each section has its own cultivation method.At "form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form," we cultivate the cutting off of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind.At Śāriputra, we cultivate the Śāriputra practice.Each section has its own practice.But your current level must be in place to be able to practice to the back parts.Each one has a mantra inside, and then there's the upper, middle, and lower scrolls.If I speak the whole thing, I can speak the middle and lower scrolls too.Even the upper scroll is different from the "Avalokiteśvara coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā" that everyone recites.Three scrolls — upper, middle, lower.The longer mantras are in the middle and lower scrolls.This is the upper scroll — only up to "gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā" — called the preliminary.

Few know that the Heart Sutra has three scrolls, and nobody knows that this is the original Pāramitā Heart Sutra.I handed one out for you — do you have it?That one, "The Original Dhāraṇī of the Prajñāpāramitā Heart Sutra Spoken by Buddha, the Holy Mother" — unaltered.What everyone chants, "Avalokiteśvara, coursing deep in Prajñāpāramitā..." is altered.We must teach from the original.The meaning differs from the current one.The meaning I speak is the original in the Great Treasury — the most primal.The "Avalokiteśvara" version is shorter, easier to recite, kept for your convenience.Teaching should teach the original; the original has deep practice, the other does not.OK, we're preparing to practice.Today we got up to Śāriputra.Everyone write the vernacular below on the handout I gave you, for self-contemplation.Go home and ponder the Heart Sutra well.You will use this for your whole life.

Excerpted from a teaching by the Venerable Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche, 2020.9.26.