Teaching the Heart of Wisdom and the Commentary on the Awakening Mind

Tokyo, Japan, 12 April 2015 - The weather was bright once more today and, being a Sunday morning, the streets were relatively empty as His Holiness the Dalai Lama drove across Tokyo to the Showa Joshi Women’s University. People waiting outside to enter the Memorial Hall that was the venue for the teachings were taken by surprise to see him arrive in a car. Many bowed and then waved.

His Holiness took his seat punctually at 9.30 before a capacity audience of 2100. They included 370 Koreans, 120 Mongolians and about 1000 Chinese, mostly from Taiwan with some from the mainland.

“Since most of us customarily recite the Heart of Wisdom Sutra, we’ll have recitations in your various languages,” he announced at the beginning. “Today, let’s have the Korean monks and tomorrow the Japanese.”
Starting with his customary introduction to Buddhism His Holiness said:

“In this 21st century all of us 7 billion human beings are the same in wanting happiness and not wanting to be miserable. This is true of us all, whether we are religious or not. Many of the problems we face we make for ourselves, because we are self-centred and tend to see things from a narrow, short-sighted point of view, which only increases our frustration.”

His Holiness the Dala Lama speaking during his teaching at Showa Joshi Women’s University's Memorial Hall in Tokyo, Japan on April 12, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Jigmey
He said that although there is a stress on education in today’s world, it tends to focus on materialistic goals, preparing students for a materialistic way of life in a materialistic culture. Society all but ignores the mind’s contribution to being happy. We are inclined to anger and frustration because we are not at peace within. What we need is a grounding in inner values. All religious traditions emphasize love and compassion the idea of brotherhood and sisterhood and they take different philosophical approaches to that goal.

Religious traditions are either theistic, stressing a belief in a creator god, or non-theistic, and believing in causality instead. Among the non-theistic traditions, only Buddhism advocates the absence of an independent, intrinsically existent self, asserting that there is no self separate from the body and mind. He said that within Buddhism there is the Pali tradition and the Sanskrit tradition. Both teach about the three trainings in ethics, concentration and wisdom, but differ on how wisdom is defined.

The ‘Unravelling of Thought Sutra’ explains the three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma. The first refers to the teachings recorded in the Pali tradition, while the second and third belong to the Sanskrit tradition. His Holiness clarified that during the first Turning of the Wheel, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths to do with suffering, its origin, its cessation and the path that are the foundation of his teaching. He went into some detail to explain their 16 characteristics, four characteristics of each truth. He focused particularly on understanding selflessness, the possibility of undermining ignorance and attaining a cessation of suffering. When an understanding of the 16 characteristics of the Four Noble Truths is applied in practice it gives rise to the 37 factors of enlightenment.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with a towel to protect him from the hot lights, reading from the text during his teaching in Tokyo, Japan on April 12, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Jigmey
Coming back from lunch His Holiness explained that the Heart of Wisdom Sutra belongs to a collection of texts known as the Perfection of Wisdom teachings that in their most extensive form comprise the sutra of 100,000 lines in 12 volumes. In their briefest form they consist of one syllable, ‘ah’. The Heart of Wisdom is generally regarded as consisting of 25 lines. Their explicit meaning of the Perfection of Wisdom is emptiness of intrinsic existence and its implications for the truth of cessation.

“Nagarjuna describes the meaning of cessation as occurring when emptiness overcomes the destructive emotions.Khunu Lama Rinpoche on the other hand explained, and I prefer this, that the destructive emotions dissolve into emptiness. Whereas the Buddha expounded the meaning of emptiness during the second Turning of the Wheel, during the third, he introduced the clear light nature of the mind.”

His Holiness made clear that during his explanation of the Four Noble Truths, the Buddha referred to cessation and liberation in relation to an understanding of the selflessness of persons. One of the key points in the Heart of Wisdom is where it says:

‘Avalokiteshvara ... beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.’

The key word also, which is absent from the Chinese translation, but is found in the Sanskrit original and its Tibetan translation, indicates the selflessness of phenomena in addition to the selflessness of persons. To say that persons and phenomena are empty of inherent existence is not to say they do not exist at all. The words in the sutra, ‘Form is empty’ refer to the ultimate reality of the object, while the words ‘emptiness is form’ refer to its conventional existence. This is reiterated by the statement: ‘Emptiness is not other than forms and forms are not other than emptiness.’

The reason for seeking an understanding of emptiness is, as Chandrakirti states in his ‘Entering into the Middle Way’, ‘All faults, shortcomings and disturbing emotions arise from the misconception of [an intrinsically existent] self.’ On the basis of such a misconception we grasp at the intrinsic existent of things and generate disturbing emotions towards them, which His Holiness quotes his friend, American psychiatrist, Aaron Beck as saying is 90% our own mental projection.

Some of the over 2100 people attending His Holiness the Dalai Lama's teaching at Showa Joshi Women’s University's Memorial Hall in Tokyo, Japan on April 12, 2015. Photo/Tenzin Jigmey
His Holiness quoted Nagarjuna saying that without understanding the selflessness of phenomena you can’t really understand the selflessness of persons. In conclusion he cited the Heart of Wisdom itself:

“All the Buddhas of the past, present and future have depended, do and will depend upon the perfection of wisdom. Thereby they became, are becoming and will become unsurpassably, perfectly and completely awakened Buddhas.’

Turning to Nagarjuna’s ‘Commentary on the Awakening Mind’, His Holiness gave a concise outline. In verses 4-9 the text refutes non-Buddhist points of view. Verses 10-24 repudiates the views of Buddhist lower schools of thought and verses 25-44 address the views of the Mind Only school. In verse 48 Nagarjuna shows that emptiness is the view that cuts off misconceptions at the root.

[48]
Therefore constantly meditate on emptiness:
The basis of all phenomena,
Tranquil and illusion-like,
Groundless and destroyer of cyclic existence.

From verse 63 there is an explanation of the Madhyamaka view, exemplified by verse 68:

[68]
The conventional is taught to be emptiness;
The emptiness itself is the conventional;
One does not occur without the other,
Just as [being] produced and impermanent.

From verse 72 the practice of generosity and the cultivation of the awakening mind of bodhichitta are described, showing how understanding of emptiness becomes a motive factor for developing bodhichitta. Then, from verses 76 - 85 is an account of how to develop the practice of exchanging self and others. At which point, His Holiness announced:

“That’s all for today. Good night. We’ll meet again tomorrow.

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Buddhist wisdom and questions of science

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Tokyo, Japan -- This book is a stirring attack on the hubris and blind spots of the scientific establishment, combined with an engaging presentation of Buddhist wisdom as the antidote.

The author spent 14 years as a monk, ordained by the Dalai Lama, before acquiring degrees in physics and religious studies, so he is superbly equipped for his task. We sometimes hear that Buddhism — unlike Christianity — does not have a problem with the scientific worldview, since it is a radically empirical religion, skeptical about any claims that go beyond what can be experienced. But this science-friendly Buddhism often turns out to be a modernized version, shorn of traditional doctrines.

B. Alan Wallace upholds the full panoply of classical Buddhist teachings, as taught in Tibet, and does not shy away from a frontal conflict with the dogmatic presuppositions of contemporary science.

He shows that materialist dogma keeps scientists from any understanding of human consciousness and freedom, and leads them into absurdities such as the claim that "the precise condition of the universe shortly after the Big Bang necessitated the assassination of John F. Kennedy" (p. 113), or that Stephen Hawking's view that "the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program. It will cease to run when the computer it turned off" (p. 91).

Hawking tries to explain minds, which he cannot understand, by reducing them to computers, which he can. This erasure of spiritual phenomena is sustained by Orwellian "crimestop": "the faculty of stopping short, as if by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought" (p. 9).

Coming to his positive proposals, Wallace first confronts us with the unpleasant doctrine of reincarnation: Death is not the end of our woes, but it consigns us to a new chapter in the endless round of painful rebirths, perhaps as animals — unless we are so privileged as to attain nirvana. This, he thinks, can be scientifically established: Young children remember their previous existence, and the Buddha had clear recall of all his past lives.

Just as Christian apologists find room for a "God of the gaps" in the evolutionary world picture, so scientists rely on "matter-of-the-gaps" thinking, when they assume that the "dark matter" and "dark energy" they postulate must be physical rather than spiritual. Here Wallace himself seems to fall into god-of-the-gaps thinking, too eager to secure a place in scientific cosmology for the spiritual substrate of reality.

Wallace makes the claim that Buddhism can found a new science of consciousness and of the physical universe. The International Shamatha Project, newly launched with the blessing of the Dalai Lama (www.shamatha.org), lays the basis for this scientific revolution by having people meditate in retreat centers for six hours a day, so as to attain the state of quiescence known as shamatha and thence proceed to clear insight into the fabric of existence. Discouragingly, Wallace tells us that, even in Sri Lanka, the number of people who had attained shamatha could be counted on the fingers of one hand and that things are not much better in Tibet (p. 148).

The meditator sees the ultimate emptiness of everything that claims to have stable, substantial identity, and discovers the role of subjective fabrication in the creation of what appears as an objective, physical world. Many scientists would agree that their discourse is a set of conventions, not a direct transcription of the way things really are. Quantum physics, which Wallace plays off against barren scientific materialism, shows that at the subatomic level it is impossible to separate the roles of observer and observed.

Extending this to the whole universe, he claims that "the past has no existence except as it is recorded in the present," and our decisions about what to observe determine "what kind of a universe emerges in our experience as being objectively real" (p. 85). Can Buddhist wisdom, even with the alleged support of quantum physics, shake the security of scientific fact and logic? Science, at its canniest, goes part of the way to meet Buddhist awareness of conventionality, relativism and mind-based interpretation of reality, but it cannot go the whole way.

Wallace might do well to differentiate more subtly between what is powerful and undeniable in the achievement of science and the blind spots he discerns. Likewise, he should expose his Buddhist orthodoxy to a more critical sifting between what is archaic and culture-bound and what could be developed into a viable mode of thinking for today. A mutually critical interaction between science and Buddhism would be a tremendous achievement, but as the present valiant effort shows, they are still talking past one another.

Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: A Manifesto for the Mind Sciences and Contemplative Practice, by B. Alan Wallace. Columbia University Press, 2011, 304 pp., $27.95 (hardcover)

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Joseph S. O'Leary, professor of English literature at Sophia University, is an Irish theologian. His 2011 Etienne Gilson lectures on Western philosophy and Buddhist concepts have been published by Presses Universitaires de France.

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Northeast Portland church finds new life as Heart of Wisdom, a Buddhist temple

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Portland, Oregon (USA) -- On a Wednesday morning, the newly painted red door gleams against the small white church. Just inside, wooden stairs, covered in feathery tufts of old carpet padding, climb to the second-floor sanctuary.

<< A former church that's housed three congregations in Northeast Portland has become Heart of Wisdom, a Zen Buddhist temple. Benjamin Brink, The Oregonian

Scents of fresh paint and fine sawdust mingle in the air. The Douglas fir floor that has supported three congregations in the past 100 years is being refinished for its fourth -- the Zen Community of Oregon.

Buddhists believe in impermanence, the notion that nothing lasts forever, that a person must try to welcome change. On the surface, such thinking may seem at odds with the Christian understanding of the eternal God, but both concepts coexist on a corner not far from the Woodlawn Triangle in Northeast Portland.

A church that has been in continuous use for more than a century is being lovingly restored as a Zen refuge by a group who believe they probably won't be the last to hallow this space.

This story begins in about 1891, when the modest wooden church was built to house a Methodist Episcopal congregation. By 1959, the Methodists had moved on. Ukrainian Orthodox Christians had taken their place, installing a three-bar cross on the church steeple. By 1968, the building was home to the Church of the Living God, a historically African American congregation that thrived for a time.

But in recent years, membership dwindled. Last fall, unpaid debts meant the church property faced foreclosure and the prospect of being sold at auction in front of the Multnomah County Courthouse at 11 a.m. on Dec. 15.

Enter the Zen Community of Oregon. Founded in 1976, the small sangha, or spiritual community, began meditating in private homes and yoga studios. Later they rented space at Dharma Rain Zen Center and at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, both in Southeast Portland. Along the way, the community bought a former elementary school in Clatskanie and transformed it into Great Vow Monastery. But a two-year search for their own space in Portland had stalled.

heart-of-wisdom-zendo.JPGView full sizeBenjamin Brink, The OregonianTony Mandella works restoring the old sanctuary floor in the zendo space, the Heart of Wisdom meditation hall.
"We were a little like a potted plant," says Patrick Green, president of the community's board. "We could only get so big. But as the community matured and more people were ready to teach, we didn't have the space to do it."

Then one evening in October, at the end of a meditation session, someone handed Hogen Bays, one of the spiritual leaders of the Zen Community of Oregon, a crumpled newspaper clipping. It was a public notice about the Church of the Living God property and the auction. Bays and members of the board met with the pastor of the congregation, the Rev. Roy Maxie, and visited the church.

"When we first came into the place, all those years of singing and praying had saturated the building," Bays remembers. "Everybody who walked into the chapel said, 'Ooh, this feels really good.' There were 120 years of spiritual practice soaking the walls."

Bays says he made Maxie an offer. The Buddhist community was willing to pay a fair price for the property, $205,000, so the pastor could pay off the church debts and have a little left over for his next ministry. It was an offer in keeping with the concept of karma -- that actions have consequences and good actions have good consequences. The Zen community could have waited for the auction and probably spent less to acquire the property, but Bays didn't want to benefit from another group's difficult circumstances.

"There's something to be said, especially with religion, about going in with a clean and healthy beginning," Bays says. "If we had taken advantage of somebody's bad luck, that would have set a certain tone."

The sale was final in December, just weeks before the auction date. The Zen community had already decided on what to call their new temple.

"We thought long and hard about names," Bays says. "Great Vow has 'Monastery' in its name so that we won't deviate and become a retreat center. 'Monastery' has a clear purpose." Ultimately, the community chose to combine two central Buddhist principles.

"Our tradition emphasizes wisdom as worthy of being cultivated," Bays says. "But wisdom can appear to be cool, removed. So we wanted to include the idea of warmth, compassion and outreach, the essence of real spiritual life. So, Heart of Wisdom."

The Zen Community of Oregon held a blessing of their new space on Jan. 1 and soon began work on the building. The roof was replaced with one meant to last 50 years. A new furnace was installed, walls were patched and painted. The wood floor of the sanctuary -- now a zendo, or meditation hall -- was taken up, the nails removed, the individual planks sanded and replaced so they could be refinished.

On a recent Wednesday morning, Evan Corcoran was among the volunteers working on the floor, checking each board for stubborn flakes of paint and pushing putty into the occasional crack. Corcoran has practiced Zen since 2000, consistently since 2005. He lived at the monastery in Clatskanie for more than three years before moving to Portland in February 2011.

"I owe a massive debt," he says quietly. "When I arrived at the monastery, I was borderline suicidal." The kindness and quiet that he experienced at Great Vow and the structure of monastic life soothed him, he says. "I needed time to not think."

Corcoran helped install the heated bamboo floor in the monastery dojo. Now he walks several blocks from his home to Heart of Wisdom to make what is, for him, a very personal contribution. "I work out of gratitude," he says. "I'll be tied to this place forever."

Nancy Kodo Conover, a member of the Zen community, coordinates the work on the temple. She says about 100 people have spent time on the project -- individually, in small groups and as larger work parties. Buddhist practice influences the way she and the others see their labor.

"Work is one of our practices," she says. "When we are mindfully doing the work, doing our best, taking care of our equipment and tools, we reflect on how the results of our work will be there for a long time, affecting the next people to come along. If we do a lousy job, someone will have to repair our mistakes.

"Someone built it for us. We are building it for the next generation to come."

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