A Rare Kind of Happiness: The Heart Sutra

Heart Sutra, an All-encompassing Sutra of the Three Turnings

In fact, all the teachings of the Three Turnings of the Wheel of Dharma by Buddha Shakyamuni can be condensed in this minuscule and short Heart Sutra . This is analogous to a tiny flash card which stores many many songs and other data, from which you can download what you want. Therefore, although the Heart Sutra is very short, it actually is a condensation of all the teachings of the Three Turnings.

The essence of the Prajnaparamita Sutras

The Heart Sutra is well recognized and acknowledged as the essence of the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. Here, the “heart” in the Heart Sutra does not refer to the physical heart organ, but rather the quintessence, a highly concentrated extract. In Tibetan, it is called ‘snying po’, and the whole title ‘shes rab snying po’ means the quintessence of wisdom. That is to say, the Heart Sutra is the essence of the whole Prajnaparamita collection.

Among all the Prajnaparamita sutras taught by the Buddha, the largest or the most extensive version is the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in One Hundred Thousand Lines , the mid-length version is the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in Twenty-five Thousand Lines , the relatively concise version is the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra in Eight thousand Lines , the more concise version is the Verse Summary of the Perfection of Wisdom , and the even more condensed version is this Heart Sutra.

The most concise version of the Prajnaparamita sutra only contains one word—ah. Many of you may not understand, why does an “ah” have such profound meaning? In Buddhism, Dharma practices including the “ah” all have profound meaning. As a matter of fact, when human beings first come to this world, we cry with the sound of “ah…ah…ah…”. It narrates the meaning of emptiness or shunyata. It is naturally uttered without learning. While when we leave this world, we die uttering an “ah” sound — this is also a signification of emptiness.

Heart Sutra, the Wish-fulfilling Jewel

In Tibetan Buddhism, to fulfill many worldly pursuits or wishes, whether it is to pray for the safety and peace in the family, to eliminate adverse conditions, to increase wealth, or to prolong one’s life etc., we have the tradition of chanting this Heart Sutra . If everyone tries his or her best to recite this sutra when encountering the most difficult problems in life, he or she will be able to pull through. And reciting the Heart Sutra nine times on the last day of the last month of every year would eliminate all the misfortunes of the next year.

Personally, I have also been reciting this Heart Sutra every day ever since I was young. Although there are more characters in the Tibetan version of the Heart Sutra than in the Chinese version, it may take a bit more time, but it almost has never been missed. In case it is missed for one or two days, I would make up for it in the next few days. If those of you present here today have the interest, you should also chant the Heart Sutra once every day. I think this is very necessary.

Heart Sutra, Antidote to Fear

Whoever we are, I believe that it is very important to pacify our mind by reciting the Heart Sutra , or some other Buddhist chanting, as in this world, there are many insecure factors or many kinds of “fear” as mentioned here in the text. For example, we may worry about our life, feeling uncertain about how long this body composed of the five aggregates would abide in the world, which is an apprehension. There is also fear of whether our job would stay unchanged during the course of our lifetime, and whether my income would be stable and so on. There are many such fears in life. Besides, we have many concerns about our physical health and about the preservation of our youthful appearance, etc. Actually, such fears may exist in everyone to a varying degree. And to eliminate such fears, I believe, is largely dependent on the strength of our mind.

Faith, a Mirror to Examine Our Actions

Some people feel that: “as long as I am a kind-hearted person, there is no need to study or follow Buddhism”. In fact, we believe ourselves to be very kind, but some of our behaviors may be rather unwholesome, and we are not even aware of it. I am not asking everyone to become a Buddhist, but rather some of the Buddhist teachings can help complement other religions to help prevent a person from making unconscious mistakes. Many people in the world are so overconfident about themselves that many of their behaviors are improper, yet they deem them as perfectly reasonable. Especially now, the idea of individualism and criticism advocated by the West — which may provide certain encouragement in terms of our ingenuity and creativity — is probably overly promoting and boosting our ego.