Talk Notes:
Peace Walks
We hosted the largest event of Red Cedar Zen's 36 year history on Sunday afternoon. Over 100 people came to walk silently for peace circumambulating downtown Bellingham.
If you weren't following the Theravada monks who walked from Texas to Washington DC and inspired here's a nice summary video: they walked for 108 days and here's a summary in 6 minutes. Buddhist Monk Reflects on Walk for Peace
Relevance of the Heart Sutra
Studying the wisdom teachings of the Prajna Paramita isn't just an interesting bit of scholarly distraction from the cares of the world. Appreciating emptiness supports the spaciousness and adaptability that we see behind Venerable Panakaro and his colleagues' offering.
The hatred and divisiveness they are responding too, without mentioning it directly, is a serious and frightening thing, but like everything it's empty of permanence and solidity.
It's something that is arising - it's real in that way - we see it and feel it and it's frightening and results in real world suffering for sure. But we study emptiness and we study karma and we may feel a little bit hopeful.
While the tradition does say that ordinary beings can never fully see the depths and complexity of karma (Buddhas can apparently) we can appreciate that while it's a serious matter that the 3 poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance have generated the situation we're in it's an ongoing process. It's not a done deal. Even a small shift in some of those minds can change what arises collectively. And these good hearted devoted monks have made some important contribution to that shifting. And we can do with our practice, in our own hearts.
It really does start here. Sometimes we get lost in ignorance and reactivity. We get to know each other over the years and have some idea little by little of some of the deep karma and pain within each of us and that can help a lot to appreciate "oh their past trauma is active isn't it?" but bam there it is, right among us too, a moment of anger, a moment of reactivity, a little bit of a fit, a moment of non-peacefulness.
Venerable Panakaro, I read, came to the monkhood a bit later in life. He came to the US from his homeland of Vietnam initially to become an engineer at Motorola. Dissatisfied with the middle class lifestyle he ordained as a monk and joined a monastery in Texas. Turns out he and a big group of monastics also did a long pilgrimage on foot across India just a few years earlier so he had some experience already. In addition to monastic life, social service work, and peace walks he's got a very "religious" project going too: "the Dhammacetiya Project, a marble stupa complex created to preserve the complete Tipiṭaka in multiple world languages." The Tripitika being the complete Pali canon.
So that's one response to hatred and division: doing good work of various kinds. Not feeling defeated and overwhelmed by it all. And these wisdom teaching really help this I think. They really do. And I know we have quite a few people in the sangha supporting all kinds of good things. We aren't all going to be in the headlines thank goodness but we are helping.
Review the frame story
Let's review the frame story in the longer version of the Heart Sutra:
"Thus have I heard at one time. The Lord was dwelling at Rajagriha, on the Vulture Peak, together with a great community of monks and a great community of Bodhisattvas. At that time the Lord was immersed in the concentration of the dharma-lineage called 'Perception of the Profound.' At that same time the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the Mahasattva, was moving in the deep course of the perfection of wisdom, and he saw that the five aggregates were empty of inherent existence." "Then, through the Buddha’s might, the venerable Shariputra said to the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara: 'How should a son of good family train, who wishes to practice the course of the deep perfection of wisdom?'"
And our version of the Heart Sutra starts with the spot light on Avalokitesvara:
"Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita, perceived that all five skandhas are empty and was saved from all suffering and distress."
The other times I've taught this sutra, or heard it taught, a little point is always made about how interesting and important it is that the bodhisattva of compassion is the one giving this deep wisdom teaching.
Before we move on to the complex dialetic of emptiness that's used to give this teaching in a super condensed way let's hang out longer in Avalokitesvara's company.
As always with the way Buddhism moved across different languages and cultures to get to us we have many different names for the same idea.
Avalokitesvara is the longer Sanskrit name for this celestial bodhisattva. Sometimes the name is just Avalokita. Mentally note the shorter and longer names as that will matter when we get to Japan. The Chinese translated Avalokitesvara as Guānshìyīn (觀世音) which is most often shortened to Guānyīn. And then the Japanese version of the Chinese characters used give us Kanzeon for Avalokitesvara or Guānshìyīn and Kannon for Avalokita or Guānyīn.
On "gotcha" with the Chinese name is that the first form of transliteration into English used a "K" and looks like "K" - Kuan Yin, but the second form used a G and looks like "G" - Guanyin. And it turns out the first form with the "K" was just a bad pick, the correct pronunciation in Chinese sounds almost identical to a hard English "G" (as in "Gate" or "Goat"). So Guanyin.
He was originally, mostly, gendered as male in India. It's said he emerged from the eye of Amitabha Buddha.
When we think of the Buddha we're talking about Shakyamuni Buddha. The most recently manifested Buddha in our age. Different schools of Buddhism emphasize his human-ness more or less but the idea that he was "just a person who was really good at spiritual practice" and not a spiritual & religious figure is not a traditional Buddhist idea - that's more of a kind of secular humanist idea to make the Buddha more okay for people who aren't into religion. In all of the Buddhisms he's also more far out than just a person even though he appeared in a human body many times over in his journey to awakening.
Amitabha Buddha is full on religious: he's a celestial Buddha who reigns over the pure land. There is an origin story that he was once a human king but I'm not sure all Buddhism agree on that. The pure land Buddhist schools pretty much pray to Amitabha. You might chant Namu Amida Butsu over and over many, many times to evoke Amitabha's presence and protection.
So it's a big deal that Avalokitesvara emerged from the eye of Amitabha. That's a lofty source for your existence for sure. And it makes it extra special that in the Heart Sutra she or he is the one practicing deep prajna paramita and giving us this wisdom teaching.
In India Avalokitesvara was usually seen as male but once he reached Chinese he was mostly female. There are listes of different forms of Guanyin in the Lotus Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra that are a mix of male and female forms but mostly female.
And then a famous new origin story for Guanyin pretty well set her as a female in China. Here's a version of the story:
The legend of Miao Shan is the most beloved "origin story" for the female form of Avalokiteshvara, known in East Asia as Guanyin. It is a gripping tale of defiance, sacrifice, and the ultimate transformation of human suffering into divine mercy.
The Defiant Princess
Long ago, there lived a cruel king named Miao Zhuang. He had three daughters, but his youngest, Miao Shan, was different from the others. While her sisters relished the luxuries of the court, Miao Shan spent her days in prayer and meditation. When the King ordered her to marry a wealthy man to secure his political power, she flatly refused, stating she would only marry if it "ended the sufferings of mankind."
Infuriated, the King forced her to perform backbreaking labor in the palace gardens, hoping to break her spirit. When that failed, he allowed her to enter a Buddhist monastery, but secretly ordered the monks to give her the most grueling chores. Legend says that the animals and the gods themselves aided her—birds brought her food, and dragons dug a well for her—so she could continue her devotions.
The Martyrdom
Driven to madness by her persistence, the King ordered the monastery burned to the ground. While hundreds of monks perished, Miao Shan survived, protected by her purity. The King then ordered her execution. However, when the executioner struck her with a sword, the blade shattered. When he tried to use a spear, it broke into pieces. Eventually, realizing she had to fulfill her destiny, Miao Shan allowed herself to be suffocated so she could descend into the underworld.
Upon entering Hell, her presence was so radiant and full of compassion that the dark realm began to transform into a paradise. The King of Hell, fearing his realm would cease to exist if all the souls were liberated by her presence, sent her back to the world of the living on a fragrant lotus flower.
The Ultimate Sacrifice
Miao Shan retired to Fragrant Mountain to meditate. Years later, King Miao Zhuang fell deathly ill with a mysterious skin disease that no doctor could cure. A wandering monk (who was actually Miao Shan in disguise) appeared and told him: "Only a medicine made from the eyes and arms of one who is without anger can save you."
The King was despairing, for who would give such a gift? The monk directed him to the hermit on Fragrant Mountain. When the King’s messengers arrived, the hermit—Miao Shan—willingly plucked out her own eyes and severed her arms, offering them to the messengers without a shred of resentment.
The Transformation
The medicine worked instantly. Once recovered, the King traveled to the mountain to thank his benefactor. When he saw the blind, armless hermit, he realized with horror that it was the daughter he had tried to kill. He fell to the floor in a state of total repentance, weeping for his cruelty.
At that moment, the earth shook and a divine light filled the sky. Miao Shan was transformed into her true form: the Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed Guanyin. Her many limbs and eyes appeared so that she would never again be unable to reach out to those in pain. She forgave her father, showing that true compassion knows no boundaries—not even for those who have caused us the most harm.
It'd be easy to see this just as a quaint fable but it's good to reflect that we all have these qualities. We can be jealous and controlling like the King - although the king is so extreme here. We can be lazy and compliant - lost in indulgences like Miao Shan's sisters. We can be devoted to practice and goodness like Miao Shan. And you can see the echo of the Buddha's story there too although in his story he did get sucked into the luxuries of the palace for many years before seeing the 3 messengers of illness, old age, and death work him up. Miao Shan was never seduced by sense pleasures.
And at the crux of the story we are offered a powerful challenge: when someone who tormented you needs your help, how will you respond?
The thousand arms and eyes are so that Guanyin will have every possible tool and point of view to help sentient beings.
One more wild story about Avalokitesvara is that she found the suffering of the world so intense that her head kinds of exploded into ten pieces. That's one headache. And Amitabha Buddha saw that happening so he swooped down from the pure lands to help. He made the ten pieces of the head into ten faces - each with a different kind of view and intelligence - and put a little copy of his own head right on top to further help Avalokitesvara in her work saving beings. That's the 11 headed Avalokitesvara.
So this is who is teaching us about wisdom. This loving, skilled, incredibly committed being to has vowed so deeply to save all living beings.
It'd be easy for us to see this all as symbolism and story so I want to share an interesting story from an early Western Buddhist. An Englishman named John Blofeld. He was born in 1913 and as a young man ran into a Buddha statue that somehow just deeply deeply moved him and set his life trajectory towards China, Japan, and other Buddhist cultures. And remember there was very very little known about Buddhism in the West back then. He ended up dropping out of college and going to China staying there for a few years in his 20's and returning many times with pauses to do various studies in Asian languages and Buddhism and just devoted his life to learning, scholarship and practice. He taught English, he worked for the UN after it was formed. And his life story goes right through all kinds of major world events: the Chinese revolution, the Japanese invasion of Northern China, World War two, on and on. Reading his story did give me a moment of recontextualizing our current political troubles actually. Things are bad, goodness, but nothing like that what happened in Europe and Asia during his years there.
He wrote a whole book about Avalokitesvara late in life which includes lots of reflections and stories of his earlier encounters with Buddhism in Asia. I actually want to close our time together reading the story of his first meeting with Avalokitesvara as a young man in China in his early 20's - written up in his late 60's with the benefit of hindsight.
[John Blofeld, Bodhisattva of Compassion, p. 26-30]
