Fri, 02 Apr 2010
No Obscuration
The first part of the Heart Sutra explains how things are, the ground. Now the Heart Sutra explains the path.
Because nothing is attained, the Bodhisattva through reliance on Prajna Paramita is unimpeded in his mind.
I started talking about the path in my previous post, which talked about the unity of madhyamika and mahamudra. All phenomena are empty, but we do not see their emptiness. This is not only a result of not understanding emptiness intellectually. Even after we understand it intellectually, we do not see it. That lack of seeing is called the impediment of mind, or "citta avarana" in Sanskrit. The bodhisattva sees that nothing truly exists in either samsara or nirvana, and so has overcome this obstacle. Paradoxically , the way to overcome the obstacle is to see that it was never there. In the meditation on emptiness there is nothing to do and nothing to overcome. One simply rests the mind, looks, and eventually it becomes clear that our usual understanding of how things are is mistaken. Our misunderstanding is not replaced by some new understanding. Rather, it is replaced by a not-knowing, the understanding that there is nothing to know. This is the same as Bodhidharma's response to the emperor:
"Who are you, standing in front of me?" asked the emperor.
"I do not know," said Bodhidharma.
