Love Letters

 

 

"Queen Anne's Bones"

 

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If you're a Buddhist, you probably know the Heart Sutra, maybe even by heart. In it, the Bodhisattva of Compassion Avalokiteshvara, while practicing the Perfection of Wisdom, sees through all the bullshit and realizes that there's no "there" there. Essentially the sutra is a love letter to Sariputra (one of the Buddha's disciples who was with the B.O.C. at the time.) and to all of us..  A favorite translation from the Kwan Um School of Zen: Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita perceives that all five skandhas are empty and is saved from all suffering and distress. Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they do not appear or disappear, are not tainted or pure, do not increase or decrease. Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; no realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness. No ignorance and also no extinction of it, and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment with nothing to attain. The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita and the mind is no hindrance; without any hindrance no fears exist. Far apart from every perverted view one dwells in Nirvana. In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi. Therefore know that Prajna Paramita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great bright mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not false. So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra, proclaim the mantra which says: gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha. Today, while reading the blog, "Alive On All Channels", I found a poem by Kabir in which he sounds an awful lot like the B.O.C.   Here it is:     "To what shore would you cross, O my heart? There is no traveler before you, there is no road: Where is the movement, where is the rest, on that shore? There is no water; no boat, no boatman, is there; There is not so much as a rope to tow the boat, nor a man to draw it. No earth, no sky, no time, no thing, is there: no shore, no ford! There, there is neither body nor mind: and where is the place that shall still the thirst of the soul? You shall find naught in that emptiness. Be strong, and enter into your own body: for there your foothold is firm. Consider it well, O my heart! Go not elsewhere. Kabir says: "Put all imaginations away, and stand fast in that which you are." ~ Kabir     Not exactly what the B.O.C. was saying - but it's in the neighborhood.               ~