The Prajna-paramita Hrdaya Sutra, the 'heart' of the Mahayana tradition, represents the Buddhist anti-aesthetic of complete enlightenment in which the perception of any dualistic reality is a view of the deluded mind. The Heart Sutra is Avalokitesvara's explanation of the “worldview” of a Bodhisattva dwelling in the state of sunyata (emptiness). In the sutra, the non-aesthetic quality of emptiness is described by Avalokitesvara: “Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling...No eye, ear…; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element...No mind-consciousness element.” In sunyata there is no duality to create the condition of any subject to have an aesthetic experience of any object. And yet “through the power of the [Awakened Being],” the awakening being Avalokitesvara conveys the experience of sunya-ta by means of upaya, 'skill in liberative technique' (Thurman). Avalokitesvara engages the sonic structures of conditioned language to relay how one courses in the unconditioned.
[...] Mandala of Sound. (Dissertation) 1979. U. Wisconsin- Madison. Fox, Douglas. The Heart of Buddhist Wisdom. NY, Mellon: 1975. Hixon, Lex. Mother of the Buddhas. Wheaton, IL, Quest Books: 1993. Humphries, Jeff. Reading Emptiness. Albany, SUNY: [...]
[...] Mimesis of Emptiness in the Heart Sutra As the exemplary work of the Second Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, the vast Prajna-paramita literature introduces the concept of sunyata to the Buddhist canon (Dutt, 274). These Mahayana Sutras negate the entire Path presented in the First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. In its via negativa, the Heart Sutra's form consists of the negation of each traditional Buddhist category, from the five skandhas through the twelve links of the pratitya-samutpada to the four Noble Truths that mark the Theravadin path: emptiness there is no path, no wisdom, no attainment” and so on. [...]
[...] A Comparison of Lex Hixon's Expansion to Nalanda's Sutra One of the more cryptic and momentous passages of the Heart Sutra begins with the negation of the pratitya-samutpada and Four Noble Truths of the Theravadin path. This is the penultimate stanza before the revelation of the great mantra equivalent to “truth, since there is no deception” in its recitation. In Mother of the Buddhas: Meditation on the Prajnaparamita Sutra, Hixon has rendered these passages, which in the Sanskrit original take the form of lists, into expanded explanations of the processes by which the negation of previous truth becomes superior wisdom. [...]
[...] not deny the existence of things as phenomena, on the level of phenomena (Humphries, Avalokitesvara utilizes the aesthetic structures of the sutra (and mantra) despite dwelling in an enlightened state in which such structures are known to be voidness, quality [that from the perspective of non-duality is] present in every existent phenomenon.” (Rabten, Radiant Mind, 183) From the large works spanning hundreds of thousands of verses, dating early as the first century B.C.” (Dutt, 274), the canon of the Perfection of Wisdom was pared down to the Sutra in 8,000 lines. [...]
[...] Preceding his translation of the “Form is emptiness, emptiness is no other than form” line, Hixon postulates that “universal transparency is what manifests as both form and consciousness.” Hixon relates the mantra in positive terms to connect the reader back to this false dichotomy of form and emptiness: the great mantra “awakens every conscious stream into pure presence.” Hixon renders the mantra: “Pure presence is transcending, ever transcending, transcending transcendence, transcending even the transcendence of transcendence. It is total awakeness. [...]
APA Style reference
For your bibliographyOnline reading
with our online readerContent validated
by our reading committee
