Is Our Understanding of the Heart Sutra All Wrong?

[Kaishin]

I came across** this article that expands on other recent scholarship suggesting that the common understanding of the Heart Sutra might be entirely wrong, based on a simple mistranslation.

The main idea: "emptiness" does not refer to interbeing/non-self as a concept, but rather to the absence of sense experience during meditation.

The author claims that:

The revised reading of the Heart Sutra outlined above contributes to demystifying Buddhist meditation. It draws attention away from metaphysical speculation and grounds the practice in the phenomenology of experience, and specifically the cessation of experience.

And

The discovery [of a mistranslation detailed in the article] is one of the most astounding discoveries in the history of this text, in my view. No one likes to say it out loud, but it invalidates virtually all existing scholarship on the text, both ancient and modern

This is a dramatic claim, assuming the author's research is correct.

Thoughts?

-satToday and apologies for the length

** I found the author's blog and then this article via a (rather scathing) critique of Red Pine's Heart Sutra book. The author describes himself as

At present, I am probably the most active scholar in the world with respect to this text. See recent issues of the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (see also Huifeng's article in the same journal). A few more of my articles will appear in 2017 and 2018. So when I comment on it, I am commenting as someone who has forensically examined the text in Sanskrit and Chinese and had my views published in a quality peer-reviewed journal (associated with Oxford University).

[Bokugan]

I have no thoughts per say, as this is way out of my depth. However, this is a very interesting claim. I look forward to seeing the discussion around this.

Gassho,

Ryan
SatToday

[Ryumon]

So the sutra declares that, if we persist in this practice, we will experience a cessation of sense experience, at which point, for us, there will be no sense experience of any kind.

This sounds like a definition of a kensho experience.

Gassho,

Ryūmon

sat

[Kokuu]

This sounds like a definition of a kensho experience.

I don't know about that. I think that both practice and kensho has sense experience, but there is a lack of self to attach them to.

Personally, I am dubious that someone has suddenly discovered this about the Heart Sutra after hundreds of years of it being studied, especially since what is spoken about in the Heart Sutra is spoken about in all of the other Prajnaparamita sutras, and that is Sunyata, not an absence of sense experience. Red Pine also has studied this sutra and is an excellent translator, and he gives the context for how the Heart Sutra and other Prajnaparamita literature was a response to Abhidharma which tended to list different types of dharma (dharma in this case meaning phenomenon) and Prajnaparamita was undercutting this focus on dharmas and back to their fundamental lack of self.

The Buddha himself, as far as we can tell, taught mindfulness of the body as a first step in practice, rather than removing our attachement to the senses. It makes far more sense to observe these and see them as impermanent and empty than withdraw. This does not sound like the Buddha way to me.

But, I couldn't read the article and am open to being corrected. Regardless, it is always interesting to have new discussions on such a pivotal and widely chanted text.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Sekishi]

The main idea: "emptiness" does not refer to interbeing/non-self as a concept, but rather to the absence of sense experience during meditation.

Perhaps this is why Zen puts such an emphasis on direct experience? E.g. The "concept" of Shunyata / emptiness / interbeing is just another philosophical construct unless experienced AND lived directly.

I cannot read the article (paywall), but my feeling is that absence (or presence) of sense-experience is not so important as absence of an enduring separate self within / created by that experience.

Maybe tomato / tomato. My $0.02. YMMV.

Gassho,
Sekishi

[Kaishin]

Oh, I had no idea it was paywalled (it didn't block me and I'm not a member there....). I don't think it's kosher for me to post the text directly...

It bears reading, as do his additional comments. Mich of what you mention is addressed directly, Kokuu, though I am naturally skeptical myself.

What I can do at least for now is share his comments on Red Pine's and Edward Conze's translations, which he makes clear he does not see as very skillful:

At present, I am probably the most active scholar in the world with respect to this text. See recent issues of the Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies (see also Huifeng's article in the same journal). A few more of my articles will appear in 2017 and 2018. So when I comment on it, I am commenting as someone who has forensically examined the text in Sanskrit and Chinese and had my views published in a quality peer-reviewed journal (associated with Oxford University). One of the crucial facts about this and other purported translations from Sanskrit, is that Conze made a number of simple grammatical errors (See e.g. JOCBS 2015) which rendered the text unreadable and untranslatable. For example, a word is in the wrong case in the first sentence of Conze's edition which destroys the meaning of the sentence as a whole. And yet translators like Pine did not notice such simple errors and produced translations of sentences that they could possibly have understood without first fixing the Sanskrit text. Pine is not the first to commit such intellectual fraud, and probably will not be the last, but he should be publicly censured for it. Red Pine completely misunderstands Jan Nattier's argument that the text was composed in Chinese and makes up his own story about the history of it, based on a non-existent recension in a different Sanskrit idiom that he has invented for this purpose. The irony is that on p.137 when he cannot understand the text (due to another error on Conze's part - a full stop in the wrong place) Pine ignores Sanskrit grammar and translates the Chinese text (T251) instead. Clearly in practice he takes the Chinese text as authoritative, no matter what he says about the Sanskrit text. His first Sanskrit blunder comes on the first page of the translation (p.29) where Pine tells us that prajñā is cognate with prognosis and thus means 'foreknowledge'. It does not. It is cognate, but here pra is acting as an intensive (based on the metaphor of forward motion). Prajñā, as any dictionary could have told him, means "understanding, knowledge" and in a Buddhist context "insight into the nature of experience". On p.31 the etymology of paramitā suggests that param is an accusative with a past participle in ita, but this is based on a folk etymology which sees the meaning as 'gone beyond' (Edward Conze has a lot to answer for). The word is an abstract noun meaning 'perfection' and thus the tā is the usual abstract noun suffix with parami, from parama 'the higest, the furthest'. One of the more egregious errors comes on p.94 where he seems to have failed to even consult a Sanskrit dictionary (one suspects he's really working from the Chinese here). Pine fails to correctly parse "anūnā aparipūrṇā", i.e. an-ūna 'not deficient' (where ūna means 'deficient) and a-paripūrṇa 'not fulfilled'. Pine seems to think there is a word "nuna", but as any Sanskrit dictionary could have told him, there is not. What is worse he seems confused about which word has which meaning, he cites "not complete (nuna)... not deficient (paripurna)" - and it comes as no surprise to learn that the words are this way round in the Chinese text. . Errors in Pine's understanding of Sanskrit appear on almost every page. Evidence that he is, in fact, relying on the Chinese text on every other page. The reader is being cheated. Red Pine is folksie writer who is clearly popular. However he is strongly biased towards a Japanese Zen reading of the text which is anachronistic at best. He is also prone to stating that he has made something up and then treating it as a fact (i.e. he is a fantasist). His grasp of Sanskrit morphology and etymology is weak. He has a tendency to prefer Buddhist mythology over philology where there is a conflict; and to prioritise the Chinese text over the Sanskrit when the Sanskrit is confused (as it often is because of mistakes introduced by Conze and the original translator). Ultimately this is a facile book about modern Japanese Zen, it is *not* a serious book about the Heart Sutra. The trouble is that almost every other book is as bad if not worse.

[Jundo]

Hi Kaishin,

Jayarava has been writing about this thesis on his blog for a couple of years, and I have been following the discussion a bit. In my understanding, it has not been well received by the most scholars and translators expert in the field, and he assumes much.

http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2018/05/anupalambhayogena-underappreciated.html

First, several points to keep in mind. The first is really a side issue: Yes, it is highly possible/likely that the Heart Sutra was composed in China, not originally in Sanskrit, BUT as a concise summary of the central doctrines of earlier and much longer Prajna Paramita (Perfection of Wisdom) Sutras that ARE from India in Sanskrit. As Jayarava is correct in stating, and scholars universally agree, the "translators" (authors) of the Heart Sutra were boiling down and requoting passages from India one way or the other. So, it is something of a non-issue whether the summary (i.e., the Heart Sutra) of the heart of those earlier Sanskrit texts was done in India or in China because the teachings themselves come from the earlier texts in India.

Second, ALL Mahayana texts are later "channelings" of the essence of Buddhism as felt by later authors, NOT the original words of the historical Buddha except in that sense. They are ALL by later authors in later stages of Buddhist history offering their insights into the Buddhist teachings, whether in India or China, so the Heart Sutra having been compiled in China or India changes very little about its authenticity one way or another. (As a side note, most of what we have today as the Theravada Suttas are also later compositions or re-editings long after the time of the historical Buddha too, and thus not necessarily earlier or more historical, some even later than the earliest Mahayana texts. There are only a few of those texts that seem quite early, and they are pretty bare bones.)

Third, the Chinese expression 以無所得故, means "and therefore no acquiring" or "and therefore no gaining." Jayarava, using Osborne's rereading, says that it modifies the phrases before and refers to a special meditation approach from India, rather than just the usual interpretation of there being, in emptiness, "no cause or end to suffering [of the Four Noble Truths]. no Path [Eightfold Path], no Wisdom and therefore no acquiring [OF ENLIGHTENMENT]." This "no gaining (of enlightenment)" is the most common and (if you ask me) most natural and logical reading. Enlightenment is "not gained" because, in emptiness, it is not a fixed "thing" nor ever something apart, so never "lost" and in need of finding. Emptiness is the key to "enlightenment," but even a concept like "enlightenment" is empty like all things. Such reading is consistent with the rest of the Heart Sutra's earlier content too.

Jayarava reads the passage in a rather strained way as there being "no cause or end to suffering, no Path, no wisdom because of ("because of" is an alternate way to read 故)[use of this meditation technique known as the the yoga of] nonapprehension." (Note: "the yoga of" is not mentioned, only "nonapprehension.") However, as far as I know, even in the earliest commentaries we have, NOBODY (far beyond just 'Red Pine') understood it that way through the centuries, and folks understood it just as "therefore no attaining [of Enlightenment]."

Even assuming that the theory is right, the expression could have originally been derived from a text which derived it from another text which first meant "therefore do a dance with a monkey on your head," but if it changed and has not been interpreted as such for 2000 years, well, then that meaning has simply evolved to something new which replaced the old meaning and is valuable as a development.

Fourth, even if Jayarava is correct that the meaning is actually pointing to some meditation approach which, in Sanskrit, is "anupalambhayogena" which he renders as "the yoga of nonapprehension," he then goes into great detail on exactly what that meditation was with many assumptions. However, nobody is sure of the content of this meditation. (In fact, if it is as he describes, it is a bit of NON-Buddhist Brahmic meditation emphasizing deep concentration states that snuck back into Buddhism in later centuries, long after the time of the historical Buddha, and despite the fact that the earlier tradition is that the Buddha specifically rejected deep concentration states in meditation practice!).

Jayarava himself is a bit of a do-it-yourself scholar, not affiliated to any college I believe, although he has been published in some journals. As far as I know, his ideas are not widely accepted on this question. He is ordained in the Triratna Buddhist Order (formerly known the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO)), which in my understanding, is a western group influenced heavily by Theravadan traditions, and emphasizing meditation techniques like the one he discusses. I don't want to conclude, however, that his attraction to the reading as "yoga of nonapprehension" stems from that.

http://jayarava.blogspot.com/p/about-jayaravas-raves.html

So, until many reputable scholars herald this discovery, I would be very cautious, and I think that it is an unnatural reading. (I have not even read that the scholar he quotes, Osborn, has spoken out in support of how Jayarava has used Osborn's theory.)

Sorry to have run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Inshin]

So the sutra declares that, if we persist in this practice, we will experience a cessation of sense experience, at which point, for us, there will be no sense experience of any kind.

Hmm... Can't say much in regards to translation and scholarly reaserch but from my experience I'm sensing there's something off in this article. I've often experienced cessation of thought, senses and time in Samatha meditation before I've started sitting Zazen. I don't believe that Heart sutra can be reduced to a particular Samadhi...

Gassho
Sat

[Kaishin]

Jundo, thanks for the excellent elaboration on the texts as well as info on Jayavara's history/standing among other scholars. That clears things up for me! Now back to the tasks at hand.

-satToday

[Jundo]

The following is probably too wonky to interest most folks, but I did go back to look at the paper by Dr. Osborn (known as "Huifeng" when he was previously a monk in Taiwan) which Jayarava seems to heavily rely upon in his thesis.

https://www.academia.edu/8275423/Apocryphal_Treatment_for_Conze_s_Heart_Problems_Non-attainment_Apprehension_and_Mental_Hanging_in_the_Praj%C3%B1%C4%81p%C4%81ramit%C4%81_Hrdaya

Long story short, Osborn seems much more limited and conservative in his conclusions than Jayarava lets on, although I caution that I am not a scholar of Sanskrit. Here are a few examples, where I will do my best to summarize and simplify the complicated scholar-ese:

First, Osborn admits that one term can be used by a translator to mean many different things, e.g., the English word "plane" could mean an airplane, a realm of existence, a flat surface or a carpenter's tool to flatten a surface. Osborn admits that the Kanji 得 can have very different meanings, and the most cited Chinese translator (Kumārajīva) was a bit lazy to use the same Kanji for all these very different meanings encountered in the Sanskrit texts he was working from, which obscures exactly which source text he was translating when using the phrase in different places in the translation. In other words, 得 can be read, for example, "gain/attainment" or "apprehension" at varied points in the Heart Sutra. We can't be sure 100% of the meaning in any one place, and can only judge from surrounding context. Osborn concludes that the famous translator Kumārajīva used it both ways in his Heart Sutra translation in different places:

[T]he Chinese lexeme “得” (dé) was used by Kumārajīva to translate √bhū, prāpta / prāpti, √budh, √labh, and other terms. Paul Harrison’s recent paper entitled “Resetting the Diamond” gives an excellent account of how Kumārajīva “flattened” translation terminology through using the same Chinese character for multiple Indic terms in the Vajracchedikā ... reducing a broad Indic semantic range into a narrower Chinese range. We must be flexible, therefore, and not simply examine the exact string of Chinese characters as they appear in the Chinese versions of the Heart Sūtra alone, but also variants on these. ...

... we shall [thus] discover that translation “flattening” means ascertaining a potential Sanskrit under-text is much more difficult.

Osborn points out that 無得 could be understood as "non-apprehension" rather than "non-attainment" and that this is a reference to "not apprehending phenomena:"

“In emptiness, there are no aggregates, etc.; no realization, etc.; due to non-apprehension.” That is to say, in the state of emptiness, one does not apprehend phenomena.

HOWEVER, please note that Osborn makes no attempt to tie this "no apprehending phenomena" to some specific meditation approach that completely wipes awareness of phenomena from mind, as Jayarava seems to assert. There is no reference at all to some "yoga of non-apprehension" as referencing a specific meditation technique with specific content, like Jayarava outlines. In fact, Osborn says very little about just what "non-apprehension" means (and frankly, it sounds more like it could be something like not becoming tangled in seeing separate phenomena, much as one encounters in Shikantaza or many forms of meditation). Osborn presents the word "yoga" that Jayavara insists is pointing to a specific, deep meditation technique, and instead merely translates it this way:

to emphasize the term “-yoga-”, we could say “by way of engagement in non-apprehension”, or “by way of non-apprehending engagement”.

Osborn says that it could refer to "the non-apprehension of an object of the senses or of a contemplative practice":

That is to say, in the state of emptiness, one does not apprehend phenomena. The “In emptiness” is referring, not to the ontological status of phenomena, but to a subjective state—a meditative state if you will—which should rather be described as epistemological in nature. Therefore, we conclude that the phrase “以無所得故” (yĭ wú suŏdé gù) is more plausibly derived from “an-upa√lamba-yogena”, i.e. “due to non-apprehending engagement”, than from the idea of “due to non-attainmentness” of Conze, or other similar readings which imply the non-attainment of a spiritual realization or holy fruition in the classic Buddhist sense.

The above is actually not such a major point, because neither the phrase "non-apprehending engagement" nor "not attaining enlightenment" changes the basic message and thrust of the Heart Sutra about the workings of "emptiness."

Osborn sums up his very limited conclusions at the end of his paper:

Our basic results are as follows: 1. For “無得” (wúdé) [as used in one section of the Heart Sutra], we followed the part of the Heart Sūtra extracted directly from the larger text to adopt a reading of “no attainment”, in the sense of realization of spiritual fruitions. This is still in conformity with the majority of modern readings. 2. Regarding the phrase “以無所得故” (yĭ wú sŭodé gù) [used in a later section of the Heart Sutra], we concluded that it most closely corresponds to the notion of “due to engagement in nonapprehension”. This clearly differs from the common notion that it is the same basic term as the first phrase, i.e. “attainment”, and means the non-apprehension of an object of the senses or of a contemplative practice. The term is more likely from “an-upa-√labh(-yoga)” in the instrumental, and not from “prāpti(tva)” in the ablative. ...

Finally, we would like to take our new readings of these passages in the Heart Sūtra [to create the following new translation]:

Therefore, Śāriputra, in emptiness
there is no form, no sensation, perception, volitions or cognition;
no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind;
no sight, sound, aroma, flavor, tactile or mental object;
no eye, sight, visual cognition, up to, no mind, mental object,
mental cognition;
no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, up to, no aging and death,
no extinction of aging and death;
no dissatisfaction, origin, cessation, path;
no gnosis, no realization;
due to engagement in non-apprehension.

... The key difference in this framing is that here ... the frame is “In emptiness, … due to engagement in non-apprehension”. It is our view that this shifts emphasis from an ontological negation of classical lists, i.e. “there is no X”, to an epistemological stance. That is, when the bodhisattva is “in emptiness”, i.e. the contemplative meditation of the emptiness of phenomena, he is “engaged in the non-apprehension” of these phenomena. “Engagement” can be seen as a broad term covering practices, meditations, contemplations and so forth of perfect wisdom. Such a reading thus does not run counter to the notion that when not “in emptiness”, such phenomena may still be apprehended, perceived to exist and function as objects of contemplation.

The next division, VI, now shorn of the statement which most editions and translations place at the start, therefore reads as follows:

The bodhisattvas, due to being supported by transcendental
knowledge, have minds which do not hang on anything;
due to their minds not hanging on anything, they are without fear;
removed from perverted perceptions and views, they ultimately
realize nirvāna.

The bodhisattva, who at V was said to be “engaged in non-apprehension”, i.e. meditating on emptiness, is here “supported by transcendental knowledge”, i.e. prajñāpāramitā. The two phrases are basically synonymous. Therefore, due to not apprehending phenomena, the mind of the bodhisattva does not hang up on anything at all. They are “not hung up”, possibly from “asakta” (or “asatta”), and thus a bodhi-“sattva” (or “satta”) is freed of views of a living being “asattva” (or “asatta”) by his non-apprehension, his engagement in the contemplation of emptiness.

Notice that Osborn merely says that this "non-apprehension" means not to get "hung up" on phenomena. NOTHING in the essay about the kind of deep concentration state that Jayarava is raving about.

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Kokuu]

Ah, that makes more sense, Jundo. Thank you for seeking out the source of Jayarava's argument. It sounds like he took a small part of Osbourn's paper and ran with it.

Non-apprehension of Buddhist ideas during sitting is compeltely in keeping with both practice and the message of the Prajnaparamita literature.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Shonin Risa Bear]

Having a bone to pick can lead to trouble with one's fingernails, I think. _()_

gassho
d shonin sat and lah

[Meredith]

The following is probably too wonky to interest most folks, but I did go back to look at the paper by Dr. Osborn (known as "Huifeng" when he was previously a monk in Taiwan) which Jayarava seems to heavily rely upon in his thesis.

Thanks so much for putting this together--it's very helpful!

ST

[Jinyo]

Hi,
the article came up for me - the comments in response were worth a read.
I don't have a point of view because I'm not a scholar of Buddhist texts and so much seems to depend on how words are interpreted.
The focus on experience reminded me of a book I read ages ago by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana which was about Jhanic awareness. There seemed
to be an emphasis on 'levels- and I'm glad Zen doesn't focus on that because it feels goal orientated and I have the concentration/focus of a gnat and would feel
like I was constantly failing. I think we get there (occasionally!) just the same - moments of grace where we experience emptiness - not just as a concept to be intellectually
talked about. I reckon it all gets a bit technical once we start debating whether the Heart Sutra is a metaphysics or a practice or a practice grounded in a metaphysics. It can seem like
one of those 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' debates that I enjoy from time to time but discount as any real help to my practice.

Gassho

Jinyo

Sat today

[Paul Nyima]

Isn't the absence of sense experience the same as not self? What is there without sense experience?

Sat today