Question about Heart Sutra in English

[Jacob Janicek]

Hello, I was reading through the Treeleaf chant book and noticed one line in the Heart Sutra that reads "Thus emptiness is not form; not sensation etc..."

I came to treeleaf from another zen community that closed down, and the English translation I had grown accustomed to said something like "Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation etc..." and a few other translations I could find are phrased similarly.

I have a bad habit of being overly analytical, and I don't at all mean to suggest there's something wrong with the translation used here, just that I'm having difficulty understanding the same meaning. Please help me understand 🙏

Gassho,

Jacob Jay
Sat today

[Jishin]

The phrase "thus emptiness is not form, not sensation" and "therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation" are closely related and convey a similar meaning. The first phrase "thus emptiness is not form, not sensation" means that emptiness is not defined by or limited to form or sensation. Emptiness is not a particular form or sensation, but something that transcends them. The second phrase "therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation" is a logical conclusion of the first phrase, it means that within the state of emptiness, form and sensation do not exist or cannot be found.

—-

Emptiness, it's not form, not sensation
A state beyond our fleeting perception
It transcends all dualities
A realm of pure tranquility

In emptiness, form and sensation cease
No longer bound by our mind's decease
Beyond the world's illusory plight
Emptiness, the ultimate light

So let go of all that's fleeting and vain
Embrace the emptiness, again and again
For in this state, true peace is found
And freedom from the world's turmoil bound

My 2 shekels,

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

[Jacob Janicek]

The phrase "thus emptiness is not form, not sensation" and "therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation" are closely related and convey a similar meaning. The first phrase "thus emptiness is not form, not sensation" means that emptiness is not defined by or limited to form or sensation. Emptiness is not a particular form or sensation, but something that transcends them. The second phrase "therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation" is a logical conclusion of the first phrase, it means that within the state of emptiness, form and sensation do not exist or cannot be found.

—-

Emptiness, it's not form, not sensation
A state beyond our fleeting perception
It transcends all dualities
A realm of pure tranquility

In emptiness, form and sensation cease
No longer bound by our mind's decease
Beyond the world's illusory plight
Emptiness, the ultimate light

So let go of all that's fleeting and vain
Embrace the emptiness, again and again
For in this state, true peace is found
And freedom from the world's turmoil bound

My 2 shekels,

Gassho, Jishin, ST, LAH

😊
🙏

[Nengei]

Hello Jacob,

This is a good and important question. Thank you for asking.

Words in any language represent concepts, or ideas. When translating from languages that share common roots, there may be many examples of direct, and fairly obvious, word-for-word exchanges. One example is café, koffe, and coffee. However, there are also many, many concepts for which the words may not so directly translate, and more than one word or set of words could be used to convey the ideas. This is amplified when the languages are more divergent, like English and Asian languages. The concepts of emptiness, form, and many others in Zen are like this. The various translations are one or a couple of skilled translators' efforts to describe ideas--in this case, poetically, to boot--based on their understanding of their source, whether it is Sanskrit, a Chinese translation from Sanskrit, a Japanese translation of a Chinese translation from Sanskrit... I hope you see what I mean. It is not uncommon for people reading translations in their language to look at a few or several available translations, side by side, to help them understand a difficult concept. We aren't trying to understand the word coffee, but instead the concept of emptiness. And that's an ongoing goal of every Zen Buddhist! I would not get too wrapped up in the specifics of the wording of an English translation of a sutra, unless you find the underlying concept to be quite different from other translations.

I also, like many others, have spent time with other Zen sanghas. With each new experience, there can be that nagging voice in the back of my head... they're doing it wrong...

Jundo really knows his translations, so perhaps he will clarify further. In the meantime, please excuse the length of my reply.

Gassho,
Nengei
Sat today. LAH.

[Seiko]

Hello, I was reading through the Treeleaf chant book and noticed one line in the Heart Sutra that reads "Thus emptiness is not form; not sensation etc..."

I came to treeleaf from another zen community that closed down, and the English translation I had grown accustomed to said something like "Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no sensation etc..." and a few other translations I could find are phrased similarly.

I have a bad habit of being overly analytical, and I don't at all mean to suggest there's something wrong with the translation used here, just that I'm having difficulty understanding the same meaning. Please help me understand ��

Gassho,

Jacob Jay
Sat today

Hi Jacob,
I too had my first taste of Zen elsewhere. There are many flavours of Zen. There are many differences in English versons of Zen texts. I like to read different translations, noting the points of convergence and the departures. I feel it helps my understanding grow. Clearly at Treeleaf, we do things the Treeleaf way. When translating into English, the choices are baffling, some go poetic, others literal, others seek to convey the meaning
Jundo is an expert translator.

Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Jundo]

Well, other folks have answered in great detail, but I will just add that the original Chinese-Japanese is this ---

... 空即是色受想行識亦復如是 ... 是故空中無色無受想行識 ...

The Chinese language is very "short hand abbreviated" compared to English. So, if I were to literally translate the above, it would be something like:

Empty - precisely - be - form - sensation - perception - formation - consciousness - also so ...

... therefore - empty - amid - no - form - no - sensation - perception - formation - consciousness

There are many ways to render that into English, no one right and orthodox way, as folks above have noted. The "official" Soto-shu English version (which few Sangha I know actually use, however) states:

... Form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself form. Sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness are also like this ...

... Therefore, given emptiness, there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no formation, no consciousness ...

I looked quickly at a variety of other translations into English. The Korean Kwan Um Son/Zen folks have:

that which is emptiness [is] form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. ...

... Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

Here is the bottom line: There is radically no things to be called "form, sensation, perception, formation, consciousness" in Emptiness, they ultimately do not exist (although, of course, from another angle they exist, and there are such things.) Because there is no "form, sensation, perception, formation, consciousness" to start with, Emptiness cannot be such things (for there are no such things for it to be), and thus because they are not found in Emptiness, Emptiness is not those. Thus saying that they are not present in Emptiness, or saying that Emptiness is not those is making the same point.

In fact, even "Emptiness" is empty of being a concrete "thing." There is even no "emptiness" in emptiness! Emptiness is not "emptiness."

However, none of that really matters, because the basic point about the relationship of "Emptiness" to all phenomena (including form, sensations, etc.) remains the same no matter how described. Best to understand through insight rather than just intellectually. Sit Zazen, and realize and experience the real meaning of all this.

Our version and wording is something I inherited from an old mentor, who was a member of the White Plum/Maezumi Roshi lineage. Apparently, ours is the phrasing that some use there. I find similar wording (although, with its own word choice on "formation/reaction") in this book by the great Bernie Glassman of that lineage (p. 3):

Thus emptiness is not form, Not sensation nor perception, reaction nor consciousness;
https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Infinite-circle.pdf

You can read a bit more about the Heart Sutra here:

About the Heart Sutra (Hannya Shingyo)

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?20701-About-the-Heart-Sutra-%28Hannya-Shingyo%29

Gassho, J

stlah

Gassho, Jundo

[kanshiketsu]

Hi Folks,

I'm currently reading Kazuaki Tanahashi's The Heart Sutra (Shambala, 2014). It has a fresh translation by Tanahashi and Joan Halifax which is strikes me as very different from any of the versions I've chanted/studied. It also has several English translations for comparison, along with the Sanskrit version (apparently, a back-translation from the Chinese original) and several Chinese variants. In other words, it's very comprehensive and has a lot of information about the origins and transmission of the Sutra. Highly recommended!

Gassho,
Kanshiketsu/John

[Jundo]

...

I'm currently reading Kazuaki Tanahashi's The Heart Sutra (Shambala, 2014). It has a fresh translation by Tanahashi and Joan Halifax which is strikes me as very different from any of the versions I've chanted/studied. ...

Tanahashi Sensei's book is wonderful for us translators, but I would not recommend it for general readers unless they really want to deep dive into the etymology. I usually recommend Red Pine's book (https://www.counterpointpress.com/bo...e-heart-sutra/) as all around better for a discussion of the readings, history and meaning if someone is looking for a very comprehensive first introduction. Okumura's Living by Vow is also nice, although it is really only a chapter there.

Also, the Tanahashi-Halifax version is very free. He really ran with things a bit. For example, as I often point out, "Emptiness" does not mean a nihilistic vacuum and void, but more a flowing and wholeness and intra-identity which sweeps in all individual identity of things. So, this new version states:

Avalokiteshvara, who helps all to awaken,
moves in the deep course of
realizing wisdom beyond wisdom,
sees that all five streams of
body, heart, and mind are without boundary,
and frees all from anguish.

O Shariputra,
[who listens to the teachings of the Buddha],
form is not separate from boundlessness;
boundlessness is not separate from form.
Form is boundlessness; boundlessness is form.
The same is true of feelings, perceptions, inclinations, and discernment.

So, for example, that "without boundary" and "boundlessness" is quite a reach for "empty of separate self existence," but I can see how they got there.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Jundo]

Another one that is unique, and may reflect the author's very physicalist view is this by Thich Naht Hahn (many folks don't realize that TNH often offered a very material, physical view of the universe in many of his teachings, i.e., that matter is the source of mind and all things). His Heart Sutra reads:

“Listen Sariputra,
this Body itself is Emptiness
and Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.
The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
and Consciousness.

His description of emptiness is also very concrete, about how things are just other things:

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow: and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either.

So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be”, we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper.

The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too.

When we look in this way we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

That is lovely and true. But I sometimes feel that he misses the great dance which sweeps through and beyond even all the separate "parts" and physical "connections" in such a description. He sees the dancers, and how the dancers are dancing with each other, and that each dancer is dependent on the other dancers ...

... but he somehow looses the aspect where the dancers disappear into the dance, and there is only the dancing dancing dancing on ...

Gassho, J


stlah

[kanshiketsu]

So, for example, that "without boundary" and "boundlessness" is quite a reach for "empty of separate self existence," but I can see how they got there.

I thought so as well, though I'm not quite so sure that I see how they got to 'boundlessness', but then I'm not sure I entirely understand sunyata -- I get that it's not suggest void and that it's connected with dependent co-arising. I've been looking into the Madhyamaka teachings (Nagarjuna), which I will master *eventually*. Any suggestions on where to look for the Zen understanding of sunyata in particular?

Gassho,

John

[Jundo]

I thought so as well, though I'm not quite so sure that I see how they got to 'boundlessness', but then I'm not sure I entirely understand sunyata -- I get that it's not suggest void and that it's connected with dependent co-arising. I've been looking into the Madhyamaka teachings (Nagarjuna), which I will master *eventually*. Any suggestions on where to look for the Zen understanding of sunyata in particular?

Well, if your break down and drop away each/all of the separate 'borders' of things as having separate, individual identity ... what comes is 'boundlessness,' no?

The Zen understanding of sunyata, of course, is on the Zazen cushion ... dropping away self/other distinctions found in our subjective ideas, actually knowing this "emptiness/boundlessness/intra-identity" as the hard borders of self/other and all things, people and moments soften ... or even fully drop away ... whereby separate things/people/moments vanish ... but also totally interflow and encompass each other somehow ...

(I am sure you knew that I would say the part about Zazen. )

But a book, huh?

THE MOUNTAINS AND WATERS SUTRA A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” by Shohaku Okumura Roshi is actually about that, although in an indirect and very Dogeny way. One should already have some sense of what Dogen was on about.

The Red Pine Heart Sutra book above is pretty darn good and approachable for the average reader.

Not actually Zen, but Flower Garland/Huayan Buddhism so influential on Zen, you might VERY MUCH enjoy as a philosopher this book if you have not read it, and might be my top choice:

https://philpapers.org/rec/COOHBT

Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra
Francis H. Cook
Pennsylvania State University Press (1977)

Hua-yen is regarded as the highest form of Buddhism by most modern Japanese and Chinese scholars. This book is a description and analysis of the Chinese form of Buddhism called Hua-yen, Flower Ornament, based largely on one of the more systematic treatises of its third patriarch. Hua-yen Buddhism strongly resembles Whitehead's process philosophy, and has strong implications for modern philosophy and religion. Hua-yen Buddhism explores the philosophical system of Hua-yen in greater detail than does Garma C.C. Chang's _The Buddhist Teaching of Totality _. An additional value is the development of the questions of ethics and history. Thus, Professor Cook presents a valuable sequel to Professor Chang's pioneering work. The Flower Ornament School was developed in China in the late 7th and early 8th centuries as an innovative interpretation of Indian Buddhist doctrines in the light of indigenous Chinese presuppositions, chiefly Taoist. Hua-yen is a cosmic ecology, which views all existence as an organic unity, so it has an obvious appeal to the modern individual, both students and layman

Also, this might be interesting for you ... by a great modern western Zen teacher, David Loy, although more about general non-duality than just emptiness ... free, compliments of the author ...

https://www.davidloy.org/downloads/Loy_Nonduality.pdf

That should keep you busy for awhile ... not to forget all the cushion sitting too.

Gassho, J

stlah

[kanshiketsu]

(I am sure you knew that I would say the part about Zazen. )

I thought there was a fair chance that you would ONLY say that! It seems as though in the old days I would also have received a beating from the master.

Thanks for the recommendations!

Gassho,
John

[aprapti]

But a book, huh?

THE MOUNTAINS AND WATERS SUTRA A Practitioner’s Guide to Dogen’s “Sansuikyo” by Shohaku Okumura Roshi is actually about that, although in an indirect and very Dogeny way. One should already have some sense of what Dogen was on about.

'realizing genjokoan' by the same Okumura sensei gives you this sense of what Dogen was on about..


aprapti


sat

[Jundo]

'realizing genjokoan' by the same Okumura sensei gives you this sense of what Dogen was on about..


aprapti


sat

Hey, my book ain't so bad ... plug plug, hint hint ...

THE ZEN MASTER’S DANCE
A Guide to Understanding Dōgen and Who You Are in the Universe

by Jundo Cohen

https://wisdomexperience.org/product...masters-dance/

Gassho, J

stlah

[Guest]

Hey, my book ain't so bad ... plug plug, hint hint ...

THE ZEN MASTER’S DANCE
A Guide to Understanding Dōgen and Who You Are in the Universe

by Jundo Cohen

https://wisdomexperience.org/product...masters-dance/

Gassho, J

stlah

An excellent, excellent book. Not just saying that. Perhaps it is because I have read a good amount of Dogen in the past (still much more to read) and Zen Master’s Dance just makes it very clear. Like sitting down and having a chat about Dogen’s works with someone who can just capture the essence, cut to the heart without unnecessary additives.

Gassho
Daiman
SatToday


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