At many teachings the Heart Sutra, or Prajnaparamita, is recited at the beginning. In our centre we recite it before every meditation session and at a five day teaching of the Stages of Meditation by His Holiness the Dalai Lama it was chanted at the beginning of each day, each time in a different language.
Although I joined in the recitations, it was some years before I acknowledged I had little idea of what it was about, except at a very superficial level, so I set about doing some research.
The teachings are complex and not within the charter of this blog. A good starting point to explore the actual teachings is the Dalai Lama's Essence of the Heart Sutra published by Wisdom Publications.
I will just try to convey the essence of what it was that I gathered that help make the recitation of the Heart Sutra much more meaningful to me.
To put it in perspective the Heart Sutra, in just one and a half A4 pages, encompasses all the teachings of the Buddha. So it is incredibly intense and dense.
The essence is contained in these words:
"The five skandhas (or aggregates) are empty of intrinsic existence. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, emptiness is not other than form, form too is not other than emptiness. Likewise, feelings, perceptions, mental formations (or volition) and consciousness are all empty."
At his point I was lost. This is what I have come to understand to some extent.
The five skandhas or aggregates are form, feeling, perception, mental formation/volition and consciousness. Mental formation is the aspect that comes from past lives and volition comes from our actions in this life. It is the combination of these skandhas that defines the illusory "Self" that we erroneously identify as who we are. "Self" is just a convenient term to describe a collection of two or more of these five factors. The Heart Sutra teaching is that the true or ultimate state is non-self or emptiness or shunyata. As each of the aggregates is in constant change, they are impermanent. So therefore is our traditional concept of Self.
At this point I came to understand the importance of realising that the Self we perceive and cling to is nothing more than an illusion, which the Mind needs to comprehend and transform to achieve reality, emptiness and purity.
It was when I came to Peter Della Santina's Tree of Enlightenment discourse that I became aware of the importance of understanding these skandhas.
In our impure condition of Mind, the skandhas are associated respectively with the five afflictions; ignorance, pride, attachment, envy and aversion. These in turn have these associations; ignorance- the realm of animals; pride – the realm of gods; attachment – the realm of hungry ghosts; envy – the realm of demigods; and aversion – the realm of hell beings. Note that these afflictions result in rebirth in the corresponding realms.
In the Perfection of Wisdom literature and Vajrayana teachings, as the Bodhisattva progresses towards Buddhahood the five skandhas are purified and transformed to appear in the form of the five celestial Buddhas. In Vajrayana physiology each Buddha is associated with a chakra. These are: form –Vairochana on the crown; feeling –Ratnasambhava at the navel; perception –Amitabha at the throat; volition –Amoghasiddhi at the genitals; and consciousness –Akshobhya at the heart.
Each of the Buddhas represents the transformation from the impure skandha to a specific knowledge; respectively reality, equality, discrimination, accomplishment and transcendental knowledge.
In this post I have set out to show the significance of understanding the skandhas or aggregates and the transformations that occur in our Mind as we progress towards Buddhahood. For me this understanding has enabled me to better grasp the various teachings as I receive them. It has also highlighted to me the need to better understand the roles of the five Buddha families in the scheme of practices.
The Tree of Enlightenment can be downloaded from http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~dsantina/tree/
Be aware it is a very scholarly discourse.
Thus ends this post. May whatever virtue or merit that derives from this posting be for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Yours until next time, Vajramate.
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