FROM THE HEART

“One who sees all sorrow in deep transport of wisdom sees self all empty, relieves every suffering.  Sariputra, form is not different from emptiness.  Emptiness is not different from form.  Form is the emptiness. Emptiness is the form. Sensation, thought, inclination, consciousness, also are like this.”   (Heart  Sutra)
 
The Heart Sutra offers a notion of “self all empty,” suggesting  that “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”  How does that square with precepts, those commItments we make to standards of behavior?
 
Precepts are not simply a list of moral requirements. I suggest they are a reminder of what “self all empty,” feels like, what it feels like to experience no need to: kill, steal, lie, cheat, get intoxicated.   Meditation is discipline to bring attention to the liberation of a “self all empty;” what Zen teacher Dogen calls  “removing the barrier between self and other.”    In that sense, precepts inform meditation practice, and meditation practice informs the precepts; informs the experience of “no barrier between self and other.”  
 
Isn’t that “no barrier between self and other”  also what we understand to be “true love,”  love that is selfless in nature?  Hindu teacher Nisargadatta said: “when I look inside and see that I am nothing that is wisdom.  When I look outside and see that I am everything, that is love.   My life turns between these two.”
 
I suggest that this also what the Heart Sutra is talking about, what is “true,” not simply from the standpoint of mind, of object awareness,  but from the inclusive standpoint of “heart.” 
 
Whatever arises as an object of attention is a construct of mind, of our human consciousness, a construct derived from sensory experience.”   How does that consciousness of sense objects emerge?   
 
The Heart Sutra describes a sequence of events called “skandhas” in Buddhist tradition.  The first skandha is form.  When something happens, form is that first instant, a moment free of thought or awareness.  Like stepping out your door, seized by a bright orange sunrise, a moment described in retrospect as “I died and went to heaven.”  Such moments very quickly become awareness, become a  ‘sensation’, sensation that leads to ‘thought,’ thought that leads to ‘inclination,’ inclination that becomes ‘consciousness,’ the consciousness that distinguishes ‘self’ and ‘other,’  with awareness that, “I am here,” and, “It is there;”  awareness formed from the standpoint of what I like or dislike, from the standpoint of, “what’s in it for me.”  In other words, from the standpoint of  “self.”
 
What the Heart Sutra points out, what, on inspection, our own lived experience demonstrates, is that all such experiences, both the experience of “other” and the experience of “self,” are are impermanent constructs of mind consciousness, born from a heartfelt moment empty of distinctions. 
 
The ancient Pali Canon, includes these words:
“What is impermanent is suffering.  What is suffering is nonself.  What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not myself.’  When one sees this thus as it really is with correct wisdom, the mind becomes dispassionate and is liberated from the taints by nonclinging.”
 
It is our nature to act in the world from the standpoint of a self.  But what has utility in the moment, is impermanent. Fixated, it becomes  disappointment, becomes suffering. 
 
The Heart Sutra points out that whatever is perceived as object apart from self is a reflection of self, a reflection of a preference, of a self-affirming point of view.  In that sense, what we take to be a world of objects is like looking in the mirror.  
 
The project of meditation practice is often described as polishing the mirror.  To practice the precepts is “polishing the mirror.”  The truth of our situation, the truth of self and other, is that they are in the fist place, empty of such distinctions, empty of “the barrier between self and other;” not only matters of mind, but also of heart.