The Heart Sutra is one of the most well-known texts in all of Buddhism. In less than 250 words, one can read the account of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara's experience of profound meditation.
The Heart Sutra is also one of the most elegant expressions of the Buddha's teachings. It captures the essence of the The Four Noble Truths, The Noble Eightfold Path and The Doctrine of Dependent Arising in its verses.
The Heart Sutra is more than just a record of the Prajnaparamita experience of the Bodhisattva. If we so choose, it can serve as a guide, a "finger pointing at the moon", for us, as we struggle to make sense of the senselessness of today's society. The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, in his narration, is telling us that the state of Prajnaparamita is available to all human beings.
It is said: " We are all, in essence, Buddhas. We only need to wake up to that fact." The Heart Sutra can be our wake-up call.
Form is Emptiness is Form : The Heart Sutra, Robert Wydler Haduch, Paperback, 119 pages, $12.00
Robert Yozan Wydler Haduch (1938) lived in the USA, where he raised a family and worked in various professions, before getting off of the "merry-go-round" and turning to volunteer work. His "spiritual" wanderings lead him to Raja Yoga, Zen-Buddhismus and the words of J. Krishnamurti. He spent several years in a Zen-Monastery in upstate New York where he met Agetsu Kudo Wydler. They married in 1992 under the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India. In the following year Agetsu, as an acknowledged Rinzai Zen teacher, and he founded the Zentrum fur Zen-Buddhismus in Zurich, where they are still active today as co-directors.
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