HEART SŪTRA – THE SŪTRA OF EMPTINESS

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  A. Strelkova

Abstract

The Heart Sūtra is one of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras or “sūtras of emptiness”. The main philosophical formula of these sūtras is the phrase “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” with its several variations. In this article the sense of this formula is analyzed in two respects. On the one hand, as present originally in other Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, a resume of which the Heart Sūtra is considered to be. And on the other hand, in its further interpretation by major Chinese commentators of the Heart Sūtra: a representative of Chinese Yogācāra (Faxiang school) Woncheuk (“Foshuo boreboluomiduo xin jing zan”) and a representative of Huayan school Fa-zang (“Boreboluomiduo xin jing lüeshu”).
Though the Heart Sūtra is a classical Prajñāpāramitā text the most famous commentaries on it were composed by representatives of non-Madhyamaka tradition. The Xuan-zang’s eminent disciple Woncheuk approaches the notion of emptiness from the point of view of Yogācāra doctrine of three natures, as well as the Madhyamaka doctrine of two truths. While Fa-zang develops the teaching of non-obstruction of form and emptiness associated with the doctrine of Huayan School (non-obstruction of principle and things).
It is argued that the reason of divergence in understanding the notion of emptiness is not only the doctrinal specifics of different Buddhist Schools, but rather the necessity of further thorough interpretation of a complex and multidimensional philosophy of emptiness as such (emptiness of self, emptiness of concepts, emptiness of consciousness). In original Prajñāpāramitā tradition the negative dialectics of “emptiness of concepts” is stressed, while in the later tradition the positive dimension of the true “emptiness of consciousness” prevails.
However, all the commentators of the philosophical formula from the Heart Sūtra examined in this essay come to the crucial for the Buddhist philosophy idea of non-duality of form and emptiness (developed as the Madhyamaka teaching of two truths, Yogācāra teaching of three natures or Huayan teaching of non-obstruction of principle and things), only due to which the realization of the middle way becomes possible.

How to Cite

Strelkova, A. (2021). HEART SŪTRA – THE SŪTRA OF EMPTINESS. The World of the Orient, (4 (113), 173-187. https://doi.org/10.15407/orientw2021.04.173
Article views: 98 | PDF Downloads: 253

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Keywords

Buddhism, Heart Sūtra, Prajñāpāramitā, philosophy of emptiness, Faxiang school, Huayan school, Woncheuk, Fa-zang

References

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