About Nothing I suppose you could say, Tenzin, the Heart Sutra is to the Diamond Sutra, as ajata is to advaita. While both speak of emptiness, the context of the Diamond Sutra uses various “things”—world, self, thoughts, etc.— to elaborate on their emptiness, their lack of “intrinsic existence” from the standpoint of ultimate reality. The Heart Sutra more clearly points out that the essence of emptiness, as ultimate reality, is that there’s nothing to talk about—world, self, thought, etc.—where there is neither “existence” nor “nonexistence” from the very start. But both of these pillars of Buddhism are hardly understood, even by those who chant sutras daily. To clarify the above, I’ll excerpt from two monographs of mine. The Diamond Sutra first, in which Buddha converses with disciple Subhuti. One translator suggests that the Buddha spoke on this sutra’s subject matter circa 400 B.C., and emphasized “emptiness is the true nature of reality.” Buddha states that those who “gain perfect clarity of mind” (enlightenment), “do not create the perception of a self. Nor do they create the perception of a being, a life….” But this self-identity is normally a continuous one in our thoughts. In the enlightened sage’s thoughts, from moment to moment, he (or she) does not “create”—or re-create— this erroneous perception. In other words, he is “empty”
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