Owing to the multiple complications of the intellectual cobwebs from mediocre academics of all times, many of the greatest documents in the history of China have failed to reach us in their original forms. One of the many wonderful things I did in my trip to Hong Kong was to actively search for such documents. I have found one, the Great Heart Sutra, in the words of the Gautama Buddha himself.
The publication of The Great Heart Sutra came from the edict of the founder of the Tang Dynasty, His Majesty Tang Tai Tsung, or Tai Tsung the Great. It was being presented in the great calligrapher, Wang Hsi-chih’s handwriting. Well, Wang belonged to a previous time, the Sui Dynasty,–he was long dead and gone by the time Tai Tsung the Great took power, but a Buddhist monk called Hui Yen had spent many years collecting the great Master’s delightful handwriting, words by words, and finally you get what is seen in the attachment.
The document had a very long foreword by Tai Tsung the Great himself, but since I am only interested in what the great Buddha says, the section originally spoken in Sanskrit by the Buddha, translated into Chinese by the legendary monk Tang Yuan-chong is shown here.
1. This Suchness of the Heart’s Meditative Sutra, translated by the Buddhist monk Yuan Chong by Imperial Edict.
2. In deep meditative mode of the Self, it is observed that,
3. All five senses are empty. From then on it is possible to bypass all kinds of suffering and anguish.
4. The Self says: color is not different from emptiness and emptiness is no different from color.
5. Color is emptiness and emptiness is color!
6. All forms of receiving, thinking, acting, and knowing are the same!
7. The Self is the empty image of this universe. It is not born, neither can it be destroyed. It is not dirty,
neither is it clean!
neither is it clean!
8. It does not increase or deplete in numbers. That is why there is no color in emptiness, just as there is no receiving, thinking, acting, or knowing!
9. In that emptiness, there are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongues, no sexual organs, no minds. As such, there are no color, sound, fragrance, taste, touch, or laws.
10. There is no scope for the eyes to see, and, of course, neither is there room for cognitive or conceptual understanding. There is no such question as enlightenment, and it follows that neither is there the question of ending ignorance.
11. The question of old age and death does not exist, so the question of putting an end to old age and death is nil. Neither is there the question of evil demons seeking the destruction of the noble truth !
12. There is no such thing as intelligence, nor is there such thing as merit or achievement. Because there is no achievement, those who are good at meditation will not feel the anxiety to achieve. As a result, there is no obstruction in their hearts.
13. Because there is no obstruction in the heart, there is no fear or terror.
14. Because there is no fear or terror, one may safely stay away from fanciful day-dreaming or wanton desires.
The message from the Gautama Buddha is so smart and simple! There is no question about the intellect of His Majesty Li Zhi-wen, or  Tang Tai Tsung the Great, either. Indeed he had made the right choice by sending the monk Tang Yuan-chong to India  to bring back the  Buddha’s teachings!
What is the Buddha’s aim in denying everything that a worldly man will, in all certainty, treasure like gold nuggets? He is merely trying to get this message across:
I have gone into deep meditation and seen True Reality, just as my predecessors did from times immemorial! By deep meditation, I mean the practice of total and choice-less awareness! And I can report back to you the following:
True Reality is such and such, both timeless and deathless! As a result of that understanding I have been able to get rid of my own attachment to worldly things, thereby avoiding suffering and anguish! Now you may make the choice of going into the same practice, if it is just to see it for yourself,– or remain permanently attached in worldly matters like a miserable slave, — with your current existence no more than just a mirage to begin with, while in the meantime continue the endless cycle of utter anguish and sufferings!
Was the Buddha trying to start a religion, or rebel against the status quo? No, not at all! Only mediocre academics claimed he was… They even persuaded later emperors to build temples to house his statues in,–statues created by great artists of the ancient times,…. what a joke indeed!
The Buddha had clearly told everyone that he was just another human being like you and me. He had adamantly and categorically decried the idea of an Almighty God as incorrect daydreaming out of idle imagining of the mind. He even had envisioned that one day people will enshrine him like a god and worship him in temples! For that reason, it was said that all his teachings were oral and he had never committed his thoughts on paper.
The  Gautama Buddha had a very scientific and alert mind! If there ever was born, in human form a being in the world, the Buddha is no doubt the greatest!
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THE ALPHA SEER
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THE ALPHA SEER
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