Then, by the pow er o f the Buddha, the venerable Sdriputra said this to the Bodhisattva. the Mahasattva, the Superior Avalokitesvara: " How should a son o f good lineage train who wishes to practice the profound perfection o f wisdom?**
The Bodhisattva, the Mahasattva, the Superior Avalokitesvara said this to the venerable Sariputra: "Sariputra, a son o f good lineage or a daughter o f good lineage who wishes to practice the profound perfection o f wisdom should view [things'] in this wav: They should correctly view those five aggregates also as em pty o f inherent existence.
The actual sutra, the marvelous doctrine, begins with the question of Sariputra. Avalokitesvara*s answer comprises the body of the sQtra and that answer has a brief and extended version. The brief answer is given first.
Up until this point in the sGtra, Sakyam uni has been referred to with the term bhagavan. Here he is called “the Buddha.'* The verbal
root budh from which Buddha is derived means both awaken and open,
as does the bud of a flower. Candrakirti says in his Trisaranasaptati:
He is liberated from the paths of the three times. He has opened his awareness to objects of knowledge. He has destroyed the sleep of ignorance.
Therefore, a Buddha is expansive, like a lotus. One who has cut through the sleep of ignorance And has seen the emergent perfect wisdom Is a Buddha,
Like a person who has awakened from sleep.1
The Tibetan translation encompasses both senses of the root budh,
rendering buddha as sangs rgyas, ‘'awakened or purified-spread*';
he has awakened from slumber of ignorance with his perfect knowledge and has purified his mind of the two obstructions and he has spread
his awareness to all objects of knowledge.
Among the many ways of classifying the word of the Buddha, there is the threefold classification according to the primary cause of the statement. The first of these is words from the Buddha's mouth, that is, words spoken directly by the Buddha. The second is words that are spoken as a result of permission given by the Buddha. The words “Thus did I hear at one time,” and the identification of the place and audience of a given sutra would be included in this category. The third category is words that are the result of the Buddha’s blessing. These blessings sometimes empower a Bodhisattva or sravaka to teach the doctrine or may cause the words of the doctrine to issue magically from musical sounds, from the sky, or from a pleasant breeze. Such blessings may be conveyed physically, as when the Buddha places his hands on the head of the prospective speaker; the blessings may be conveyed verbally; or they may be conveyed mentally, as when the Buddha enters a state of deep contemplation. This occurs in the Heart Sutra.2 When
the sQtra says, "Then, by the power of the Buddha,” it implies that both Sariputra’s question and Avalokitesvara s answer occur as a result of the B uddha’s empowerment.
Sariputra and Maudgalyayana are the best-known disciples of the Buddha, and are often portrayed flanking the Buddha in painting and statuary. MaudgalySyana was the most adept of the disciples
0
in magical power (rddhi)\ Sariputra was unexcelled in wisdom, the
master of the Abhidharma. His conversion is recounted in the Vinaya%
the M ahdvastu, and the \fahaprajhapdram it aidstra,3 He was the son
of Ti$ya and the beautiful Sari and thus is known sometimes as Upati$ya but more often as Sariputra, the son of Sari, the most intelligent woman of Magadha. That Sariputra inherited his m other’s intellectual acumen is evident from the story of his conversion to the doctrine of the Buddha. Encountering the monk Asvajit, one of the Buddha's five original disciplcs, Sariputra was impressed by his composed countcnancc and asked him whether he was a master or a disciple. Upon learning that he was a disciple, he asked ASvajit w'hat his master’s teaching was. Asvajit demurred, saying that he was of little learning and could provide only a simple summary. Asvajit then delivered one of the most famous lines in Buddhist philosophy, “The Tathagata has proclaimed the causes of those phenomena that arise from causes and he also has proclaimed their cessation. So has spoken the great renunciate." (ye dharma hetuprahhdvd hetun te$d/}i tathagata aha te$am ca yo nirodho evamvadi mahasramanah). (This statement in Sanskrit later became used as a
formula of blessing and in fact appears as such at the end of Srim ahajana’s
became a streamwinner (.srotapanna), gave up false views, doubt, and
perplexity and asked, “ Where is the master staying?”
Hence, his appearance in the M ahayana sQtras carries with it an intentional irony. He is a com m on interlocutor of the Buddha in the sutras, asking the Buddha to expound the sublime M ahayana doctrine. Sometimes he is portrayed as a dignified arhat. Elsewhere, as in the
Vimalakirtinirdesa. he is portrayed as the fool. In either case, the point
made by the author of the sfltra is not difficult to grasp: the wisest of the Buddha’s Hinayana disciples must have the sublime teachings of the M ahayana explained to him, sometimes repeatedly. Therefore, the Mahayana is more profound than anything contained in the Hinayana canon; the Hinayana arhat has more to learn. Sariputra is the master of the Abhidharma, which Vasubandhu defines as stainless wisdom.3 It would seem, then, that Sariputra has wisdom but lacks the perfection of wisdom. That he will eventually win the perfection of wisdom and the full path is intimated in the third chapter of the Lotus Sutra, where
the Buddha prophesies that in the future Sariputra will become the Buddha Padm aprabha.
Sariputra is called dyu$mant, roughly rendered here as “venerable.”
The term literally means “endowed with life,” and was a com m on form of polite address am ong Buddhist monks. “Venerable" is a somewhat misleading translation because the term was used by elder m onks to address their juniors. This causes bsTan-dar-lha-ram-pa to observe that such an understanding of the term is not suitable in this context because it would imply that Sariputra was junior in training to the compiler of the sutra, presumably Ananda. Therefore, he etymologizes the term in accordance with its literal meaning of “endowed with life,” saying that it means that Sariputra was endowed with a life in which the afflictions had been abandoned and which is free from birth and death.6
Without being empowered by the Buddha, Sariputra would not ordinarily have been able to fully comprehend the unfathomable activities of sentient beings; he asks his question upon being blessed to understand the minds of others. It is only appropriate, however, that he ask the question, not that he provide the answer. Because he is a Sravaka, and hence of lesser awareness, the world does not believe that Sariputra is liberated into the understanding of the profound. Hence, the Buddha empowered him only to ask the seminal question. Knowing that Avalokitesvara is endowed with great intelligence and great compassion, the world believes that he is capable of teaching the perfection of wisdom, the m other of the C onquerors, in accordance with the capacities of those of lesser wisdom, such as Sariputra. Therefore,
it is Avalokitesvara to whom the question is directed.7
Sariputra asks how a son of good lineage should practice the perfection of wisdom. The blessing of the Buddha causes him to recall sentient beings of the three realms and fills him with boundless courage, inspiring him to ask Avalokitesvara his question for the sake of those having some interest in the profound thought of the Buddhas of the three times.8 The good lineage is not that of a biological family, but of the family of the TathSgatas; a son or daughter of good lineage is a Bodhisattva, a child of the C onqueror (Jinaputra) born from the
M ahayana scriptures.9 Vajrapani comments that although Ava lokitesvara speaks in his answer of male and female, the nature of the mind is the same, the difference is merely apparent, as in a d re a m .10 Children of good lineage are those who have the Mahayana lineage.
In this lineage, there are those who are not interested in the profound meaning and who are frightened by it. There are also those who have interest in and seek the perfection of wisdom, who simply by hearing the profound doctrine experience happiness and j o y .11 Srimahajana comments that a son or daughter of good lineage is a Bodhisattva on the first of the five M ahayana paths, the path of accumulation (satpbhara- marga).n The M ahayana lineage to which the son and daughter belong
has great power, protecting them from suffering through their progressive cultivation of such practices as the mindful establishments (sm ftyupa- $ than a) and providing them refuge through their allegiance to the
Mahayana, the cause of abandoning suffering. The lineage also endows them with the aspiration for nirvana because they create the aspiration to achieve the enlightenment that has the nature of wisdom and compassion, w-ith compassion being their practice of merit (the first five perfections of giving, ethics, patience, effort, and concentration) and wisdom being their cultivation of the wisdoms that arise from hearing, thinking, and meditation.13
The term " p ra c tic e ” (caryd) encom passes many activities.
Srimahajana cites Maitreya’s M adhyantavibhdga (V. 9), where ten
ways to practice the d harm a are enumerated: writing, making offerings, giving gifts, listening, reading, studying, explaining, reciting, co n templating, and meditating.14 He notes that in the context of the sutra, "practice” refers to the accumulation of the collections of merit and wisdom.15
In glossing the term “perfection of wisdom” in this context, Prasastrasena provides yet another division of w'isdom, this time into the wisdom knowing the conventional and the wisdom knowing the ultimate. The wisdom of the conventional is the understanding that all pnenomena are like illusions, mirages, and dreams. The wisdom of the
ultimate is the wisdom that all phenom ena are inexpressible and incon ceivable, like the surface of space. It is the wisdom of the ultimate that is the perfection of w isdom .16 To ask how to practice the perfection of wisdom is to inquire how one should enter into the perfection of wisdom through hearing, contemplation, meditation.17
Avalokitesvara answers that a son or daughter of good lineage who wishes to practice the profound perfection of wisdom should view the five aggregates to be empty of inherent existence. In explaining the key phrase “emptiness of inherent existence,” PraSastrasena says:
There are five types o f emptiness: the emptiness o f what did not exist before, the emptiness o f what does not exist u p o n being destroyed, the emptiness o f the utterly non-existent, the emptiness o f one not existing in the other, an d the emptiness o f entityness.18 Regarding that, the lack o f yogurt in milk is the emptiness of what did not exist before, the lack o f milk in yogurt is the emptiness of w hat does not exist upon being destroyed, the lack o f horns on a rabbit's head is the emptiness of the utterly non-existent, the emptiness of an ox in a horse is the emptiness of one not existing in the other, an d the non-inherent existence o f all p hen o m en a is the emptiness of entityness. Since a m o n g the five types o f emptiness, the five aggregates arc em pty in the sense o f being without entityness. they should be analyzed as e m p t y .19
Thus, according to PraSistrasena, this emptiness of entityness is what Avalokitesvara means when he says that the five aggregates are empty of inherent existence (svabhavaiunya). Prasastrasena does not
provide an example of this fifth and most difficult kind of emptiness. bsTan-dar-lha-ram-ba does* saying that the emptiness of entityness is like the non-existence of a hum an in a cairn that is mistaken from a distance to be a h u m an .20
The five kinds of emptiness presented by Prasastrasena do not appear to be mutually exclusive. It is clear from the examples of milk and yogurt that the first two, the emptiness of what did not exist before and the emptiness of what does not exist upon being destroyed, are simply cases of the absence of manifest effect at the time of the cause and the absence of the manifest cause at the time of the effect. Hence, the first two kinds of emptiness deal with the relationship between cause and effect. The next, the emptiness of the utterly non-existent is illustrated by the absence of horns on a rabbit's head. The horns of a rabbit is one of the most famous examples in Buddhist philosophy of something that does not exist, along with the diadem of a frog, a cloak of tortoise hairs, the son of a barren woman, and a flower in the sky. The example is one of an existent attribute that never occurs as the
quality of a given object. It is called the utterly non-existent perhaps because the particular conjunction of the object and the attribute never occurs, nor would it ever be considered that it could occur. bsTan-dar-lha ram-pa provides a different example of the emptiness of the utterly non-existent, the absence of a pot in a place where there is no bulbous container for water.21 This is an example not of object and attribute but of definiendum and definition; where there is no water, there is no H 20 . Although he uses a different example, the emptiness of the utterly non-existent is also a case of the absence of an object that would never be mistakenly considered present. The emptiness of one not existing in the other is illustrated by the absence of a horse in an ox. This is a case of tw'o existent and different objects that are mutually exclusive; an ox cannot be a horse, nor a horse an ox. The first four kinds of emptiness are the emptiness or absence of something that exists but is absent at a particular time or in a particular place. The emptiness of entityness is different; it is the emptiness of something that does not exist at all, in that an ultimately existent entity has not, does not, and will not exist anywhere or at any time. The fifth kind of emptiness also differs from the other four in that it possesses a deceptive quality; it appears to be present but is not. Milk does not appear to be present in yogurt or yogurt in milk, a rabbit does not appear to have horns, and a horse is rarely mistaken for an ox. The emptiness of entityness is illustrated by bsTan-dar-lha-ram-pa w-ith the example of a cairn and a hum an being.22 Both exist and are mutually exclusive, but unlike the horse and the ox, a cairn when viewed from a distance can easily be mistaken for a human, whereas upon closer inspection, there is nothing whatsoever that is hum an about a pile of stones. A human is utterly absent there. A rope mistaken for a snake would seem to be another example of the emptiness of entityness.
In his comm entary to Aryadeva’s Catuhsataka (Four Hundred),
Candrakirti says that inherent existence means not relying on another.-J That is, persons and phenomena arc ignorantly conccivcd to exist in and of themselves, to exist autonomously, to exist objectively, to exist in their own right, to exist by way of their own character, without depending on causes and conditions, without depending on their parts, without depending on designation by terms and thoughts. Persons and phenomena are ignorantly conceived to be endowed with some inherent existence, some entityness, some substance, some thingness, some intrinsic nature, some own-being discoverable under analysis. To be empty of inherent existence is to utterly lack such hypostatized qualities, superimposed onto persons and phenom ena by ignorance. Hence, although Prasastrasena says that it is the fifth kind of emptiness, the
emptiness of entityness that is the referent of Avalokitesvara*s statement, there are also affinities between the emptiness of the utterly non-existent and the emptiness of inherent existence. Inherent existence is an attribute that never qualifies persons or phenomena. In this sense, it is like the horns of a rabbit.
If things do not exist in that way, how do they exist? They are merely imputed by thought. The Upaliparipfccha Sutra says:
These alluring blossoming flowers o f m an y colors
And these delightful palaces of gleeming gold have no m aker here. They are posited by the power of thought;
T he world is imputed by the power o f t h o u g h t.24
And N&garjuna, the greatest philosopher of the Perfection of Wisdom, said in his Yukti$a$fika (37):
T he Buddhas have said
T h a t the world is conditioned by ignorance. Therefore, how is it infeasible
T h a t this world is a conception?25
In making a similar point, Candrakirti invokes the example of the rope- snake. He says in his comm entary to Aryadeva's Catuhsataka:
It is certain that those things whose very existence is only due to tho u gh t and which d o not exist without tho u gh t are not established by way o f their own entity, like a snake that is imagined in a ro pe.2*
A coiled rope in a dark corner may appear to be a snake, and based on that misperception, a person may become frightened and agitated and pursue a variety of strategies to either evict or destroy the snake. Despite what a person may believe, at that very moment there is nothing what soever about the rope that is a snake; the snake is merely imagined. With proper illumination of the corner, it is easy to discern that there is no snake. In the same way, inherent existence or self is falsely imputed to the five aggregates, for example, and based on that mis perception a variety of activities is engaged in, motivated by desire and hatred, to nurture and protect that non-existent self. There is no “I ” that is not merely imputed to the aggregates by thought.27
Thus, all phenomena are em pty of inherent existence and exist only due to thought. This is the meaning of the perfection of wisdom. W hat is the relationship, however, between this emptiness of in-
herent existence and the persons and phenom ena that are merely imputed by the power of thought? That question points to the heart of Avalokitesvara's answer.