Description
 
Emptying the Mind

Let us imagine a paper that is blank, completely devoid of any writing. Look into this empty space. If your mind is empty like this untainted blank page, it is in a state of prajna.
 
There is a state of mind where neither good nor evil has yet emerged. The world encourages people to be good, and Buddhism too encourages the cultivation of a virtuous mind. However, those
who engage in deep mind-practice, studying the Heart Sutra, must explore the true mind, the mind that exists even before good and evil arise.

All kinds of thoughts may come to you as you read this book. Let us take a brief moment to break away from all those thoughts and put them to rest. When you can do that, you will find heaven and
earth and the myriad things of all creation, the true dharma-realm of the void, and all the buddhas of the past, present, and future. Yet we should not become attached to these things either.

The Heart Sutra consists of 268 Chinese characters, including the title. In these few characters, it contains the essence of the buddhadharma. Although small in amount, ginseng extracts contain
all the nourishment provided by ginseng. Similarly, the Heart Sutra is a distillation of the Buddha’s eighty-four thousand teachings. It is a dharma instruction that the Buddha provided to his disciples when in their training they had reached a considerable level of perspective. There were some six hundred volumes of scriptures related to prajna at the time, and the 268 characters of the Heart Sutra summarize the substance of these many teachings.
 
The Heart Sutra explains the teachings in a relatively systematic manner from a doctrinal perspective. It is written in the form of a discourse between Avalokite vara Bodhisattva, who is well versed in the Buddha’s ideas, and Śāriputra, one of the chief disciples of the Buddha.

The Most Frequently Read and Recited Sutra
 
The Heart Sutra is the sutra that is most frequently read and recited by Buddhists regardless of their nationality or sect. Since the founder of Won-Buddhism, Master Sotaesan, traced the origins of
his doctrine to the buddhadharma, Won-Buddhists read and recite the Heart Sutra day and night. Along with the Diamond Sutra and some others, the Heart Sutra is regarded by Won-Buddhists as one of The Essential Scriptures of the Buddha and Patriarchs, so all the followers of the faith study it in depth and keep it close to their heart.

Many followers have become eminent, virtuous monks thanks to the Heart Sutra, and many have gone on to achieve the status of great sages, or people of the high Way, by making the Heart Sutra
their standard. Ordinary humans such as ourselves can also recite it and abide by it to dissolve the bonds of bad karma and accumulate good karma.
 
Thus we see that, through the Heart Sutra, the Buddha provided us with the most concise standard to guide us to buddhahood.
 
 
 
Contents
 
 
Introduction     11
Chapter One     Toward The Other Shore     35
Chapter Two     Introduction To Prajna     62
Chapter Three     The Truth Of Prajna     97
Chapter Four     Realization Of Prajna     125
Chapter Five     The Practice Of Prajna     182
Chapter Six     Spell Of Prajna     208