about thirty or fourty years ago,people used to say that if a classroom was made like a theatre,students would definitely enjoy coming to classes.

today i would say that if the teacher's words or sayings or jokes or stories can make students happy or feel joyful from the dharma which they have learned i believe then the students would also enjoy coming to lessons.

but it's a pity that in the past,the teachers of dharma would try to make their words or lessons sound hard to understand,as a way to prove that they are good teachers.

for example,someone would ask another person,"where did you go yesterday?""oh,i went to a dharma talk.""was it good?""yes,it was very good!""so in what way was it good?""it was good because i could not understand a thing he was saying."

through out my 60 years of experiences in teaching or speaking the dharma,my conclusion is that the most important thing is make sure that the audience understands what i am saying instead of

them confused with the profound theories.

i would like to continue to discuss the function or the assistance or the benefit which prajna can give to us.

in my opinion,everything in this world is prajna.but at the same time,nothing in this world is prajna.

at times when you get things done the right way,they would say that,"oh,you have prajna."

however,even if you are doing charity work or chanting the sutra or chanting the buddha's name on the suce,but in your mind at the same time you're allowing ignorance,hatred,or greed to arise,then i would not call these actions prajna.

what i hope in all of you is for you to have come to these talks not in search of a certain philosophy or knowledge,but i would rather you to have come and gain some level of understanding on prajna and to be able to apply it to your everyday life.

for example,when you try to find prajna,you probably can't do it in very normal ways.at times you would need to think on a different level in order to see where prajna exists.

some devotees ask me"now we are buddhists,what kind of things should we do in order to improve our lives and make ourselves happier?"

and i would answer,"i have the following suggestions."

first of all,you have to develop certain principal in your mind when dealing with other people.the first one is that you need to always think that the others are more important than yourself.

if you always think that you are the person who is right,or that you are the most important or the better person amongst a group of people,then this will make you very unpopular amongst other people.when you are trying to get things done,you won't even get the assistance or help that you wish for;instead,you need to respect other people,and always think that they are more important than you are.that is why i advocate the philosophy of being second.

secondly.we need to bear in mind the need to always give others happiness and you bear the suffering.because sometimes even when we see others suffering,it won't give you the true kind of happiness.instead we should try to wish everybody in this world be blessed with happiness and this way,you would also be happy.

a very famous chinese philosopher by the name of fan zhong yan once said that"we should be the ones who worry about the worries of a country first,be the last to enjoy the benefit and joy of a country."and in fact,i think this saying is very meaningful.

we can even call this life of prajna.

thirdly,we should always allow others to have what they want before we get what we want.because sometimes if we are the only ones in the world to have the things that we want,it still won't make us happy.therefore,we should share all of these things in the world and always give others the opportunity to attain what they wish for first before we get that same thing for ourselves.

that is why towards the end of heart sutra,it would say something like when there's nothing to attain,it actually means you've attained everything.and in fact,sometimes when you seem to get caught up in the dead end,try to turn around,you may see a whole new world.

fourthly,if you want live a happy life,always think that others are right,and i am wrong.

but we usually go against this point and think that we are the ones who are right.therefore we lack of prajna when we do this.

if there's a person who always blames others for the mistakes or problems,i don't think people would like him or her very much.

once,there were two families.in family a,everybody is always fighting.but,on the other hand,those in family b have always got along very well.

therefore,one day,family a went over to family b and asked them,"what is your secret to a happy family?how come your family's always happy but ours always fighting?"

b answered,"that is because everybody in your family always tries to be the good person,but everybody in our family is always willing to be the bad person."

for example,if there's a cup in the family and somebody breaks it,then he'll say who put this cup in my way?the person who put the cup there would get angry and fight back by saying,"i did.it's your fault to break it by being so clumsy."that way, your family would always be fighting,no matter what happens.

but if the same thing was to happen with our family,it would be quite different.the person who breaks the cup will quickly apologize for being so clumsy.he would say,"i'm sorry for breaking the cup."the person who placed the cup there would then say,"it's not your fault.it's my fault for placing the cup over there."everybody in my family is willing to admit that they are the bad person.that way,it's not easy to start a fight.

such is the life of prajna and the way to understand it is not through everyday or ordinary ways of thinking;instead,we need to display prajna in our thinking,our language and our behaviors.in other words,with everything we do,we will try to display the quality of prajna and that way,we'll also become a person of prajna who lives the life of prajna.

there are a lot of times that our happiness is not determined by what the world gives to us;instead,we should be the ones who make ourselves happy.when you do that,you'll be displaying the quality of prajna.

once there was an old woman and both of her daughters have been married.therefore she lived alone.normally,it would be a time for her to enjoy her life.nevertheless,she was seen crying everyday and people started calling her"the crying woman."

someone asked her,"why are you always crying?"

she replied,"my elder daughter is married to the owner of an umbrella shop.therefore,whenever it's a sunny day,i would have to worry about her.i would worry that nobody would come in to her shop to buy the umbrellas because it's sunny. therefore,i cry.on the other hand,my younger daughter is married to a r noodle maker.they need the sun to be there. for them to dry the r noodles before they can be sold. therefore whenever it rains,i would start worrying about my younger daughter that her business would go bad.so for all of these reasons,i cry all the time."

then there came a buddhist monk with a lot of wisdom.he said to her,"why don't you think differently?from now on, whenever it's sunny,think about your younger daughter.think about the fact that she can dry the r noodles in the sun and they can be sold and her business would go well.and whenever it rains,think about your elder daughter.how everybody would need to go and buy an umbrella and then she would also enjoy good business."

the old woman said,"can you really change the way you think?"

"of course,you can!"

the old woman did what she's been told.whenever it's a sunny day,she would try to think about her younger daughter, about how she can sell her r noodles well.when it rains,she'll think about the elder daughter,about how well the umbrellas would also sell.when she thinks about things this way,she started smiling everyday.as a result,she turned from the crying woman to a smiling woman.

do you wish for a happy life?and if you do,prajna will help you get there.

a mind with prajna would be one who is much more pure, and also much more smart and intelt.

a mind like this would always see the world,as something that is true and beautiful.and a mind like this would never

any language or thoughts that are impure.

whenever a mind like this thinks of his parents,he'll be grateful of how his parents and family have taken care of him. and whenever his mind thinks about his country,he would also be grateful for his country for giving him such a good living environment.also when his mind thinks about his school or any organizations which he belongs to,he would also be grateful for all the help and assistance that people of this group have given him.therefore no matter what he thinks of,he's always grateful for the things that have been given to him,and by doing so,how can he not be happy?

nevertheless,there's only still a very small amount of people who are able to live a life with the mind of prajna.when they cannot do this,they tend to take another option,which is to see this world with a sense of humor.

zen master zhao zhou,a very famous zen master from china,was known to be a very well-practd monk.one day,a devotee asked him,"master,for someone as well-practd as you are,which pure land or buddha land do you wish to be reborn in when you pass away?"

zen master zhao zhou replied,"do you really want to know where i want to go in the future?ok,i'll be honest with you. when i pass away,i'm actually going to hell."

"but master,you are a very well-practd zen master! how can you end up in hell?"

zen master replied,"if i don't go to hell,who's going to be there to help you in the future?"

literally it may sound rather sarcastic,but if you look deeper into his words you'll see that he's actually displaying a very high quality of prajna.

in my mind,prajna not only represents our character,but it can also be represented in a form of energy.

everything in this world has its own function.

i'll take this microphone as an example,if this is a microphone of very good quality,it'll probably cost about 10,000 u.s.dollars.but if it's of a lesser quality,you can probably purchase it at about three to five hundred.

we can all do a

assessment of ourselves and ask ourselves how much are my qualities worth?

for some people,they have the capability to deal with being important or not important.

they can either take on a high position or remain low.

they can either have or not have things.

they can either be upfront or stay behind.

they can either wake up early or stay up late.

they can cope with hunger.they can cope with being very full.

they can do anything.

for someone like this,his quality would,of course,be extremely great.

some people can cope with being busy.but they have trouble taking care of their free times.but for some people they prefer to be free rather than to be busy.on the other hand,some people can only cope with being full but they cannot stand hunger.people like this will,of course,have their different qualities.

if we were to try to bring our quality and function of our life into full play,we need to discover the characteristic or the energy of prajna within ourselves.

once,there was a man who in order to celebrate his sixtieth birthday invited a buddhist monk to come and chant for him as a sign of blessing.

this buddhist monk started chanting.as a part of his chanting,he said the following:blessed be the bodhisattvas from places far away.may you come to this man and protect him and bless him.

the man asked him,"master,why bodhisattva from far way?why don't you invite bodhisattvas from nearby places? aren't they better?"

the monk replied,i'm just worried that the bodhisattvas from nearby are aware of the bad things you've done;they are aware of how immoral and unkind you are.so if i invite them to help you,they would probably refuse to do so.therefore i can only invite bodhisattvas from faraway,who know nothing about you to come and bless you.

therefore when we wish to solve our problems,we cannot rely on other people to come and help us,instead,we have to discover this prajna within us in order to uncover that wisdom which we intrinsically have.

there was another man,also celebrating his sixtieth birthday,invited the buddhist master to come and chant.he said,"please come and do chanting for me as a way to prolong my life."

the master asked him,"you are already sixty.are you still not satiied with your life?how long do you wish to live until? is eighty years old good enough for you?"

"eighty years old is a good idea."

the master said once again,"if you think 80 years is not enough.how about 100 years?"

"do you think you can live 100 years?"

"i think sometimes 120 is also possible!"

then the man said,"ok!i'll go for 120 years."

but the master then said,"you have to bear in mind that by the time you become 120,your 100-year-old son would pass away.

be prepared to say goodbye to your son as an older man.

when you are 120,not only will your 100-year-old son be dead already,your 80-year-old grandson would probably also be dead."

for those who only think about the things they want,or long for,usually they neglect the losses that have to come after it.

therefore,for a person with prajna in his mind,who would simply live his life as it naturally is.he'll simply live through spring and welcome winter,he'll live simply through winter and wait for spring to come again.

even if the water in the river flows away from you,one day, it'll come back to you again.

therefore a mind with prajna would simply take the good and bad things in life as they are,and he would still be optimistic and see everything with a happy mind.

prajna represents your original appearance.sometimes prajna exists in the very trivial things in our life.for example, when you know to put up a vase of flowers.or hang up a painting in your room.or add right amount of salt to your food to make it taste better.these very little things would display the quality of prajna that you have within you and make your life so much more different.

although we call this sutra,the"heart sutra"in short.its full name is actually"prajna paramita hridaya sutra."

let's talk about the term"paramita."

paramita,in

terms,means to go from this shore to the other shore,to go from suffering to happiness,to go from burdens to liberation,to go from worries to joy;therefore,it's to go from here to the other shore.

paramita,as a sanskrit term,also means completion.

for example,if i were to ask you,"have you eaten yet?", you would tell me,"yes,i have eaten."

i once heard this answer from a group of hakka people from the canton area in china.when you ask somebody,"are you full?"instead of saying,"yes,i am full,"they said to me,"yes,i am satiied."and the word"satiied"is so much more different from the word"full."

in india,if you ask somebody,"have you eaten yet?"you would answer by saying,"yes,i have already had paramita."

"did you get enough sleep?"he says,"yes,i got paramita."that means:"i have completed the action of sleeping."

the word"prajna paramita"means to use the means of prajna to make our lives complete.

once there was a musician from japan who led a group of students around a tour.

when they arrived in a village,they also came across a woman who was giving birth to a baby,but it was not a smooth process and the woman was in pain.

during those times,the musicians also dressed up like monastics.as the family heard this musician singing,they came to him and asked him to chant for them as a sign of blessing.

the musician said,"i don't know how to chant.how can i give you blessings?"

"just do what you were doing before.it sounded really good."

the musician could not bear to say no to the family, therefore,he decided to give it a try.

he came up with the following verse:maha-prajna-paramita,please come and help me.after one and two o'clock, as three o'clock arrives,please let the baby be born!

quite miraculously,as soon as he finished saying,"let the baby be born at 3 o'clock,"the baby was born.everybody could hear his crying.from then on,people from the village started treating this musician like some kind of god or bodhisattva.

therefore,when we started this evening's session by chanting of the"heart sutra,"it is also a way to help the energy of prajna to grow within all of us so that we can all be with wisdom.

as we start to talk about the"heart sutra,"the word"heart"here should represent the heart of buddhism.it should also represent the heart understanding of these teachings.

the buddha spoke the dharma in different kinds of ways,in order to cater to or to get to know different kinds of hearts.and if none of these different types of hearts were to exist,what need would there be to talk of the dharma?

in order to try and help you get the better understanding of your own heart,let's now discuss this word a little bit further.

you can go around the world and make all kinds of friends, but how many of them can be your close friends?how many of them actually really know you?

never complain about those who do not know you well enough,because sometimes you don't even know yourself well enough.

this heart represents our original essence.at the same time,this heart also represents prajna.

ever since ancient times,there were already a lot of people, especially philosophers,who have tried to delve into the world of the heart and have tried to figure out exactly how our heart actually works or operates.

if we were to use a metaphor for the heart,we can start with a factory.

once the mind arises,it would be like a factory that provides all kinds of phenomenon.

with this factory of my heart,it's ready to make all kinds of product.

if your heart is good,then,this good factory would provide products with good quality.

if your heart was to start malfunctioning,this factory would start to

all kinds of pollutions.it'll pollute the air;pollute the water.it'll make your environment much worse.

what i'm trying to say is:have you ever thought about how you would manage this factory within your heart?

what kind of products do you wish to produce?

some say that the heart is like a king.a king gives out all kinds of orders.therefore the heart orders the eyes to look and the ears to listen.therefore,there are all kinds of orders which you'll receive from the heart.

some would compare our heart to a thief or even a robber.

a famous chinese philosopher,wang yang ming once said that:it's easy for us to capture a robber who hides in the mountains.but it's much more difficult for us to capture that thief who is hidden deep within our heart.

when you realize that your heart,is giving rise to all kinds of naughty thoughts and it's trying to get your body to carry out these bad actions,you have to be aware enough of these thoughts and to stop it before anything happens.

some says that the fastest thing in this world is electricity or light.

but in fact,our heart is the fastest thing in this world.

if you are trying to travel from los angeles to new york,in the means of,say,electricity or light or vo,you would still require some kind of milliseconds.

but if you are to travel by your heart,you'll be there in this very moment.

if you are sitting here in los angeles,and suddenly you think about new york.instantly,you'll be in new york,or boston,or the places that you want to go to.

we can also describe our heart as a field.whatever seed is sewed in that field,you would end up harvesting that kind of plant.

imagine if your body is like a village.your heart would be the village chief,while your eye,ear,nose,tongue and body will be the villagers.

your eyes will be in charge of looking.

it'll be like a camera that captures whatever images that come across and saves that image in the heart.

whatever the ear hears,it'll record the sounds in the heart as well.

and what about the nose?the nose would be like a detective that tries to detect all kinds of smell.and,of course,it would also store the data in the heart.

and the tongue would also taste all kinds of tastes.be it sweet or sour or bitter or hot,it would also record these different kinds of tastes in the heart.

and the body would also send all kinds of messages to the heart.regarding whether it's cold or hot,regarding whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable and so on.

therefore these villagers would simply pass all of the messages or the data which they gather to the heart honestly without trying to process it.it is the heart that has to take in all of these messages and data.when the body passes away,the eye,ear,nose,tongue,and body simply pass away,too, without any further responsibilities.but it is actually the heart that has to deal with the consequences of what eye,ear,nose, tongue,and body have done.

as we have talked about the eye,ear,nose tongue,body and mind or heart,these constitute the"six organs,"which you will see as a part of the content you found within the heart sutra.what these six organs do is that they interact with this world.therefore they interact with the"six dusts,"which are form,sound,taste,touch and phenomena.and as they interact with each of them,for example,the eyes,the eye organs detect different kinds of colors and forms,while the ears listen to the sounds and so on.as these six organs interact with the six dusts,they give rise to the six consciousnesses on top of the seventh or the eighth consciousness.but in the meantime,we know that by interacting with the six dusts,you end up forming the eye consciousness,the ear consciousness,the tongue consciousness,and the body consciousness and so on.

that is why you would read in the heart sutra where it tells us that there's no eye,no ear,no nose,no tongue,no body and no mind;and also no form,no sound,no smell,no taste,no touch and no dharma.what this is trying to tell us is that everything that you come across in this universe or world is illusory.they are not real and they are actually empty.for example,when we talking about the objectives and subjectives, the objectives represent for example,the organs,which are the physiological factors of you as a part.and while the subjective becomes your mind which become the psychological factors. when they come together and interact with the physical world,it would give rise to all kinds of illusory phenomena.what the heart sutra is trying to tell us is that life is nothing but a . everything that you come across is actually empty or unreal.

once again let's go back to the six organs.although it consists of the six,the most important is actually the mind, which is the sixth organ.while the first five shuts down at certain times,especially when we sleep.for example,when we fall asleep,our eye,ear,nose,tongue,and body actually do nothing.but the mind continues to work.it continues by dreaming.in your dreams,you still have to go to all kinds of places.therefore,when these six organs come together, sometimes you would require the first five organs to work together in order to give rise to some kind of consciousness.but there are also cases when your mind operates alone and operates independently to give rise to a different level of consciousness.

unlike the first five consciousnesses that don't have to be responsible for their actions,it is the sixth consciousness or the mind that has to take up or bear with the consequences of the actions of the first five organs.the sixth one is also called the independent consciousness.it would have to bear the karma or the results of what has happened or been done by the first five organs.

what is the key point,or the core concept of the heart sutra?

in many cases our mind would tend to give rise to thoughts such as greed,hatred,anger,jealousy,delusions or even worries.when this happens,we would require the power of the prajna heart to help us get rid of these thoughts.

the heart idea of the heart sutra consists of three kinds of heart.the first kind is the bodhi mind or bodhi heart.

if you were to ask me,"what is the bodhi mind?"

a bodhi mind is a mind that strives to go upwards.it's also a mind that strives to go forward or a mind that strives to go towards what is good.it is also the mind that is courageous.

if your mind is willing to reach upwards for buddhahood and also to reach downwards to help sentient beings,you would be said to possess the bodhi mind.

when we talk about the bodhi mind,it is a mind that is courageous.it is also the mind that has the power to shoulder any kind of responsibilities.

as we've said,our mind is like a field.if you wish to have a very good harvest,you have to first cultivate this field well.if you do a lot of hard work on cultivating and developing this land, of course,its value will be much greater than anything else.

in everyone of you the bodhi mind would arise at one point or another.these are the moments when you think of doing good or helping other people.but the key lies within maintaining this bodhi mind.therefore,it's easy to give rise to the bodhi mind but it's difficult to maintain the bodhi mind.

after resolving or developing such thoughts,sometimes when we come across problems or obstacles,we tend to choose or turn towards the option of giving up.

that is why our mind is compared to the morning dew.it's only momentary.the moment the sun comes up,this mind disappears.

i've been a monastic for almost 70 years.

of course,i've interacted with all kinds of people,but half of these experiences were painful.some of the people have humiliated me or caused a lot of set backs in my life.

i think i'm rather gullible. a lot of people have deceived me.

my disciples once asked me,"master,have you ever felt discouraged when you came across these situations?"

and let me tell you.if there was for one single moment that i ever feel discouraged,there would be no master hsin yung today.

anyone who decides to give rise to the bodhi mind,can never feel discouraged.

during my days at the buddhist college,when the teachers punished me verbally and even physically,i always took it as-a-matter-of-factly because i knew that they were trying to educate me.

if i was ever hurt or taken advantage of by other people,i would simply tell myself:this is simply the way society works. so why feel discouraged?

as we talk about spiritual cultivation all the time,my personal experience from spiritual cultivation tells me that the greatest thing from what all that i have done,comes down to one word which is endurance.

when i talk about the word endurance,please do not take it as a mere act of putting up with pain,or putting up with people who take advantage of us,or putting up with suffering or unhappiness.this is not what i'm talking about.when i talk about endurance,it's a kind of prajna.it is also a kind of wisdom.that's why there are so-called terms in buddhism such as ordinary endurance,dharma endurance,and endurance of none arising dharmas.

when we look at this world,we know that this world is full of chaos.the people living inside it are so unpredictable,causing us to be deceived,or allow others to take advantages of us,or causing us to bear the suffering given to us by other people.but nevertheless,you know that in order for you to keep surviving, in order for you to keep living in this world,you would have to endure all of these negative feelings and happenings in life.these kinds of endurance are called"ordinary endurance."

when we talk about endurance,the first step is to get to know this world.for example,you have to get to know what is good and bad in this world.you have to get to know what is virtuous or evil in this world.in other words,it all about getting to know the happenings around you.

but this first step is just simply not enough.after you get to know these happenings,you have to accept them.for example, you have to accept things whether they are good or bad.for example,when you are happy to accept praises,you must also be willing to accept slander or criticism.

after you accept it,you have to take the third step,which is to shoulder that responsibility.it means that you are willing to bear the consequences of whatever is happening to you.

how can you only choose to have good things happen to you and allow others to put up or cope with the suffering?therefore instead,you have to bear with whatever is good and bad and accept the fact that you have to bear with consequences of things that are either good or bad.

the fourth step would be the ability to resolve these problems.as we have said that you need to pick up the responsibility or bear with the consequences.it's not about mere tolerance or endurances.if you try to hold up everything within you,one day you are going to blow up.that is where this fourth step comes in.as you look at these problems,you accept them. you'll learn how to resolve these problems,and this will require your prajna wisdom.

if a friend was to come to me and ask me to lend him 100, 000 u.s.dollars,then i would think to myself if he really needs it,then i should try my best to help him out because he's suffering.so i end up trying very very hard to get this money together.

after lending him the money,he s no sign of returning this money to me.

should i just sue him?

should i kill him?

should i simply hang myself?

this is nor worth it,at all.

this is where the prajna wisdom of ordinary endurance comes in.with the wisdom of prajna you would think to yourself,"why has this happened to me?"perhaps,this is something which i owed him in my past life.and if you think about it this way,you would find it easier to let go.

if you wish to carry out your spiritual cultivation,and let's first put aside the bodhi mind.you can start by practicing this ordinary endurance.why?because it would become helpful to your spiritual growth in a lot of times.as for myself,presently, in many cases in my life,i have been able to bear the most unbearable things in my life.to me,to cut things short and leave out the details,i would say that by practicing the act of endurance,i have grown a lot in my spiritual aspect.

here's a riddle for all of you

you have try to guess a thing from the following verse.this thing does not come out of the forest,until all kinds of cultivation and development.it has to go through the most fierce fire and the most toughest training and development possible before it can appear.it's willing to sacrif everything it has, even if its body has to be broken into countless pieces.

for example,it could be what you use to put on the walls.

it could be the minerals which you extract from the deep mountains.

then you have to place it within a furnace,going into very high degrees of burning,which is,of course,not easy.

after coming out from furnace,it gets grounded into the finest grains,and then that becomes what you use to spread across the wall,which is an ingredient of the paint.so it has to go through a lot of suffering.it has to go through the burning and development.in the end it has no regrets,because what comes out of it becomes this wall of pure white that you see.

therefore,a person cannot grow spiritually without going through the toughest situations in life.sometimes even if you feel that it could kill you,it could take away your life,or it would give you the most suffering in life.you must find the courage to face it,because if you come out of it in the end,you'll become a much different person.

today we hear a lot of people complaining about how much stress they feel at work.as a result,many suffer from anxiety and depression and other similar problems.

in my mind,the reason to or the cause of all of this anxiety and depression is these people's lack of ability to withhold pressure.take a look at the people from the earlier periods. they were the ones who went through much more stress and pressure,but they all turned out ok.what happened to our people today?

you can try out this little experiment at home.find some soybeans,and put a thin layer of soil over it.it will grow but its sprouts would be weak and fragile.but if you try to place a very thick layer of soil over the soybeans,they will grow n and strong.what i'm trying to say is:only stress will bring you growth.

when you come to learn buddhism,you have to realize that what buddhism tries to teach you is not get you to sit there and simply accept the suffering.and then,try simply putting up with the suffering all day.instead,what buddhism tries to tell you about suffering is how you can deal with it and face it.

what comes after ordinary patience?it would be dharma endurance.be aware that the dharma we talk about here starts with a small d,the one that starts with capital d represents the buddha's teachings or the doctrines of buddhism.but ones that starts with a small d represents the phenomena and the happenings of this world.for example,a house could be a dharma.a human being,or even flowers,or grass,or trees,and things,is a form of phenomena.that's why we talk about everything is a thing.whichever thing you talk about is a dharma.and now,the kinds of dharma you come across in life would be,for example,gossip,laughter,things that are good or bad.but no matter what happens to you,you would realize that you have to keep living.you have to keep surviving.the only way for you to keep you surviving and living is by enduring all the dharma that happen around you.

after dharma endurance,it would be the endurance of none arising dharmas.what this tries to tell you is to look for the unrealistic essence of the dharma.that they are not real,and they are empty.

all of us as human beings have to go through the stages of birth and death.but they're merely a very short part of the whole process of life.life itself does not die.

once there was an old man who got a son at an old age.as the family was celebrating,there came a buddhist monk who started crying at their door.one of them walked up to him and said,"look,they are trying to celebrate their new born baby today.so please don't cry over here."

if you want money,we'll give you money.please stop crying.the master,the buddhist monk replied,"i'm not here for the money,i am here to cry for the fact that there's now one extra dying person in your family."

while you find joy in seeing birth,you have neglected the fact that what follows birth would be death. so what is the point of being happy about birth and being sad about death?

with prajna,you will realize that life never dies.

some people who get sick of living and end up trying to commit suicide.sometimes they don't even succeed in doing so.

you have to realize that by committing suicide,not only will you end up causing much more pain in people who care about you,but you will also end up in an endless array of pain and suffering.

a life of prajna is one that has the bodhi mind,one that is brave,one that is active,and one that is willing to fight.

the second key concept of the"heart sutra"is the heart of great compassion.

this means great compassion and great loving kindness.

when i see you suffer,i would have some kind of wish to try to help you.as this thought arises,i'm also given rise to compassion.

while benevolence and royalty are a very important part of the human character.compassion is another important aspect.

my master has once taught me something very important, which i believe i have been able to abide by up until today.he said to me that we can go without anything in this world;we can have nothing.but we must never go without the compassionate heart.

not only should we be compassionate towards our family and friends,we should also be the same to our enemy or people we don't like.it has been said that friends are better than foes.no matter what kind of grudges you have,it is always better to resolve them.when you need to do this,compassion would come in very handy.

the third heart idea of the heart sutra is the heart of prajna.therefore,on top of bodhi mind,the bodhi heart or heart of compassion,there comes the heart of prajna,which represents wisdom.while bodhi mind represents courage and the heart of great compassion represents benevolence.these three principles of wisdom,benevolence and courage are very important to our lives.

it's not easy for us to attain these three kinds of heart.after we managed to do so,it's very difficult to manage these hearts.

once there was a zen master by the name of bai yuen suo duan in chinese buddhsim.somebody once asked him a question,"do you remember how your master attained enlightenment?"

he answered,"of course i know how my master attained enlightenment.it was a day when he was walking on a bridge,he tripped and fell over.it was at that moment that he attained enlightenment.how do i know that he attained enlightenment? because he made the following verse,‘i have a shiny pearl which has been sealed by dust for a long time.as the dust is wiped away,the pearl shines brightly onto the mountains and the rivers.'"

as this zen master went on very proudly about how his own master attained enlightenment,his master was also listening, who is zen master fang hui.and suddenly he started laughing in a scary vo and walked away,causing baiyun shuoduan be very confused.he started thinking,"did i say something wrong?or did i do something wrong?"

baiyun shuoduan has been practicing for a long time.yet he was still not able to attain enlightenment,causing his master to worry a lot for him.therefore his master started thinking of ways to help him to attain enlightenment.

his strategy was with this very scary laugh.it actually worked,because baiyun shuoduan started feeling very worried and unsteady.he started spending all of his time thinking what he may have done wrong even when he was eating or sleeping.

after a few days,he couldn't stand it anymore.he went to his master and decided to ask why.

he asked,"master,why did you laugh that way when i described the process of your enlightenment?"

"your laugh has caused a lot of suffering in me.i couldn't eat and i couldn't sleep."

his master replied,"you are indeed extremely useless,and you are simply unbelievable!"

if you would go to the town village,you'll see a clown. he would do all kinds of tricks just to make people laugh.and when people laugh he will be happy.but with you,even when i laughed,you started to worry.you are simply really useless. you're not even as worthy as that clown.

as baiyun shuoduan admitted that he is not even as good as a clown,suddenly he attained enlightenment.

we have long been living inside the trap made by our heart. this heart has all kinds of attachments to things such as power, fame,benefits or love.it's because of this attachment that we continue to suffer within this trap.as a way to free ourselves from the trap made by our heart.we would require the assistance of prajna.

remember the heart sutra is also a way to train your own mind or heart.

when we think about ,it's not only those locked behind bars who lost their .even us although be able to walk around freely,we are still in a way locked up inside a kind of jail.

that is why a zen master by the name of wu man,he once said that,"there are flowers in spring and the cool moon in autumn.there are also cool breezes in summer and snow in winter.once,there're no longer any trivial matters trapped inside your heart.you'll be living in the best moment in your life."

once there was a man who was locked up in jail,because his cell was so small.he started complaining about how small it is and he finds no .

one day,a fly joined him in his cell,which started bothering him and he decided to try and capture it.nevertheless,no matter how hard he tried to capture it,no matter where he followed where the fly went,he just could not manage to capture this fly. it was at this moment that he realized that his cell was actually not very small.it was,in fact,rather big.

that was when he realized that a troubled mind lives in a small world.yet a carefree mind would sleep in a very big bed.

although,technological advancement has allowed heart transplants to be possible nowadays.what that person actually gets is still only the physical heart.the heart we are referring to is actually our mind.the real type of heart transplant which we need,is to change our mind from one that is stingy to one that is compassionate.from one that is filled with hatred into one that is generous and kind.the most important is to change a heart that is ignorant into a heart that has prajna.

where are heaven and hell?both of them exist within our heart.

everyday,we actually take many trips between heaven and hell without knowing so.

a most important task for all of us is to try to eliminate the hell that exists in our mind and allow pure land or heaven to grow.

tomorrow we would start to talk about the avalokiteshavara bodhisattva and how he saw that the five skandhas were empty.thus he overcame ills and suffering. tomorrow we'll be talking about how the bodhisattva actually overcame suffering.

the day after tomorrow i will be discussing the line:form is emptiness and emptiness is form,which is line that has confused a lot of people in society.

on the fifth day,i'll make sure that i do complete this talk on the heart sutra.