Customer Reviews

Zen Words for the Heart: Hakuin's Commentary on the Heart Sutra

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The page-long Heart Sutra is one of the most popular Buddhist texts and is chanted every day in Zen monasteries. This small book is a commentary on the Heart Sutra by the Japanese Rinzai Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1768). Hakuin goes through the Heart Sutra a word or phrase or line at a time, commenting usually with a paragraph of prose followed by a verse. Translator Norman Waddell adds helpful notes about the Buddhist doctrines, Chinese folktales, and so forth, that Hakuin refers to. And the book is illustrated with Hakuin's own calligraphy and paintings.

Hakuin writes in the incisive, poetic, paradoxical style that I think of as "Zen-speak" when it gets imitated poorly, but this is the real thing. Hakuin's writing is lively, funny, often sarcastic or scatalogical.

Here are a couple of bits I especially liked, to give you a sense of Hakuin's style: Commenting on the line "Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form," Hakuin says, "A nice hot kettle of stew. He ruins it by dropping a couple of rat turds in. It's no good pushing delicacies at a man with a full belly. Striking aside waves to look for water when the waves _are_ water." Commenting on the phrase "is delivered from all distress and suffering," Hakuin offers this verse:

The ogre outside shoves the door,
The ogre inside holds it fast.
Dripping sweat from head to tail
Battling for their very lives,
They keep it up throughout the night
Until at last when the dawn appears
Their laughter fills the early light--
They were friends from the first.

If you'd prefer a commentary in a more ordinary, explanatory style, try Albert Low's "Zen and the Sutras," which includes a chapter on the Heart Sutra, or Thich Nhat Hanh's "The Heart of Understanding." If you're looking for a scholarly commentary, try Donald Lopez's "The Heart Sutra Explained."

This is the second-most important treatment of the Heart Sutra I've ever encountered. Edward Conze's has to be first; even this translation depends somewhat on Conze's almost perfect translation. As a Sanskrit Scholar and occasional Buddhist, I've contemplated this Sutra for years, and have garnered insights from several translations, most notably those of Conze, this one, and Red Pine's. I'd recommend getting all three. I'd also recommend reading this one LAST. It is a sharp razor that slashes through the intellect, offends the senses and sensibilities, and reveals the pure, impersonal core of this most sacred work in a manner unlike that of any other treatment.

If you do not work out your own understanding, questions, reflections first, this text will either offend or amuse, and thus be wasted. It is no museum piece or comedy act; as another reviewer has said, Hakuin is the Real Deal when it comes to Zen, and treated with respect - and even fear - he will deliver the Heart of this Sutra directly into your own heart.