08 February 2026
Winter 2026
Keith Snyder
Resident Priest and Managing Director
Every month at Tōzenji we have a service to honor the Bodhisattva Kannon (Avalokiteshvara), a statue of whom is enshrined in the Kannon Hall of the temple. At this ceremony we recite the Hannya Shingyō (般若心経), a short work that summarizes the essence (heart) of the vast literature dealing with the perfection of transcendental wisdom. It reduces the whole lot of thousands and thousands of pages to one single page, which is probably the most recited sutra in Japanese Buddhism.
The Heart Sutra, as it is often called, deals with the eliminating of all concepts that are conventionally used to bring us to an awareness of ultimate truth. It is the teaching of the emptiness of all things and of all ideas. Emptiness itself, and the realization of it, is the ultimate truth. Even if we might think that that means the absence of things (form), that idea too is negated by the opening declaration that not only is “form emptiness” but that “emptiness itself is form.” In other words, emptiness is not “nothing” as opposed to “something.” Emptiness is beyond opposites.
The “five skandhas” (physical and mental functions that make up our existence) are declared empty. Then a whole list of standard Buddhist terms used in teaching the Dharma are negated one by one: the six forms of consciousness, their corresponding sense organs and their perceptions, fundamental ignorance and its elimination, the four noble truths, wisdom and its attainment – all of these ideas which form the basis of the Buddhist view of our world and how to understand it are declared null and void.
In this way the Heart Sutra is prompting us to let go of concepts, because the emptiness taught by the wisdom schools is beyond any notion that might come into our heads. The more we try to figure it out through words and ideas, the farther away from it we get. The Sutra is saying: “let go, let go, just let go.”
There is a parallel here with the Pure Land expression of Japanese Buddhism, even though the two paths, the Path of Wisdom and the Path of Compassion, seem to be opposites. The emptiness schools want to strip away all imaginings and forms of thought, while Pure Land Buddhism is founded on elaborate visualizations of an ideal Buddha world in very concrete and fantastical terms. What they have in common is the letting go part.
Hōnen Shōnin (1133 - 1212), the founder of the Pure Land schools of Japanese Buddhism, was a serious monk who diligently practiced the complicated forms of Buddhism that developed in China and Japan over the previous centuries, including practices of the Tendai sect centered on the Buddha Amida. But he was also a self-aware and honest person who became frustrated when the promised results of the practices were not delivered. In addition to Tendai, he travelled to Nara to investigate the older forms of Buddhism. Nothing satisfied his quest for spiritual fulfillment.
Finally, when going over a work by 7th century Chinese monk Shantao (Zendō Daishi 善導大師) he came upon a passage which hit him in a very deep way. It was about simply reciting the Buddha’s name, no matter what you might be doing or for how long, “because it is in accord with that Buddha’s Vow.” This triggered in him a type of awakening to the deepest import of the whole Mahayana framework of the path of the bodhisattva and its logical conclusion, the oneness of individual and Dharma. At that moment Hōnen let go of all his strivings for spiritual perfection and the practices he was using to pursue it. The simple recitation of the nembutsu, not as a “practice,” but as an acknowledgement of a deep Mahayana truth, was sufficient. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from Hōnen’s shoulders and he could finally breathe freely.
So in the terms of the wisdom schools as exemplified by the Heart Sutra, or in the terms of the Pure Land Gate and its significance as revealed by Honen, the message is “let go” – let go of trying to grasp an understanding of emptiness (shūnyatā 空) through words and concepts; and let go of trying to get something that you already have, that is, “birth in the Pure Land,” which in the end is another way of saying the oneness of individual and Dharma.
The perfection of wisdom: shūnyatā, the perfection of compassion: the Buddha of Infinite Life – two sides, really, of the same coin.