A Heart Sutra Journey | Part Twelve

"NO IGNORANCE, AND NO END TO IGNORANCE; NO OLD AGE AND DEATH, AND NO END TO OLD AGE AND DEATH;"

Shakyamuni Buddha, in considering the origins of suffering, saw and an unbroken trail of causation called the Chain of Dependent origination. Each step in the chain is dependent on the prior one - so suffering would end if old age and death would end, old age and death would end if birth would end, and so on through ignorance. Through the Buddha's recognition that there was no-self in the infinite events that gave rise to the links, He broke the chain and was enlightened.

Avalokitesvara now points out that the links of the chain are void of self-existence, thus empty. Because of this, their non-existence (another concept) also does not exist. Therefore, there is no end to causation because there was no causation to start with. All completely empty. So what does that leave us with?

See the full text of the Heart Sutra at: https://oneriverzen.org/heart-sutra