Week Four Essay Question
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During last week’s webinar someone said (Lisa?) that when she read the Heart Sutra she felt the Sutra although she did not understand it. Her comment really resonated with me. I do not understand it either but I feel it. I think why I feel it’s power now is from taking this course and having a better understanding of the Buddhist dharma. I am also less irritated when feeling uncomfortable with something I don’t completely understand. I have decided to incorporate the Sutra more in my daily life by reading through the Heart Sutra 1-2 times a day, slowly. I do not know if I would be able to memorize the complete Sutra as Susan has but at least it will become more and more familiar. I have added the mantra to my morning prayers and chants so that has become part of my daily routine.
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What was it like practicing the Heart Sutra? Meh. However, using the recording has made the chanting feel more grounded, and the words are becoming more familiar. Thank you, Susan, for the recording; a big help! I am still processing all of this content, and I am good with my current understanding and am “not feeling it.” In other words, I am OK with it being more Meh than magic.
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My encounters with the Heart Sutra still feel the same. The interactions flows much better when I don’t get caught up in the English words in it, so… I look for others ways to listen to it (and chant along) – in Tibetan, in music form, during chenrezi, etc.
Thank you, Susan, for sending the recording! -
At first the suggestion to practice the heart sutra felt too religious. Staying with my discomfort I then thought of inspiring poets Mary Oliver, Rumi, Hafiz who describe the ineffable, the great mystery, offering me felt connection to groundlessness. Perhaps the heart sutra is another way. We’ll see.
I find posting OK and reading others’ posts interesting. What doesn’t work so well is lack of conversation. And I understand the need for safe disclosures in the breakout groups yet would like more dialogue. My understanding of What’s App is it’s not back and forth either. Maybe it’s coming in the weeks ahead.
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I am impatient for fluidity with The Heart Sutra. I feel awkward and effortful in my speaking of the unfamiliar words. I judge myself for haltingness and for my frustrated efforts to feel the meaning of the words. Gentleness, I say! Patience, I say! Just be with it. And so I come back and try again: )
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My practice has been to be with the Heart Sutra, through reading it or listening to it. Sometimes a word or phrase will float up to be the subject of tentative investigation. I do not believe I have the words nor the expertise to go deeply into the core of this teaching, but perhaps I can soften enough to open to experience it. I appreciated Susan telling her story. I am enjoying the sessions, the material, reading the interesting comments of others (I so far haven’t quite figured out how to add a comment, I apologize for that) and meeting my fellow students in the break out rooms.
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During this week I´ve been staying in contact with the Heart Sutra in different forms, but the one I´ve connected more with it is listening to a chanted version that I found, interpreted by a singer with a beautiful voice called Dema Premal.
I feel this version has allowed me to open to this teaching from an emotional dimension and stay with it for longer stretches of time than I would have had if I had chosen a different platform. What is it doing to me? I still don’t know, at least from a more rational point of view, but I intuitively can say that I feel an opening of the chest and an enhanced feeling of vulnerability. And I notice that this feeling is layered with a sense of courage to face the world and its intricate relations from that vulnerability, knowing that it will be a good compass to navigate through the waves, as painful, invigorating, frustrating or triumphant as it may feel at times.
What I need to tell myself today is that it is ok to feel this vertigo, and that there is a huge stream of power and elegance that comes from it.
I love Brenda that you are enjoying this journey! and that you are becoming more accommodative with irritation and discomfort. -
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I have been practicing the heart sutra before almost every meditation, after making offerings and requesting blessings, and considering my recitation of the sutra to be one of my offerings. I recite in an even rhythm, and something I learned from practicing with a group rather than alone is that when I need to breathe in, I continue reading even as the correct sounds are not made, and pick up after the in-breath. This, to me, grants a little bit of a better flow, and a sense that once in motion, the sutra is continuing on its own even as I physically have to take breaths.
The sutra seems to add a sense of clarity, “calmness”, and profoundness, and knowledge, always feeling like something I approached, and it passed by me, and left me with something in my pocket, and the feeling like something profound and true rippled by… After my morning meditations I make breakfast and go to work. At work, when I am doing some tasks, I try to recite parts of the sutra, as much as I can remember from my mind, in the effort of getting to memorize it.
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