His Holiness the Dalai Lama: In Buddhist philosophy ignorance and distorted views are the causes of all negative emotions.
Second part of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Klagenfurt Austria May 18-20, 2012 translated from Tibetan into English by Mr Tenzin Tsepag. Trascript by Dr. Peter Lawrence-Roberts, first revision and editing by Dr. Luciano Villa within the project “Free Dalai Lama’s Teachings” for the benefit of all sentient beings. We apologize for possible errors and omissions.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The Heart Sutra
The Heart Sutra belongs to a group of sutras known as the Prajnaparamita sutras. It consists of 17 sutras. The most extensive is in 100,000 verses, the middle one has 25,000 verses and the short version has 8,000 verses. This version has 25 verses.
Commentaries to the Heart Sutra were written by both Indian and Tibetan great masters.
The title of the sutras is Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. Sherab means the essence of wisdom. Wisdom should be cultivated, as, for Buddhist practitioners, the main goal to be achieved is the actualisation of the cessation of suffering. This cessation can only occur through the attainment of wisdom that realises emptiness.
The second Noble Truth, the origin of suffering, deals with two things in detail, karma and afflictions. There are two types of afflictions. First, wrong view, intellectual but wrong, a wrong view that is distorted. This kind of wrong view must be abandoned as it is the root of suffering. Second, anger. The antidote is to cultivate love and compassion.
If we have strong difficulty with attachment, an antidote would be to visualise revulsion for things and events to which we are attached.
A further antidote is to get rid of completely the root of the difficulty. This is done through the cultivation of the wisdom realising emptiness. In this way afflictive emotion can be uprooted. Continue reading »
