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In September, 2014 Thich Nhat Hanh completed a profound and beautiful new English translation of the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, one of the most important and well-known sutras in Buddhism. The Heart Sutra is recited daily in Mahayana temples and practice centers throughout the world. This new translation came about because Thich Nhat Hanh believes that the patriarch who originally compiled the Heart Sutra was not sufficiently skillful with his use of language to capture the intention of the Buddha's teachings-and has resulted in fundamental misunderstandings of the central tenets of Buddhism for almost 2,000 years. In The Other Shore- A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries,Thich Nhat Hanh provides the new translation with commentaries based on his interpretation. Revealing the Buddha's original intention and insight makes clear what it means to transcend duality and pairs of opposites, such as birth and death, and to touch the ultimate reality and the wisdom of nondiscrimination. By helping to demystify the term "emptiness," the Heart Sutra is made more accessible and understandable. Prior to the publication of The Other Shore, Thich Nhat Hanh's translation and commentaries of the Heart Sutra, called The Heart of Understanding, sold more than 120,000 copies in various editions and is one of the most beloved commentaries of this critical teaching. This new book, The Other Shore, supersedes all prior translations.… (more)
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1. The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thích Nhất Hạnh. Audio recording of Dharma talk given at Green Gulch Zen
2. The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra by Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press (1988), Paperback, 56 pages
Based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings at Green Gulch (and perhaps elsewhere). Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation and commentary.
3. The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries by Thich Nhat Hanh (Author) Palm Leaves Press (2017), Edition: Revised ed., 196 pages. Deeply moving revision of his translation and commentary.
From the author’s preface: “On the twenty-first of August in 2014, at around three in the morning, just after I finished the translation, a moon ray penetrated my room.”
[Thich Nhat Hanh sustained a “severe brain hemorrhage” less than three months later.]
But anyway. I guess that when we read history or about kings—say King David—we think that the king was really around when he was at that awesome plateau at the peak of his power, even though for most of his life he’s either gaining or losing power, and can’t avoid the bell curve of impermanence, if life is a graph. Life, we think, is later, when we finally finish what we start. Reading this I sorta realized that your life is the whole thing, every day, although nothing that broad is still new to me.
Also, and I don’t know what this is in relation to except personal history, job history, but the cross-cultural truth that suffering is chosen even when circumstances are not cannot safely be made too high-minded: I create my suffering by mishandling painful circumstances (and I still don’t think this is a reason to have to sweat sing and make six figures), yes, but very importantly my personal immediate circumstances—not just my place in world history, and the history of abstract cartoon kings.
And I still chase butterflies—don’t just read the reviews—although I have to learn to let them go too. Or maybe I don’t, because when I die they’ll burn my body along with my books, ensuring that I still have them in the ether library with Jesus and King Arthur….