Path of accumulation and preparation

Part of a series of teachings on the Heart Sutra given during Dharma Friendship Foundation's annual spring retreat in May 1998 at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center, Washington.

  • Practice on the path of accumulation and preparation
  • “Form” (body) is empty of existing from its own side
    • Emptiness is a non-affirming negative
    • Emptiness is a permanent phenomenon
    • Wisdom realising emptiness
    • Four-point meditation
  • Things exist by being merely labelled
  • Middle way: empty and dependent arising
  • Grasping at inherent existence of “reputation”
  • Form being merely named
    • Ultimate and conventional truth
    • Things existing ultimately and things existing conventionally

Heart Sutra 02 (download)

The text of the Heart Sutra can be found here.

Venerable Thubten Chodron

Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.