Reconciling the Heart Sutra
Introduction
Awakening involves radically changing how we experience and respond to what is happening in daily life. Part of awakening is realizing that we have the underlying tendency to expect or believe in an idealized version of what is happening, for example that what is happening could or should be permanent and thus reliable and predictable. Because of such unrealistic expectations, we try to live our lives in a way that is out of harmony with what is actually happening. We end up struggling against life, and suffer as a result.
To awaken, we must come to accept that what we want or expect simply isn’t available. This can be a difficult truth to accept, especially when it comes to who or what we assume we are. However, when we drop these unrealistic expectations, the struggle against life is resolved and settled, and the suffering this struggle once caused finally ceases. Instead of living in a mentally-created version of daily life, we re-establish ourselves in the timeless and locationless “place” which, in truth, we never actually left. It may not be what we want or prefer, but it is nevertheless the only version available.
Once we clear away the layers of delusion as to what we and everything else supposedly is, we can reconnect with our natural ability to simply discern and differentiate what is happening. What once seemed like a world of inherently existing and separate beings, ourselves included, is revealed to be an intangible simulation, an interpretation of sensory information that once seemed solid and real. No longer do objects appear to be concrete and separate forms, as if they have an inherent nature or essence that makes them what they are: such a “nature” was simply something we projected onto them. This is especially true of what we once considered “ourselves”: all sense of form, identity and individuality disappear.
Once fully re-engaged at this fundamental level of experience, we understand that, as far as we know, what amounts to a mental simulation is all that is happening, and finally accept that. It’s not a matter of reconnecting with what is happening: it’s more accurate to say that we no longer imagine that we are or could be disconnected from it. In other words, rather than re-establishing our relationship to what is happening, we realize that there was never an actual “relationship” in the first place. It can feel like we alight or settle back down onto a fundamental level of experience, rather than artificially suspending ourselves in a web of delusion.
Importantly, we come to realize that we have always known what we need to know. For example, a “tree” is still a “tree”, even though it isn’t the same sort of “tree” as we once believed. Thus, we conform our experience of a “tree” to be consistent with what we are actually experiencing, namely a mental interpretation that we have come to know is called a “tree”. As a mental interpretation, the version of the tree we experience has no nature, essence or “tree-ness” and, fortunately, doesn’t need one in order for us to walk up to it and sit underneath its shade.
Awakening involves radically changing how we experience and respond to what is happening in daily life. Part of awakening is realizing that we have the underlying tendency to expect or believe in an idealized version of what is happening, for example that what is happening could or should be permanent and thus reliable and predictable. Because of such unrealistic expectations, we try to live our lives in a way that is out of harmony with what is actually happening. We end up struggling against life, and suffer as a result.
To awaken, we must come to accept that what we want or expect simply isn’t available. This can be a difficult truth to accept, especially when it comes to who or what we assume we are. However, when we drop these unrealistic expectations, the struggle against life is resolved and settled, and the suffering this struggle once caused finally ceases. Instead of living in a mentally-created version of daily life, we re-establish ourselves in the timeless and locationless “place” which, in truth, we never actually left. It may not be what we want or prefer, but it is nevertheless the only version available.
Once we clear away the layers of delusion as to what we and everything else supposedly is, we can reconnect with our natural ability to simply discern and differentiate what is happening. What once seemed like a world of inherently existing and separate beings, ourselves included, is revealed to be an intangible simulation, an interpretation of sensory information that once seemed solid and real. No longer do objects appear to be concrete and separate forms, as if they have an inherent nature or essence that makes them what they are: such a “nature” was simply something we projected onto them. This is especially true of what we once considered “ourselves”: all sense of form, identity and individuality disappear.
Once fully re-engaged at this fundamental level of experience, we understand that, as far as we know, what amounts to a mental simulation is all that is happening, and finally accept that. It’s not a matter of reconnecting with what is happening: it’s more accurate to say that we no longer imagine that we are or could be disconnected from it. In other words, rather than re-establishing our relationship to what is happening, we realize that there was never an actual “relationship” in the first place. It can feel like we alight or settle back down onto a fundamental level of experience, rather than artificially suspending ourselves in a web of delusion.
Importantly, we come to realize that we have always known what we need to know. For example, a “tree” is still a “tree”, even though it isn’t the same sort of “tree” as we once believed. Thus, we conform our experience of a “tree” to be consistent with what we are actually experiencing, namely a mental interpretation that we have come to know is called a “tree”. As a mental interpretation, the version of the tree we experience has no nature, essence or “tree-ness” and, fortunately, doesn’t need one in order for us to walk up to it and sit underneath its shade.
Thus, there are many different facets of awakening, such as accepting an unpleasant truth, resolving the struggle against that truth, living in conformance and harmony with what is true, reestablishing a (non)relationship with what is happening, and fully using and relying on our innate ability to recognize ourselves, trees and all other intangible “things” in daily life without projecting an “it is what is is” nature onto them. What these various facets of awakening have in common is that they are all aspects of the term reconciliation. A summary of how the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the term “reconcile" is:
- to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant: to be reconciled to
- to restore to friendship or harmony: to be reconciled with
- to settle or resolve: to reconcile differences
- to make consistent or congruous: to reconcile an ideal with reality
- to cause to submit to or accept something unpleasant: to be reconciled to
- to restore to friendship or harmony: to be reconciled with
- to settle or resolve: to reconcile differences
- to make consistent or congruous: to reconcile an ideal with reality
In the process of awakening, we reconcile ourselves to the difficult truth that what we want or expect (such as a separate or personal identity, or reliability and even permanence in what we perceive) simply isn’t available, by which our struggle against what is happening is resolved and settled. Once we let go of those unrealistic expectations, we can reconcile ourselves with what is happening; we remove the artificial separation or disconnect we experience, and conform our lives to be consistent and in harmony with what we experience, by which we no longer suffer. We thus become fully reconciled to and with what is naturally and simply happening: that is the primary focus of awakening. In particular, we must reconcile ourselves to the uncomfortable fact that we do not exist other than as a concept, and become reconciled with “what’s left” after delusions about what and who we are disappear.