Mother of the Buddhas Excerpts Excerpts from a talk, reading, and conversations at ZCLA, Saturday, May 1, 1993. On a warm, sunny California spring morning, Mother Prajnaparamita arrived at Normandie mountain in the guise of Dharma brother Lex Hixon, wearing a handsome gray suit (he was attending a wedding in Palm Springs in the afternoon, he explained). Along with a half-dozen Sufi friends, he slipped quietly into the zendo, crowded with practitioners immersed in meditation. Hixon, a Zen student of Bernard Tetsugen Glassman, Sensei, of the Zen Community of New York, holds citizenship in several sacred worlds – Soto Zen, Vajrayana Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and Islamic Sufism. One may very well feel intimidated by such credentials, but as Hixon donned his brown rakusu (the small kesa worn by Zen students), with a Tibetan mala carefully placed before him, his very presence made everyone feel that he had returned home for a visit. "It is great to be here again today at this wonderful mountain established by Maezumi Roshi, my revered Dharma grandfather," he began. Hixon explained that several years ago at the request of Tetsugen Sensei, he was asked to develop a sutra-study curriculum. He selected five major sutras, the Maha Prajnaparamita was one. As fruit of this effort - complemented by his scholarly intellect and spiritual practice of prajnaparamita, Hixon's reinterpretation is a contemplative version of forty selected passages, each carefully and beautifully rendered in a process he himself calls "trans-creation. " That is, not a new translation or literal rendering, but a passionate and reverent expression of the most profound teaching in language readily accessible to us. Back in the meditation hall, Hixon continued: "I want to present to you today Maha Prajnaparamita, who is called the Mother of the Buddha. No Buddha awakens or turns the real Dharma without her. She is doing it through the beautiful forms of the Tathagata and through us, the embryonic Tathagatas who are the bodhisattvas - so in one fell swoop we have all become staunch feminists. Perhaps we are trying to do some Zen, and it turns out that we are all mother worshippers. So we take this feminine nature of prajnaparamita very seriously. We take this radiant blackness of her womb as the origin of the power of all Buddhas, obviously not in the circumscribed gender sense because the whole teaching takes away these boundaries, takes away the illusion that things are circumscribed or separated or even incomparable. So I thought I might read a passage. What shall I read for Zen students?" WHO ATTAINS ENLIGHTENMENT? (an excerpt) Subhuti: How can the venerable Lord Buddha assert that complete enlightenment is difficult to realize, even supremely difficult to realize? Prajnaparamita so clearly teaches, according to the principle by which all phenomena without exception are recognized as empty of substantial self-existence, that no structure exists independently that could be said to perform any difficult or supremely difficult realization. All structures are fluid, open and transparent, free from any obstructing or confining substantiality. Even powerful and dangerous structures, such as the selfish passions, which religious teaching advises human being to renounce or even to destroy, are themselves fluid, open and transparent, inherently empty of independent self-existence. Any particular being who would become illumined by reaching enlightenment - that is, the individual mind stream of any practitioner who would recognize the state of full enlightenment upon arriving there - simply does not exist independently or substantially. In this light, 0 Lord of Enlightenment, one might just as accurately assert that enlightenment is easy to realize, even supremely easy to realize. There is only universal enlightenment. Lord Buddha: Most brilliant Subhuti, only in the radical sense that it could never be attained by any separate individual is enlightenment said to be supremely difficult to attain. Neither practitioner nor path nor enlightenment is a self-existing entity which can be isolated, perceived or conceived. The conventional appearance of individual beings - as coherently functioning relations and perspectives, as meaningful perceptual and mental constructions - possesses not an atom of substantial self-existence. Shariputra: Noble brother Subhuti, enlightenment is difficult to attain only because no thought or act of attaining enlightenment can be said to occur in reality, anymore than open space decides to attain its own openness or reach its own spaciousness. Enlightenment is nothing other than the spontaneous experience of all possible structures as equivalent to open space. However, if enlightenment could be described as easy to attain, as you suggest, why would so many practitioners, even very advanced ones, lose nerve and allow their intention to attain enlightenment to degenerate? Precisely because so many practitioners do turn away from the radical commitment to universal conscious enlightenment can it be called difficult to realize, even supremely difficult to realize. Subhuti: Shariputra, can one say that form, perception or any other constituent process of personal awareness loses nerve and turns its back on the commitment to enlightenment? Shariputra: Obviously one cannot. Subhuti: Or, Shariputra, could one assert that the practitioner who loses nerve and turns away is some substantial entity apart from the fluid, transparent, insubstantial processes which constitute personal awareness? Shariputra: Obviously one cannot. Subhuti: Then is it the suchness, or pure presence, of these constituents which loses nerve and turns away? Shariputra: Clearly not, Subhuti. Subhuti: Is that which loses nerve and turns away from its commitment some reality independent from the suchness of the constitutent structures of awareness? Shariputra: Clearly not, Subhuti. Subhuti: For that matter, Shariputra, could one assert that form or perception or any other constituent of personal awareness experiences full enlightenment? Shariputra: Certainly not, Subhuti. Subhuti: And yet is that which experiences enlightenment in some reality independent from personal awareness? Shariputra: Certainly not, Subhuti. Subhuti: Could one even say, Shariputra, that the pure presence of awareness reaches enlightenment? (pp. 133-135) "So you see that the teaching is unsurpassable. Why is it unsurpassable?" Hixon gently prods the eager and receptive group. "This sutra perfectly expresses why that is, perfectly expresses the unsurpassability of the Dharma. In the womb of Prajnaparamita - Theravada, Mahayana Zen, Vajrayana, Dzogchen - that is, anything you can think of as being Buddhist, is in this womb. The sutra is the infinite womb and the sutra manifests everything, including everything that is in all the other noble traditions." It is inspiring to hear the feminine so unhesitatingly expounded, no less by this man. In 1983, when Hixon received the Buddhist precepts, he was given the name "Jikai" or "Ocean of Compassion." Such a name is perhaps, more likely to be given to women, but in this instance, it was selected for Hixon by Abbess Aoyama Shundo, who happened to be visiting from Japan at the time of his precepts ceremony at the Zen Community of New York. Now, ten years later, he writes of the feminine nature of Prajnaparamita. "This mother," he writes, "matrix, guide, power and bliss of all Buddhas and their embryonic forms, the bodhisattvas; is not simply tender and nurturing in some stereotypical sense of the feminine. Mother Prajnapramita expresses her mystic motherhood equally and perhaps more centrally as the uncompromising discipline of transcendent insight. A union of inexhaustible tenderness and diamond clarity that is like open space radiates from this Sunra, as the strong feminine voice of Prajnparamita, heard directly by all the fully Awakened Ones, the humble Lords of Enlightenment." (p. 17) Hixon invites his friend Gail to read "so that you can hear it in a woman's voice, which is the way Prajnaparamita should be heard." MYSTIC HYMN TO THE WISDOM MOTHER (an excerpt) Shariputra: This perfection of Wisdom O radiant Lord, is none other than the total awakeness, which is omniscience. Lord Buddha: The Perfection of Wisdom shines forth as a sublime light, 0 Buddha nature. I sing this spontaneous hymn of light to praise Mother Prajnaparamita. She is worthy of infinite praise. She is utterly unstained because nothing in this insubstantial world can possibly stain her. She is an ever-loving fountain of incomparable light, and from every conscious being on every plane, she removes the faintest trace of illusory darkness. She leads livings being into her clear light from the blindness and obscurity caused by moral and spiritual impurity as well as by partial or distorted views of Reality. In her alone can we find true refuge. Sublime and excellent are her revelations through all persons of wisdom. She inspires and guides us to seek the safety and certainty of the bright wings of enlightenment. She pours forth her nectar of healing light to those who have made themselves appear blind. She provides the illumination through which all fear and despair can be utterly renounced . . . . She is not marked by fundamental characteristics. This absence of characteristics is her transcendent, mystic motherhood, the radiant blackness of her womb. She is the universal benefactress who presents, as a sublime offering to truth, the limitless jewel of all Buddha qualities, the miraculous gem that generates the ten inconceivable powers of a Buddha to elevate living beings into consciousness of their innate Buddha nature. She can never be defeated in any way, on any level. She lovingly protects vulnerable conscious beings who cannot protect themselves, gradually generating in them unshakable fearlessness and diamond confidence. She is the perfect antidote to the poisonous view which affirms the cycle of birth and death to be a substantial reality. She is the clear knowledge of the open and transparent mode of being shared by all relative structures and events. Her transcendent knowing never wavers. She is the Perfect Wisdom who gives birthless birth to all Buddhas. And through these sublimely Awakened Ones, it is Mother Prajnaparamita alone who turns the wheel of true teaching. Lord Buddha: Precisely so, beloved Shariputra. (pp. 95-96 ) "Isn't it wonderful," Hixon asks, "to be in such company, to be in the presence of a teisho by the Buddha?" This is a book to be read, not just by oneself, but out loud, to each other and with each other. You can be Lord Buddha, or the tender Shariputra, or the diamond-sworded Subhuti, and in doing so, experience the "Interillumination" (to use a favorite phrase of Hixon's) of the teachings. "Interillumination," he says, "brings out more clearly what interdependence is. Add the mirrors to the nodes of Indra's Net, and you have interillumination. The conversation between enlightened beings is an intense form of interillumination. " And this, truly, is the basis of our conversations with each other. Maha Prajnaparamita. MYSTERIOUS DOORS OF OMNIPERCEPTION Lord Buddha: Directly encountering and assimilating this effortless presentation and perfect demonstration of Prajnaparamita, Sadaprarudita responds with the bodhisattva’s omniperception, which does not base itself upon any structure nor which, even in the slightest degree, reflects any structure. The intense quest of this noble human being now blossoms into universal enlightenment, manifesting as various mystic doors. The following are some of the vast, mysterious doors which swing open wide at the mere touch of the bodhisattva's spontaneous, baseless and relationless omniperception. There is the door which opens as the clear vista of the essenceless essence, the true nature of all possible structures of manifestation. There is the door of liberation from any partial or perspectival perception of this true nature. And there is the door which enters directly into the authentic knowing of this true nature. There is the door to the indivisible expanse of all structures in their interdependent, transparent and harmonious functioning. And the door for clearly witnessing the intrinsically unchanging and indivisible expanse of all dynamically functioning structures. And the door which opens as the primal illumination that alone permits any perception or cognition in the first place. There is the door of omniperception which removes obscurity and opacity of every kind from all structures in all their detail. And the door which, when opening, explodes and obliterates any false perception or cognition of material or metaphysical structures as independently self-existing entities. There is the door which, simply by opening, causes all phenomena, beings and events to tremble and to lose the false sense of their own separate, individual groundedness. And the door which opens into the total absence of the apprehension of any structure as substantially self-existing. There is the mystic door of omniperception which opens into intense fragrances and colors, revealing the expanse of relative structures, or manifestations, as an infinite profusion of flowers. There is the mystic door which opens into the sublimely awakened human body, experienced as the culmination and consummation of all possible manifestation. There is the door of truth, by passing through which the persistent illusion of substantial self-existence is forever abandoned. The door to experiencing appearing structures as mirror images - crystal clear and coherent, yet without the slightest independent substance. The door to experiencing appearing structures as pure resonance, without any intrinsic location or boundary. The door of total purity, upon passing through which no dirt, stain or pollution of any kind is perceived. The door of total joy, by passing through which the selfless and sympathetic rejoicing among countless conscious beings is ceaselessly experienced. And the door of comprehending and speaking the languages of all living beings as the supreme mastery of liberative art. There is the door to the wise balance and ease which is free from any sense of doctrinal rigidity. The door to complete immersion in the deep unthinkability and inexpressibility of Buddha nature. The door of complete awakening into the essential expanse, which is without partitions or frontiers. The door to open which is like receiving the full ceremonial visit of a glorious world emperor. And the door of the illumined analysis of the language of all structures into interdependent words and letters with no independent self-existence. To the oniniperception of the bodhisattva, there manifests as well the door that opens into all-penetrating insight. And the door which opens beyond all notions of regions, dimensions, levels or spheres. Then the door swings open to limitlessness itself and to the total absence of even the slightest obstacle or obstruction. There is the door of awakening through which one gazes with awe into the limitless expanse of all structures of relativity as into the starry night sky. And the door which opens -- like a flash of lightning. There is the door into the intimate private chamber of a glorious world emperor. And the mystic door whose very nature is that of a world emperor, free from any possible challenge or rivalry. There is the door of supreme victory. And the door after passing through which one cannot look away from truth, even for an instant. There is the door which leads to flawless concentration on the true nature of What Is. And the door which is composed simply from intense concentration on this true nature. There is the mystic door of awakening which opens into the sweetest sense of solace and tender consolation. And the door which opens with the magnificent sound of the lion's roar of a fully enlightened Buddha. There is the door which opens to the essential expanse where no circumscribed worlds exist and into which no circumscribed beings could ever be born or reborn. And the door to the undefiled, unprofaned, unsullied expanse which is like an array of lotus blossoms or like a single infinite blossom. There is the door to the enlightened mood in which hesitation and vacillation of every kind disappears into universal love, generosity and compassion. And the door to the contemplative mood which is attracted only to the quality of supreme excellence. There is the door to the enlightened mood of sublime elevation, never burdened by any notion of substantially self-existing structures. And the door to the spontaneous flowering of all miraculous modes of superknowledge and superaction. There is the door which opens by instantaneously piercing through all possible structures, or ontologically transparent manifestations, with the pure light of insight. There is the door which, as it opens, places the final seal on the cessation of the notion that structures evolve, devolve or intrinsically transform in any possible manner. There is the door opening into the ocean of wisdom, in which all structures are submerged, losing their false appearance as solid, separate, independently evolving self-existences. To the oniniperception of the bodhisattva swings open the door to the clear witnessing, without the slightest distortion or coloration, of every single phenomenon, being or event which may appear. Then the door swings open which leads beyond the tangled, dangerous jungle of partial perceptions and the selfish actions they generate. Then the door which leads beyond the very notion of darkness or obscuration. Then the door to the emancipation from every limited signal, sign, definition, doctrine or description. There is the door to the awakened mood in which even the slightest trace of laziness or reliance on limits has disappeared. And the door which, simply by opening, shines brilliant light upon the deepest spiritual teaching. The door vast and beautiful as the sacred and luminous Mount Meru. The door whose attraction is absolutely irresistible. And the door which, simply by opening, routes the armies of negativity, in whatever subtle or obvious forms they may appear. There is the door to the exquisite enlightened mood that experiences not even the slightest inclination to possess treasures in the world of material form, nor to acquire spiritual wealth in the realm of sublime form, nor even to attain any exalted station in the formless realm. There is the mystic door of oniniperception which leads into the brilliance of infinite rays of light. And the door which opens onto the ever-expanding vista of all the Awakened Ones. And, finally, there is the door which opens as the very seeing and knowing of the Awakened Ones themselves. FOREWORD THE Great 25,000 Verse Prajnaparamita Sutra, one of the longer versions of the main text that Lex Hixon has put before us as Mother of the Buddhas, begins with an extraordinary event. The Buddha performs a miracle that creates a cosmic setting for the teaching of transcendent wisdom, or Prajnaparamita. It is essential to quote it at sufficient length to transmit a flash of this visionary happening. Thus I once heard. The Lord dwelt on the Vulture Peak at Rajagriha with a large gathering. He sat down cross-legged on His lion throne, and entered the "King Samadhi," the samadhi which contains, encompasses, combines all samadhis. His whole body became radiant. The thousand-spoked wheels on the soles of his feet shone forth sixty hundred thousand trillions of billions of light rays, as did every other part of his superhuman body. These light rays illumined and lit up our vast billion-world universe, lighting up worlds in the East, South, West, North, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest, Northeast, Zenith and Nadir. And all the beings lit up and illuminated by these dazzling light rays became focused upon the unexcelled, true and perfect enlightenment. Thereupon on that occasion the Lord put out his tongue. With it he covered this entire billion-world universe, and it shone forth many hundreds of thousands of billions of trillions of light rays. Each one of these light rays turned into thousand-petaled golden lotuses, made of the finest jewel substance. On these lotuses were Buddha-emanations giving teachings, this very teaching of the truth of the six transcendent Perfections. And the beings who heard these true teachings became all the more focused on unexcelled, true, perfect enlightenment. Thereupon the Lord, seated there on His lion throne, entered the samadhi "Lion Play." With His miraculous power, He shook this vast billion-world universe in six ways. It became soft and pliable and all beings came to be at ease. The hells, the underworlds, and the animal realms were abolished and became empty, and all places of horrible rebirth disappeared. And all beings deceasing from these states, with joy and jubilation, were reborn among men, and also among the six kinds of gods of the desire realms throughout this billion-world universe, beings born blind saw forms, the deaf heard sounds, the insane regained their consciousness, the distracted became concentrated, the hungry were fed, the thirsty were satisfied, the sick were healed, and the cripples were made whole. The passage continues with a vision of the Buddha’s Body of Glory, given to the beings in all the worlds of the universes. They were enraptured with such beauty, all of them beholding the others beholding the Buddha in his glory, and yet each one feeling as if the Buddha were present just before him or her, as if he were there solely to give the blessing and the teaching to him or her personally. The Buddha manifests this extraordinary environment in order to teach the transcendent wisdom, both the Sutra and the Enlightenment it accesses, known as the Mother of all Buddhas. It is important for us to envision this setting to develop a state of inspiration and focus to make most practical use of the teachings of the text. The Prajnaparamita is considered the originating text of the Mahayana, the Universal, or Messianic vehicle of Buddhism. Western and Buddhist scholars agree that it began to emerge into prominence in India from about 100 years B.C.E. (Before the Common Era), about 400 years after the Final Nirvana of Shakyamuni Buddha in around 483 B.C.E. Western scholars consider that it was composed by the Indian Buddhists of that era, yet attributed to Shakyamuni Buddha as deriving from his mystical inspiration. Traditional Mahayana Buddhist scholars consider that the Sutra actually records the messianic teachings of the Buddha himself, though these texts were taken away from the human realm by Gods and Dragons and recovered only after four centuries. This temporary hiding of the teaching is believed to have been prophesied by the Buddha himself. He considered that the developing societies of his time in India needed four hundred years of preparation and purification by the monastic education and renunciative ethic he taught more openly, as recorded in the Pali Suttas foundational in the Monastic, or Individual vehicle of Buddhism. A people still rough and violent might otherwise have misappropriated the messianic intensity of the Transcendent Wisdom and other universalist Sutras, using it to legitimate crusades and other campaigns of conquest. Only a people with deeds tamed by the ethic of nonviolence, minds focused by the discipline of meditation and intellects cultivated by the education in critical wisdom could be safely entrusted with the profound liberation of the teaching of voidness and the magnificent energization of the vision of the jeweline Buddha verse. Or as Western scholars might prefer to put it, the Indian Buddhists of 100 B.C.E. were tired of monastic restraint and purity and longed for a social gospel of love and compassion, to go along with their burgeoning, universalizing civilization. There was a young bodhisattva, or messianic hero, Priyadarshana, who dwelt in the city of Vaishali in the Licchavi kingdom during the Buddha's time. He was a student of the great lay sage Vimalakirti, and he attained a high level of wisdom during Vimalakirti's famous session on nonduality, as recounted in the Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti Sutra. The Buddha subsequently predicted that this young man would be reborn in South India four hundred years later and would be recognized by the word naga (dragon) in his name. Sure enough, a great master known as Nagarjuna emerged in South India in the first century B.C.E., passing away at the ripe old age of six hundred plus in the fifth century C.E. (Western scholars date him in the second century C.E. and attribute Nagarjuna's deeds of other eras to other masters with the same name.) The legend goes that Nagarjuna was approached by nagas (dragons) in human form after one of his lectures at the monastery of Nalanda. They invited him to their undersea kingdom to see some texts they thought would be of great interest to him. He went with them magically under the sea and discovered a vast treasure trove of the Mahayana Sutras, not only the many versions of the Prajnaparamita but also the Inconceivable Liberation, the Jewel Heap, the Lotus, and the Pure Land Sutras. Nagarjuna spent fifty earth years studying these texts, and then he brought them back into human society and promulgated them throughout India. He later wrote under his own authorship the masterwork Wisdom: The Root Verses of the Central Way, in which he elaborated a systematic program of critical meditations that lead the practitioner into the understanding and samadhi of emptiness and relativity. He wrote other philosophical, meditational and ethical works over the next centuries, until going away with the nagas a second time, this time to the "Northern Continent," Uttarakuru (maybe what we now call America). There he discovered other treasured teachings and taught the local populations many spiritual and practical things. When he returned to India for the last time, he taught the Unexcelled Yoga Tantras, especially the Esoteric Communion, founding the seminal "Noble" tradition of the practice of perfection stage yoga. His Tantric great adept persona is also essentially included in the semi-esoteric "direct mind transmission" tradition known as Ch'an and Zen in East Asia. Overall, Nagarjuna is associated with the angelic bodhisattva Manjushri, the archetype of transcendent wisdom, and is considered the pioneer of the wisdom teachings in the human realm. The original Prajnaparamita is the text called the Great Mother, the Prajnaparamita of 100,000 Lines. It purports to record the full audience given by Shakyamuni Buddha on Vulture Peak with the greatest explicitness and completeness, though even it falls short of a full record, which would have run to many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lines. Over the centuries various abridged versions have emerged, including the very short One Letter Sutra, (the letter A), the short Heart Sutra, the concise Diamond-cutting Sutra, the 8,000 Line, the 18,000 or 20,000 Line, and the 25,000 Line Sutras, from a total of eighteen Sutras. These are all considered the same Sutra, differing only in length and detail, never in basic import. Among them, the 8,000 Line version, on which Lex Hixon's meditations are based, is very highly regarded in all Mahayana traditions, although traditional Buddhist scholars do not consider it the oldest or "Ur" text, as some modern scholars do. These perfect wisdom texts served as the foundation for a systematic curriculum developed over many centuries in the Mahayana Buddhist monastic universities, among the earliest universities on this planet. This curriculum involved three phases. There was first a phase of memorization of the basic Prajnaparamita texts, as well as of the systematic updated interpretations that made the text live anew for succeeding generations. The second phase required formal debating practice with masters and other student-practitioners. The ideas of the Perfect Wisdom are not merely dogmas that became effective by being grasped and held with rigid conviction. They are liberating thoughtways that launch the understanding beyond its constricting cultural and even instinctual preconditioning. To serve as such, they must be deeply and critically investigated. They must help one to doubt every familiar supposed known thing, to open ever deeper realms of knowledge. Before one's internal debate of critical inquiry can become intense, it is necessary to debate publicly with others, to learn to move around in the public mind revealed in open discourse. Finally, the third phase requires concentrated meditation, an intensely disciplined focus on the new avenues of understanding opened up by the critical uncovering of freedom from intrinsic realities, intrinsic objectivities and intrinsic identities in self and things, in relatives and absolutes, in bondages and liberations. With the successful completion of this third phase, the scholar-practitioner in this ancient curriculum would graduate, sometimes, as in the case of the immortal Shantideva (seventh century), literally floating out of the monastery to continue his bodhisattva career of working for the liberation of all beings and the transformation of the entire universe. This ancient curriculum opened the minds of millions of practitioners for a thousand years in India. Around 1000 C.E., it was transferred to the Tibetan monastic universities and six hundred years later to the Mongolian institutions, wherein it has flourished until the present day. The recent destruction of Mongolian and Tibetan civilizations by Russian and Chinese communist invasions has severely restricted the number of practitioners who have access to the curriculum. About fifteen thousand Tibetan monks in monastic universities rebuilt in India and the Himalayan countries are the last practitioners of this transformative spiritual curriculum of Prajnaparamita education. In East Asia, it seems clear that Prajnaparamita served as the basis of the Ch'an and Zen traditions. Some might think this controversial, since Ch'an tends to refer to itself as the "Sutra-less tradition," in contrast with the T'ien T'ai school based on the Lotus Sutra, the Hua Yen school based on the Garland Sutra, and the Pure Land school based on the Land of Bliss Sutra. But the Prajnaparamita Sutra refers to itself as the "teaching that is no teaching," its understanding as the "understanding by way of nonunderstanding," its attainment as "attained by not attaining," and so on and on. The bottom line is that perfect wisdom is the direct teaching of the highest enlightenment of all the Buddhas, radical, uncompromising, emphasizing absolute reality over relative reality, the definitive meaning-teaching over all interpretable meaning-teachings. The Ch'an tradition claims Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, among other illustrious central way masters, as patriarchs of their direct mind-to-mind transmission, the tradition that "piles up snow in a silver bowl," the transmission of the a truth that has never been spoken." The famous Sixth patriarch of Ch'an in China, Hui Neng, recalled his own perfect wisdom upon a single hearing of the Diamond-cutting version of the Prajnaparamita. So the Sutra is also a natural foundation for the mainstream East Asian enlightenment curriculum of profound study of the puzzling sayings and doings of past masters of perfect wisdom, hair-raising intellectual combat with the spiritual master to deepen doubt and refine critical insight, and prolonged, life-devoted concentrative meditation. Nowadays Ch'an or Zen has become an important part of American Buddhist discipline. It is time that a live practitioner's version of Prajnaparamita should be available to go along with it. All versions of these Perfect Wisdom Sutras are considered holy "matrices" or indices for the attainment of perfect wisdom. They make possible the truly meaningful use of a human lifetime, in devoting it to evolutionary education in perfect wisdom. This transcendent learning can lead one to the security that there will never be another lifetime lost in egocentric delusion and suffering, that there will be no loss of the human exaltation, and that the future continuity will be an infinite expanse of freedom, happiness, love and artful creativity in sharing liberation with numberless associates. The Perfect Wisdom Sutras are thus revered as accomplishing the impossible, expressing the inexpressible, and making trans-verbal enlightened reality accessible to the verbally cultivated mind. They constantly deconstruct themselves as they go along, proclaiming that their teaching is not a teaching at all, that there is no attainment, no attainer, no understanding, no understander, but, importantly, no nonattainer, nor nonunderstander either. Prajnaparamita thus leaves immense room for creative reinterpretation. Indeed, it demands constant reinterpretation for the sake of new generations. It is a mother overflowing with kindness, opening her arms to all her innumerable children. And she is a very exacting mother, fiercely determined that no harm befall her children from any sort of error or misunderstanding. It is a serious fault to mistake the "teachingless teaching" for mere meaningless verbiage without coherent logic, as merely rubbing in a message of nihilism ad nauseam. This error is not condoned by the caring mother, since it injures the spirits of her children and can ruin their many lives. It blocks their evolution by crippling their intelligence. It dulls the razor's edge of wisdom's sword that must cut away confusion and free the practitioner's genius from entrapment in habitual misperceptions. Most English versions of Prajnaparamita up to now have been marred by such basic preconceptions of nihilism on the part of their translators. Some of them have been great linguistic scholars, well versed in many languages and painstaking in their critical perusal of the various editions in various languages. The late Edward Conze, an eminent scholar and translator, is most notable for his erudition and for his heroic efforts of a lifetime in working on the Prajnaparamita. It is his work that provided the linguistic basis for Lex Hixon's meditations below. Yet Conze did not himself practice the yoga of transcending wisdom, and he was somewhat skeptical about its "mystical" message. Only late in his life did he encounter the great Japanese scholar and meditation master, D. T. Suzuki, who helped him change his attitude to one of greater reverence to the Great Motber of All the Buddhas. But this was too late to transform his whole oeuvre of translation. He never found the liberating logic of what might superficially appear to be meaningless paradoxes or irreconcilable contradictions. His translations thus resemble cookbooks full of recipes translated with a dictionary by someone who has no idea what the foods and spices are, who has never cooked or never eaten such a meal. I have assigned his translations to classes of students, decade after decade, with the invariable result that they feel confused, mystified, and shut out of the real message of the text. Once I translate it for them in lectures, they become more appreciative. Mr. Conze's works have value mainly as pioneer studies. Prajnaparamita still cries out for a completely revised presentation. When I read Lex Hixon's Mother of the Buddhas, I was amazed to discover in his eloquent meditations a beginning for the real translation of the Prajnaparamita. He has relied on past translations, without systematically consulting Sanskrit or Tibetan texts. He does not pretend to be presenting an exercise in erudition. Hixon does, however, bring an essential scholarly understanding. From his own studies and practice of the perfect wisdom curriculum, he possesses an effective lever of understanding with which to pry away the rock that has been blocking the treasure cave of the text of perfect wisdom. He has studied and understood the revelatory teaching of voidnessrelativity left to us in the writings of the great Tibetan genius, Tsong Khapa Lo Sang Drakpa (1357-1419). Tsong Khapa reinterpreted and revitalized the perfect wisdom insight so masterfully, he came to be regarded by millions of followers over centuries as a living incarnation of the bodhisattva Manjushri. The essence of his insight was that voidness does not mean nothingness, but rather that all things lack intrinsic reality, intrinsic objectivity, intrinsic identity or intrinsic referentiality. Lacking such static essence or substance does not make them not exist - it makes them thoroughly relative. Once they are so thoroughly relative, there is no limit to their being creatively reshaped by enlightened love. So the via negativa of the Prajnaparamita does not annihilate things; it frees them from entrapment in negativity, opening them up to a creative relativity. This insight enabled Hixon not to fall for the simplistic misinterpretation of critical wisdom as nihilistic dialectics. Hixon has approached the text with reverence, as a scholarly intellectual and a spiritual practitioner. He has allowed the Mother of Buddhas herself to speak through him. And she has done so, with eloquence and beauty. In the earlier versions, where the Sutra was thought to be reducing the world to a chaotic rubble, the exemplary story of the passionate bodhisattva Sadaprarudita, "Ever-Weeping," seemed completely out of place. The bodhisattva encountered Perfect Wisdom and felt the great relief of freedom from subjective and objective self-habits. His joy and gratitude knew no bounds, and the story relates how he went to great lengths to requite the kindness of his teacher and express his adoration of the Great Mother of All Enlightened Ones. Once we know that his profuse tears of joy and love well up from the wisdom teaching, from his realization that voidness frees all things from being pinned down and frozen into static and inadequate forms by our habitual misconceptions and misperceptions, the ecstatic behavior of the bodhisattva becomes quite natural, though no less astonishing. Lex Hixon must be a modern incarnation of Sadaprarudita, though he usually expresses his ecstatic vision not by weeping but in a cheerful mode. He spends his time revitalizing the classics of world religions, meditating on them to make them alive and relevant to the rest of us, rather than building a stupa or an organization. He shares the same sense of gratitude expressed by the bodhisattva Sadaprarudita toward the teachings he has received. And he has a genius for sharing his appreciation with a heartfelt eloquence that makes us look again at what we thought we already knew. I am grateful to him for these inspired meditations on a text that remains foundational in my own intellectual and spiritual architecture. I pray to Mother Prajnaparamita that these pages may shine her golden light on countless others, too. Robert A. F. Thurman Jay Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies, Columbia University Woodstock, New York October, 1992