The Childhood Memory of The Heart of the Prajnaparamita
Anyone who grew up in the Buddhist culture or family remembers this sutra, When I was little boy, my mother and grandmother took me to the Buddhist temple in the mountain for the special occasions; the birthday of Buddha or the commemorative day of the ancestors, and I heard this and sometimes sang this together without knowing the meaning – such a good memory, which always made me feel so good.
The bodhisattva Avalokita, while moving in the deep course of the Perfect Wisdom, shed light on the five aggregates and found them equally empty. After this penetration, he overcame all pain.
“Listen, Sariputra, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. The same thing is true with feeling, perception, mental functioning, and consciousness.
“Here, Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are neither produced nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore, in emptiness there is neither form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor mental functioning, nor consciousness; no eye, or ear, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind; no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touchable, no object of mind, no realm of elements (from sight to mind-consciousness), no interdependent origins(from ignorance to death and decay), no extinction of death and decay, no suffering, no origination of suffering, no extinction, no path, no wisdom, no attainment.
“Because there is no attainment, the bodhisattva, basing on the Perfection of Wisdom, finds no obstacles for his mind. Having no obstacles, he overcomes fear, liberating himself forever from illusion and assault and realizing perfect Nirvana. All Buddhas in the past, present, and future, thanks to this Perfect Wisdom, arrive to full, right, and universal Enlightenment.”
“Therefore one should know that the Perfect Wisdom is a great mantra, is the highest mantra, is the unequaled mantra, the destroyer of all suffering, the incorruptible truth. A mantra of Prajnaparamita should therefore be proclaimed. It is this: ‘Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, gone together to the other shore. O Awakening! All hail!”
This is translated from the Chinese by Thich Nhat Hanh.
I wish you also have a deep peace and wisdom from this and enjoy it!
One day, I visited the other doctor’s office, urologist with my collegue, In doctor’s office, everyone seemed to look so serious, no laughter heard, no smiley face seen and so quiet, I was sitting there about 10 minutes and couldn’t stay any longer, luckily we took up soon, asking my MD collegue “why are they so serious and all tense there?”
Why is that? Why should we do that? Here is the close relation between laughter and your health and I really want you to laugh and smile more and be happy and healthy at your home and in my office.
What happens in your body and mood, When you laugh.
Laughter reduces the level of stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline), dopamine and growth hormone. It also increases the level of health-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and neurotransmitters. Laughter increases the number of antibody-producing cells and enhances the effectiveness of T cells. All this means a stronger immune system, as well as fewer physical effects of stress.
The relation between laughter and heart health
A study shows humor and laughter is the best medicine for the heart.
Laughter, along with an active sense of humor, may help protect you against a heart attack, according to a recent study by cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. The study, which is the first to indicate that laughter may help prevent heart disease, found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.
Also, in East Asian Medicine, the energy of Heart is closely related to laughter(joy -xi)
O.k. further more, let’s laugh out for 10 minutes! Could you finish 10 minutes?
Yes, laughing need to move and work on the diaphragm, the abs and the shoulder and so on, and helps to release the tensions on the body and you really feel relaxed afterwards, I did this 20 minutes (this was a huge work-out.) and back then my 2 year old son followed me.
Every parent knows how frequently your kids or babies laugh loud and smile and dance as if their energy doesn’t know the shortage or discharge. Then how about the grown-ups?
As we grow old, should we look serious and worrisome? And does it make you feel better and your life any better? What happened to us then and now?
It seems like we are getting old and forgetting how to laugh and smile, and probably just poker face or petrified facial muscle is developing.
I watched the news about “Indian laughter club” at the TV a while ago, what they do is they regularly get together like several hundreds or more in the plaza of town and everyone starts laughing for 10 – 20 minute, just watching and hearing them
practice this hilarious mind exercise – actually physical exercise as well- makes me laugh, yes, the laughter is also contagious. ha ha ha ha ha ….
Do you remember the movie Patch Adams? One comedian doctor and all serious looking doctors…I wish I could be funny like him.
My conclusion today is : If you remember the benefit of laughter and like my story of it, let’s have some time today to laugh 10 minutes, how about 2 or 3 times? If it’s difficult, just fake it until you make it. Or tonight watch some comic books or comedies really funny ones since laughter is contagious, invite some friend.
Afterwards you will feel a lot better, you will forget why you were so worried and tense and be less stressful – if you were stressful.
He searches all around for his thought. But what thought? It is either passionate, or hateful, or confused. What about the past, future, or present? What is past that is extinct, what is future that has not yet arrived, and the present has no stability. For thought, Kasyapa, cannot be apprehended, inside or outside, or in between both. For thought is immaterial, invisible, nonresisting, inconceivable, unsupported, and homeless. Thought has never been seen by any of the Buddhas, nor do they see it, nor will they see it. And what the Buddhas never see, how can that be an observable process, except in the sense that dharmas proceed by the way of mistaken perception? Thought is like a magical illusion; by an imagination of what is actually unreal it takes hold of a manifold variety of rebirths. A thought is like the stream of a river, without any staying power; as soon as it is produced it breaks up and disappears. A thought is like the flame of a lamp, and it proceeds through causes and conditions. A thought is like lightning, it breaks up in a moment and does not stay on…
Searching for thought all round, he does not see it within or without. He does not see it within or without. He does not see it in the skandhas, or in the elements, or in the sense-fields. Unable to see thought, he seeks to find the trend of thought, and asks himself: Whence is the genesis of thought? And it occurs to him that “where there is an object, there thought arises.” Is then the thought one thing, and the object another? No, what is the object, just that is the thought. If the object were one thing, and the thought another, then there would be a double state of thought. So the object itself is just thought. Can then thought review thought? No, thought cannot review thought. As the blade of a sword cannot cut itself, so a thought cannot see itself. Moreover, vexed and pressed hard on all sides, thought proceeds, without any staying power, like a monkey or like the wind. It ranges far, bodiless, easily changing, agitated by the objects of sense, with the six sense-fields for its sphere, connected with one thing after another. The stability of thought, its one-pointedness, its immobility, its undistraughtness, its one-pointed calm, its nondistraction, that is on the other hand called mindfulness as to thought.
Eberhart (Edward) Julius Dietrich Conze (1904 – 1979) was an Anglo-German scholar probably best known for his pioneering translations of Buddhist texts.
When I started seeing Dr. Kim, I was having shoulder and arm pain, within a few
weeks the pain was gone!
Dr.Kim performs a through evaluation and listens, the treatments I have received
have been based on what was needed at that moment. This is the first time I have
tried acpuncture and now I am a believer. Thank you Dr. Kim
