From the past to the present day, those wishing to understand prajna mostly do so through a careful reading and understanding of the Buddhist sutras. Dharma teachers in the past would explain every word and comment on each sentence as they went from sutra to sutra. A teaching on one Buddhist sutra would often take several months, sometimes lasting even a year and a half. It is recorded that when the great Tiantai master Zhiyi was teaching the Lotus Sutra, his explication of the first character in the title, miao (妙), “wondrous,” went on for ninety days. This event would later be remembered by history as “three months on the character miao.”

In the time after Sixth Patriarch Huineng, the Chan School was divided into the Southern School, which taught sudden enlightenment, and the Northern School, which taught gradual enlightenment. The Southern School used the Diamond Sutra in their mind-to-mind transmission, while the Northern School used the Lankavatara Sutra. Huineng’s first connection with the Dharma was forged when, in his hometown of Lingnan, he heard someone reciting the Diamond Sutra. Later on he went to Huangmei and heard Fifth Patriarch Hongren give a teaching on the Diamond Sutra, and upon reaching the passage “give rise to a mind that does not abide in anything,” Huineng suddenly awakened.

Upon receiving the Fifth Patriarch’s mind-to-mind transmission of the Dharma, Huineng became the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School. Afterwards, the four scrolls of the Lankavatara Sutra which had served as the basis of the Chan School since Bodhidharma arrived in China was now replaced by the Diamond Sutra. Therefore, for anyone wishing to understand the Chan School, Buddhism, or prajna, the Diamond Sutra is a great place to start.

In this day and age we usually strive for knowledge. All anyone has to do is open their eyes and they will be bombarded with massive amounts of information. Knowledge can help us analyze and understand the phenomena of the world. But even wisdom can have both a positive and a negative side. For example, Laozi, the ancient philosopher and founder of Daoism, once defined wisdom as “putting away sagacity and discarding wisdom,” and we hear every day about people using their wisdom to commit crimes. Both of these cases show the possible negative and unwholesome aspects of wisdom. Prajna, on the other hand, is sought and developed from within our own minds, and transcends all knowledge and wisdom. This is why the word is not translated, and instead retains its Sanskrit pronunciation.

When I received full ordination at the age of fifteen, I got a taste of what it means to have to take the inhumane as humane, and the unreasonable as reasonable. My ordination master asked me whether I had killed any living beings. I answered, “No!” 

Suddenly, a large willow branch struck me on the head. “Am I to understand that you haven’t killed any mosquitoes or ants?” I quickly changed my answer, “Yes, I have.” Suddenly, the willow branch struck me again, because killing living beings is wrong.

The ordination master then asked me whether my teacher had told me to come to the ordination ceremony. I answered, “I came on my own.” I was struck a third time. “Your teacher didn’t tell you to come? So you decide things all on your own? That deserves punishment!” I accepted the reprimand with humility, and then answered, “It was my teacher who told me to come.” “So if he didn’t tell you to come, you wouldn’t have done so?” Then I was struck for a fourth time. I had to put up with quite a bit of pain and suffering during the fifty-three-day ordination period. 

For time to time, I would hear the sound of water or echoes from the mountain, and could not help wondering where it came from. When my ordination master saw that, he would swiftly strike me with a bamboo cane and say, “What are you listening to? Close your ears! Young as you are, what sounds belong to you?” 

After being punished, I would quickly focus my mind. No matter how the wind blew and rustled the plants, I would hear none of it. The preceptor’s bamboo cane then came down again.

“Open your ears and listen! What sound does not belong to you?” Other times, I would receive a whack for casually looking around. My ordination master would say, “Your eyes are wandering! Can you see anything that belongs to you?”

When I was about to leave the monastery I saw how the wind was blowing across the grass and how the geese were soaring up through the clouds. I immediately caught myself and closed my eyes so as not to see, but my ordination master’s cane was not going to let me off.

“Open your eyes and look around! What does not belong to you?” If I gave a reason, I would get three whacks, but even if I gave no reason I would get three whacks. The willow branch had beaten away all pride and obstinacy and transformed me into a person who could act without a “self.” When we think that we clearly understand something, know it in our heart, and that we’ve realized the Way, we end up with fixed ideas and preconceived notions about everything. We start to  compare our knowledge and our practice with others, trying to see who comes out on top. This is when knowledge becomes an obstacle for us.

When we have been conditioned by knowledge and ideas, they can lead to attachments and arguments. Children are often unreasonable, and when defending some idea will say to other people: “That’s what my dad says,” or “that’s what my morn says.” They begin to change this after finishing kindergarten and move on to “That’s what my teacher says.” When they reach high school they say “That’s what my classmates say,” and as young adults they change to “That’s what my boyfriend says,” or “that’s what my girlfriend says,” After the age of thirty or forty, they will gradually say things like “That’s what some spiritual teacher says,” or “That’s what some guru says.” Now, in the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha says:

Subhuti, never say that the Tathagata has the thought, “I have spoken the Dharma.” Do not have that thought. And why is this? If someone says that the Tathagata has spoken the Dharma, then that person is defaming the Buddha, and he does not understand what I have been saying. Subhuti, when a person speaks the Dharma, no Dharma can be spoken, and thus it is called speaking the Dharma.

Why does the Buddha say that someone who says, “the Tathagata has spoken the Dharma,” then they are defaming the Buddha? The Treatise on the Perfection of Great Wisdom says: “The prajna paramita is divided into two aspects: its already realized aspect is called bodhi, while its yet unrealized aspect is called emptiness.”

There are different degrees of “emptiness”: a teacup is empty, a house is also empty, and space too is empty. There is a Buddhist saying that says “It is better to have a view of existence as grand as Mount Sumeru, rather than give rise to a view of emptiness as trifling as a mustard seed.”

The sutras describe eighteen different aspects or levels of emptiness, but some views of emptiness can become obstinate or negative and result in nothing more than nihilism. It is better to not focus on “emptiness” as the object of spiritual study and practice. This concept is expanded upon in the following passage from the Diamond Sutra:

Subhuti, suppose you had this thought: “It is not because his marks are complete that the Tathagata attains anuttara samyaksambodhi.” Subhuti, do not have this thought: “It is not because his marks are complete that the Tathagata attains anuttara samyaksambodhi.”

Subhuti, suppose you had this thought: “Those who initiate the mind of anuttara samyaksambodhi advocate the Dharma of annihilation.” Do not have this thought. And why is this? Those who initiate the mind of anuttara samyaksambodhi, in regards to the Dharma, do not advocate the annihilation of notions.

“Advocating the Dharma of annihilation” means falling into having a one-sided and nihilistic view. Those who have their minds set upon supreme enlightenment (anuttara samyaksambodhi) “do not advocate the annihilation of notions.” They do not cling to the notion of phenomena, nor do they cling to trying to get rid of such notions.

Source: Hsing Yun. Four Insights for Finding Fulfillment: A Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Diamond Sutra. Los Angeles: Buddha’s Light Publishing, 2012.