Heart sutra version 1 and version 2.
How the Heart Sutra is used by Daniel P Brown to explain the stages of Mahamudra meditation.
(You will find here transcriptions of some relevant passages from Youtube videos).
The Heart Sutra describes a 4-step process
The Heart Sutra describes a 4-step process to awakening. This 4-step process involves a learnable sequence of particular mental operations, or meditative views, or perspectives, or "bases of operation".
Each view overcomes an additional limitation of the mind, or metaphorically a layer of cloud that obscures the mind´s awareness.
Cloud | Main means to overcome |
Thoughts | Concentration meditation, isolating awareness from thought |
The illusory Self | Emptiness of Self meditation |
The illusion of time and space | Various pointing out instructions to eliminate the idea of time and of spatial boundaries |
Localisation of consciousness | Ocean and Wave meditation |
The Heart Sutra concluding verse
Listen to the verses (this link does not start in the beginning of the Heart Sutra but at the above verse)
Translation by Daniel P Brown
Gone, Gone, Gone Way Beyond, Gone Way Way Beyond: Uh what a Realisation!
Going beyond in 4 steps
Essentially, the content and sequencing of the retreat mirrored the 4 steps of "going beyond". These 4 steps represent the underlying structure of progressive levels of awareness, and specific views, that Daniel P Brown has distilled from many of the Buddhist traditions.
As a metaphor, there are layers of clouds.
In order to see the sun in the sky above (the so-called natural mind which is free of all distortions as pure awareness-love), when coming from the ground, one has to remove one cloud layer after another. The layers of clouds are expressed as levels of "gone" in the table below.
Gone | I get caught up in thought | I go beyond thought through learning how to use awareness. In the POGW retreats, this corresponds to 1 day of concentration training following the 9 stages of the Elephant Path. |
Gone | I get caught up in Self | I go beyond Self through realising the emptiness of Self. In the POGW retreats, this corresponds to the Emptiness of Self meditation sections. |
Gone way beyond | I get caught up in space and time | I go beyond space and time through realising space and time as fabrications |
Gone way way beyond | I get caught up in localisation and consciousness | I go beyond that. And now I am operating out of this limitless huge boundless bright awareness |
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