We’re excited to share the fourth instalment of our Heart Sutra series with you today. We’re transcribing, editing, and designing Michael’s Heart Sutra dharma talks into e-books. Later, we’ll combine all six books into a Heart Sutra study guide.
In the fourth talk, Michael continues to unpack the Heart Sutra, discussing self-liberation, three kinds of burnout, thoughts without a thinker, and more. He shares the poem Bluebird by Charles Bukowski.
Here is an excerpt:
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“So for there to be taste, there has to be a tongue. There has to be moisture, and there has to be some food. You could argue the tongue could taste itself, but that’s probably the residue of food. And then there has to be a knowing of taste. I know there’s taste happening, it’s food, it is good. So there are many conditions. If you take any one of those conditions away, there would be no taste. So, if you took the tongue away, there would be no knowing of taste. If you took the food away, there would be no knowing of taste. If you took moisture and saliva away, there would be no knowing of taste. The whole thing collapses and there’s no tongue consciousness. There’s no taste consciousness. Now, if you do this as a meditator, it’s really interesting because what you see is there’s nothing that stands behind taste consciousness, you see? If there’s no tongue, then the whole thing doesn’t exist.”
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