The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra: A General Explanation
About this ebook
A highly readable translation of the Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra as transmitted in the Chinese tradition, this brief text summarizes the teachings on emptiness of the Prajñāpāramitā, the perfection of wisdom. In this Sutra, the Buddha teaches his disciple Subhuti the subtle points of Buddhist philosophy on emptiness, the lack of true existence of anything—thoughts are illusions; life is a dream. Master Hua enriches the text by providing details and narratives, and he explains how
to incorporate the concept of emptiness into our lives.
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About the author
One of the most eminent Chinese Dharma Masters of the twentieth century, Tripitika Master Hsuan Hua (Xuanhua, 1918-1995) was a monastic reformer and the first Chinese master to teach Buddhism to large numbers of Westerners. He emphasized the primacy of the monastic tradition, the essential role of moral education, the need for Buddhists to ground themselves in traditional spiritual practice and authentic scripture, and the importance of mutual respect and understanding among religions. This included clearly explaining the essential principles of the Buddha’s original teachings, and organizing and supporting the translation of the Buddhist canon into English and other languages.
Born in 1918 to a peasant family in a small village south of Harbin, in northeast China, Master Hua was the youngest of eight children. He formally became a Buddhist, in his mid-teens and was given the Dharma name Anci (Peace and Compassion). After his mother’s death, when he was 19, he became a monk and was given the name To Lun (Dulun). He meditated by his mother’s grave for three years and practiced other austerities before receiving full ordination in 1947 at the Buddhist holy mountain Putuoshan.
At Nanhua Monastery in Guangdong Province, he received the Dharma-seal of the Weiyang Chan lineage from the Elder Chan Master Xuyun (1840-1959). Master Xuyun also bestowed upon him the Dharma-transmission name Hsuan Hua (Xuanhua) .
In 1949, Master Hua left China for Hong Kong, where he taught meditation, lectured on the Buddhist sutras, and helped to establish three Buddhist monasteries. In 1962, he traveled to the United States at the invitation of disciples, who formerly lived in Hong Kong, but were then living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he began lecturing at the San Francisco Buddhist Lecture Hall. In 1970, Master Hua moved from Chinatown to the newly established Gold Mountain Monastery in the Mission District of San Francisco. In 1975, Master Hua established the organization’s first branch monastery – Gold Wheel Temple in Los Angeles – and in 1976 he established a new headquarters at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Ukiah, California.
Additionally, he founded the Buddhist Text Translation Society with the goal of translating the Buddhist canon. It has now published well over a hundred volumes of translations, including several of the major Mahayana sutras with Master Hua’s commentaries.
In 1995, after a long and tireless career, Master Hua passed away at the age of 77. In his final instructions he said: “After I depart, you can recite the Avataṃsaka Sutra and the name of the Buddha Amitābha for however many days you would like, perhaps seven days or forty-nine days. After cremating my body, scatter all my remains in the air. I do not want you to do anything else at all. Do not build me any pagodas or memorials. I came into the world without anything; when I depart, I still do not want anything, and I do not want to leave any traces in the world…. From emptiness I came; to emptiness I return.”
