The Essence of the Heart Sutra

Chapter 2  The True Meaning of Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva

Sutra text:【观自在菩萨】

The first line of the Heart Sutra is “观自在菩萨”. What is Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva? Some say that Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva is another name for Guanshiyin Bodhisattva (the Bodhisattva Who Perceives the Sounds of the World), and that this honorific title of Guanshiyin Bodhisattva is spoken from the perspective of the great compassionate mind, representing the Bodhisattva who specifically perceives the sounds of sentient beings in the world and seeks out their sounds to save them from suffering, enabling sentient beings to leave suffering and attain bliss. From the perspective of these four immeasurable minds — kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity — He is honorably called Guanshiyin Bodhisattva; however, the Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva in the Heart Sutra does not specifically refer to the compassionate mind-nature of Guanshiyin Bodhisattva who perceives sounds and saves beings from suffering.

What is a Bodhisattva? The Bodhisattva spoken of in Buddhist teachings can, from a certain perspective, be divided into two kinds: one refers to the unborn and unceasing tathāgatagarbha mind-substance; because He meticulously and thoroughly watches over the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) bodies of sentient beings, never knowing hardship and never having paused for even a single instant, He is called a Bodhisattva; the other refers to a Bodhisattva with an arising-and-ceasing five aggregates body; such a Bodhisattva, within the three realms and six paths, relies on the fundamental substance, the tathāgatagarbha, to cultivate the path together with sentient beings, using the dharma wisdom and skillful means taught by the Buddha to deliver vast numbers of sentient beings while simultaneously accomplishing the Buddha path.

To summarize: “观自在菩萨” refers to a Bodhisattva who, after seeing the mind, can directly contemplate the self-nature of the inherently at-ease eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha. A detailed explanation follows below.