Author Description

The Four Noble Truths and The Heart Sutra seem to be in perfect contrast, however, they both talk about the same thing: The Four Noble Truths is the idea that the Buddha is teaching us to be free from suffering whereas The Heart Sutra states that there are no four noble truths. Buddha teaches The Four Noble Truths to all sentient beings that have not yet crossed the sea of suffering. At this point, The Four Noble Truths is comparable to “a boat”, taking all sentient beings across the sea of suffering. Meanwhile, The Heart Sutra is of a scripture explained by a Bodhisattva who had already crossed the sea of suffering and encourages all followers to go beyond the sea of suffering. At this point the Bodhisattva has already reached the shore and she does not need the boat anymore! This is what the Heart Sutra states. No four-noble truths. From the explanation above, we can now see that both topics are talking about the same highest knowledge and do not contrast each other at all. Therefore, I would like to explain both topics in a bundle, but before we go directly to the details of each topic, we first must have a basic knowledge of how to look through “The Wisdom Eye” or “Insight into Sunyata “, without this knowledge, you will not be able to understand any scriptures! Author: Titirat Naiad