Mu Soeng is the author of Heart Sutra: Ancient Buddhist Wisdom in the Light of Quantum Reality and co-director of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Massachusetts. He sees the Buddha as "a person of great shamanic powers" who has given us keen insights into the primacy of intention, the value of personal and social ethics, and the phenomenology of mental processes.
Soeng presents a series of chapters on early Buddhism, the Mahayana Sutras, and the literary and social conventions of the Diamond Sutra. He then proceeds to his commentary on the latter, a religious classic of 32 short chapters containing a dialogue between the Buddha and one of his disciples on the themes of emptiness, compassion, and the path of the Bodhisattva. Soeng believes that the Diamond Sutra foreshadows the koan method of practice in the Zen tradition.
The Buddha's teachings here are not doctrinal but experiential. Each person must discover for himself or herself the truth about impermanence, the cultivation of patience, and the value of generosity.