Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, poet, scholar, and human rights activist. He is featured on Spirituality & Practice as a Living Spiritual Teacher. In this 20th Anniversary Edition of The Heart of Understanding, he presents his interpretations of the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, regarded as one of the most important Buddhist teachings. With his inimitable blend of simplicity, spirituality, and creativity, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a fresh approach to this revered text.
He uses illustrations of the cloud, the water, the leaf, and the kaleidoscope to open up the Heart Sutra's references to emptiness, form, fear, and perfect Understanding. We found his discussion of nonduality to be enlightening. The challenge in the Western world is to give up our propensity for dividing things into good or evil compartments:
"We are not separate. We are inextricably interrelated. The rose is the garbage, and the non-prostitute is the prostitute. The rich man is the very poor woman, and the Buddhist is the non-Buddhist. The non-Buddhist cannot help but be a Buddhist, because we inter-are. The emancipation of the young prostitute will come as she sees into the nature of interbeing. She will know that she is bearing the fruit of the whole world. And if we look into ourselves and see her, we bear her pain, and the pain of the whole world."
With expected imaginative ease, Thich Nhat Hanh ends the book with a meditation on slowly and mindfully eating a tangerine and, in so doing, bringing a little bit of peace into the world.
