Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 DA R K A N G E L 06body in order to present teachings to the world. In this new divine framework,saviour figures appeared, called bodhisattvas. And during these,and succeeding, centuries after the Buddha’s death, his teachingsbecame the subject of an equally lively revision:...there is no ignorance, nor extinction of ignorance...no suffering,nor origination, nor stopping, nor path; there is no cognition, noattainment, and no nonattainment.The old teachings had pointed out that what we term as “self ” is inreality empty of a cohesive, consistent, and independent reality. Thenew teachings extended that analysis to every structure of reality,including any structure of teaching. This is prajnaparamita, “the perfectionof wisdom,” whichcannot be expounded and learned, nor isolated and described, norstated in words, nor reflected upon by means of or in terms of anylimited pattern of awareness.In the course of the next eight hundred years or so, prajnaparamitawas conceived as a truth, gestated as a symbol, born as an image, andworshipped as a divinity. Over forty sutras, from the vast Perfection ofWisdom in 100,000 Lines down to the Perfection of Wisdom in One Letter,were composed around her ineffability. Even though she represents theessential emptiness of all phenomena, her form was delightful. Whatcan be more captivating to the contemplative than that ungraspable,ever-beyond, ever-present truth? She was called a goddess and was oneof the divinities who emerged to preside over Buddhism’s “SecondTurning of the Wheel,” the “Great Way” or Mahayana.Perhaps even the Gupta emperors, though Hindu, fell under her spell.They themselves were tolerant of Buddhism and recognized thatBuddhist monks made very good scholars. Astronomy, logic, metaphysics,and grammar were studied at Nalanda along with the Mahayanasutras and commentaries. The brilliant expositions on emptiness by2 0 5