Knowing Our True Self and Transforming Suffering toward Peace and Love: Embodying the Wisdom of the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra

Abstract

The biggest crisis that we are in nowadays is existential, which is the state of not knowing our true natures or our true selves; hence, we suffer from deep anxiety and we fail to find safety and a way to ground ourselves. In this article, we share our practical experiences of encountering and practicing the teachings of two important Buddhist scriptures: the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra. We show how both sutras, and especially their teachings on emptiness, allow us to remove our attachment to a sense of a separate self, which deepens our understanding about life, and transforms suffering toward peace and love. We further demonstrate the importance of meditation, contemplative chanting and reading, and experimentation with Buddhist teachings as pathways towards understanding our true natures. In sum, both sutras help us to go beyond the materialistic, capitalistic, narrow vision of who we are and to access the higher dimension of our existence, which allows us to discover our cosmic selves in the ultimate reality. It is through experiencing one’s true self that one gains a greater capacity to seek social transformation in times of crisis.

Educating for wisdom, love, and eco-cosmic Ubuntu: Toward an equitable planet

“…I used to love fishing, and all of sudden, I started to feel what the fish felt when I put the hook in their mouth; I see all existence as engaged in a cosmic Song of Love, and each manifests their unique expression of this Love. I attributed this opening up of my senses to feel the cosmic ubuntu to meditation, through which I am in touch with the life energy of all existence (Lin & Khoo, 2022).…”

“…The challenges we confront necessitate individuals and our society to have expansive minds and compassionate hearts. For millennium, visionary thinkers have been proposing transformative ideas to create a better world characterized by interconnectedness, cooperation, and profound compassion for all beings (Eisenstein, 2013;Lin & Khoo, 2022). The paramount question they address is: How do we bring forth such a future of love, wisdom, and hope?…”

Embodying Deeply Held Values in Education: Seeking a More Equitable World for Both Humans and Non-Humans

“…Fundamentally, our spiritual essence transcends the boundaries of social hierarchies, affording us equal footing on this profound level of existence. From this perspective, education is not just about reaching outward to acquire knowledge and skills, but primarily about finding our True Self (Lin & Khoo, 2022), which is loving and bound up with the world and the whole universe, as we inter-are.…”

“…Throughout history, sages have searched for inner wisdom by going within, through meditation and mindfulness, wherein they contemplated and experienced revelations; through such experiences, they felt in their body, heart, and soul that humans are spiritually connected to and identical with all existence. This is a process of coming to know their Higher Self or True Self (Lin & Khoo, 2022). Such experiences denote a level of higher consciousness, through which an individual can realize that we are in this world to love, create, share, and work with one another, to elevate each other through love.…”

“…From this perspective, education is not just about reaching outward to acquire knowledge and skills, but primarily about finding our True Self (Lin & Khoo, 2022), which is loving and bound up with the world and the whole universe, as we inter-are.…”