般若心經 段二 行深般若波羅蜜多時

「行深般若」 carries a single word, 「深」 (deep), that is easy to read straight past — yet it is the hinge: if there is a deep prajñā, then there is a shallow one too, so where is the difference? We hear the Dharma and grasp that "all dharmas are empty," and this too is prajñā — but it is the shallow kind, worked out by thought. The ancient masters pierce the depth through: coursing deep is nondiscriminating cognition (nirvikalpa-jñāna) inwardly realizing the two emptinesses (二空) — without even the discrimination "I am contemplating emptiness," with the contemplating and the contemplated both stilled. Shallow prajñā stops at "I've thought it through"; deep prajñā advances to "the two emptinesses present before one." And 「波羅蜜多」 (pāramitā) states where this wisdom is bound — wisdom reaching the far shore — because it can sever the obstructions: the obstruction of the afflictions and the obstruction to the knowable are severed portion by portion, and a person crosses from the near shore of birth-and-death toward nirvāṇa. So this is no airy state, but a wisdom that can part from discrimination, sever the obstructions, and ferry one across the river. It is precisely because what he courses in is this prajñā, deep enough that grasper and grasped are both extinguished, that the next illumining can reach to the very bottom of the five aggregates.

Form: first the scriptural text in Xuanzang's recension (the original, not a syllable altered), then a faithful plain rewriting — turning the literary Chinese into today's speech only, readable and undistorted, adding no doctrine and glossing no Sanskrit.

The scripture says:

行深般若波羅蜜多時

Plain rewriting:

At the very time when this bodhisattva is deeply exercising that great wisdom which reaches the far shore —

(「行」 means in the act of coursing, in the act of using; 「深」 means deep, not a shallow understanding; 「般若波羅蜜多」 is that wisdom which can illumine and break through everything and ferry a person from this shore across to the far shore. Put together: at that moment when he is deeply exercising this wisdom.)

Form: this layer reads the passage through the mirror of Yogācāra (Consciousness-Only) — taking up "nondiscriminating cognition" (nirvikalpa-jñāna), "the two emptinesses," and "the transformation of the basis" (āśraya-parāvṛtti) to hold up against the Heart Sūtra's "行深般若波羅蜜多時" (at the time of coursing in the deep prajñā-pāramitā). The mirror is not the sūtra; it is the ancient masters (Kuiji's Profound Praise 《幽贊》, Woncheuk's Praise 《贊》) who themselves read the Heart Sūtra through Yogācāra.

One word worth pressing on: deep

「行深般若波羅蜜多」 — here there is a single word, 「深」 (deep), that is easy to read straight past. Yet it is the hinge: if there is a "deep" prajñā, then there is also a "shallow" prajñā. So where does the difference between deep and shallow lie?

In our ordinary reading of scripture and listening to the Dharma, we come to understand the principle that "all dharmas are empty" 諸法皆空 — and this too is prajñā. But it is a prajñā arrived at through hearing and reflection, worked out by the discriminating mind; it is the "shallow" one. By marking a 「深」 (deep) here, the Heart Sūtra means to separate this prajñā of shallow understanding from the prajñā that the bodhisattva realizes directly, on the spot.

Deep — deep in being "without discrimination"

Woncheuk pierces it through in a single line: 「無分別智內證二空，離諸分別，無能、所行以為行相，故名行深」 — "nondiscriminating cognition inwardly realizes the two emptinesses; parted from all discrimination, it has neither a grasper nor a grasped object of coursing as its mode of activity, and so it is called coursing deep."

Taken apart:

• Nondiscriminating cognition (nirvikalpa-jñāna) — not a cognition that reasons and thinks by way of thoughts, but a cognition that has left behind the opposition of grasper and grasped and illumines directly. The moment you think "this is empty," that is still discrimination; true coursing-deep does not even have the discrimination "I am contemplating emptiness" — it illumines without discriminating.
• Inwardly realizing the two emptinesses (二空) — what it realizes is the emptiness of self (there is no real self) and the emptiness of dharmas (there is no real dharma). Not a granting of the point in principle, but a realizing-into it in person.
• Free of the grasper-and-grasped mode of activity — ordinary "contemplation" always has a contemplating self and a contemplated object, the two set over against each other; in the time of coursing deep, grasper and grasped are both extinguished, and so it is said to have "neither a grasper nor a grasped object of coursing as its mode of activity."

This is what "deep" means: it is not in how much you understand, but in how deep you have parted from discrimination. Shallow prajñā stops at "I've thought it through"; deep prajñā advances to "grasper and grasped both stilled, the two emptinesses present before one." Avalokiteśvara is sovereign precisely because what he courses in is this nondiscriminating, deep prajñā.

「波羅蜜多」 (pāramitā): where this wisdom is meant to carry you

To say "deep" is not yet enough; the scripture says 「波羅蜜多」 right alongside it. Woncheuk explains it concretely: 「波羅，名彼岸；蜜多，名到」 — "pāra, the far shore; mitā, reaching" — wisdom reaching the far shore; and the reason it can reach is 「因智斷障至涅槃城」 — "because by this cognition one severs the obstructions and reaches the city of nirvāṇa."

This joins straight up with the Yogācāra transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti): this nondiscriminating cognition that is prajñā is no state to be savored for its own sake — it has a real function: it severs the obstructions. Which obstructions? The obstruction of the afflictions (煩惱障) and the obstruction to the knowable (所知障). The obstructions are severed portion by portion, the gross-heaviness (dauṣṭhulya) is cast off layer by layer, and a person crosses, step by step, from the near shore of birth-and-death toward the far shore of nirvāṇa. So 「波羅蜜多」 is no modifier; it states that this wisdom is in the very act of ferrying across the river. 「行深」 is the wisdom in use; 「波羅蜜多」 is the destination of that use.

The mirror of Yogācāra: one and the same wisdom, in the language of sūtra and the language of treatise

It is not that the Heart Sūtra's prajñā has to be re-dressed as Yogācāra's nondiscriminating cognition before it counts; nor that Yogācāra copied it from the Heart Sūtra. It is one and the same wisdom — the wisdom that "parts from discrimination, realizes the two emptinesses, severs the obstructions, and reaches the far shore" — which the Heart Sūtra marks with "行深般若波羅蜜多" (coursing in the deep prajñā-pāramitā) and which Yogācāra states with "nondiscriminating cognition," "severing the two obstructions," and "the transformation of the basis." The mirror is not the sūtra.

Read this one line through, and the next line, "seeing the five aggregates as empty" 照見五蘊皆空, no longer comes as a jolt: it is precisely because what he courses in is this prajñā, deep enough that grasper and grasped are both extinguished, that this one illumining can reach to the very bottom of the five aggregates — empty.