PATIENT
The Diamond Sutra
FORM
Dialogue, 32 sections
LENGTH
About 5,000 words in English
KNOWN FOR
The first printed book in human history
CHIEF COMPLAINT
How do you hold any idea, even a good one, without clinging to it?
HISTORY OF PRESENT ILLNESS
A conversation between the Buddha and his senior disciple Subhuti in the Jeta Grove near Sravasti, about how a bodhisattva should abide and subdue the mind. It belongs to the same Perfection of Wisdom literature as the Heart Sutra but takes a different route: instead of compressed negation, it uses extended dialogue, repetition and one distinctive formula to dismantle clinging to any fixed concept, including Buddhist concepts, including the teaching and the Buddha himself. The opening is deliberately ordinary: the Buddha begs for food, eats, washes his feet and sits down.
REVIEW OF SYSTEMS
THE DIAMOND FORMULA
X is not X, therefore it is called X. Used across the sutra on the perfection of wisdom, the 32 marks, and the teaching itself.
THE RAFT
The teaching is for crossing over, not for holding onto. Let go of dharmas, and even more of non-dharmas.
THE BODHISATTVA
Vows to liberate all beings while understanding there are no beings to liberate, because a bodhisattva who holds notions of self, person or being is not a true one.
GIVING
Generosity without attachment to the act, the gift or the recipient, which is what makes the merit immeasurable.
MIND
The mind abides nowhere. Past, present and future mind cannot be grasped.
PHYSICAL EXAM — STYLE & STRUCTURE
- —Section 10 is the line the Platform Sutra says awakened Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, when he heard it.
- —The Buddha says he has taught nothing and attained no definite dharma. Subhuti agrees, and the Buddha says 'So it is, so it is.'
- —The 32 marks of a Buddha (golden skin, the wheel on the soles of the feet) are not what the Buddha can be known by.
- —A four-line verse from the sutra is said to carry more merit than filling worlds with treasure. Then the sutra says not to think about merit.
- —The Heart Sutra says form is emptiness; the Diamond Sutra says what is called form is not form, therefore it is called form. Two statements, one insight, different angles of entry.
ASSESSMENT & PLAN
Read the opening (Section 1), the raft (6), Section 10 and Section 13. Read slowly: the repetition is the method. Read alongside the Heart Sutra guide. It is a non-denominational reference guide. The full guide recommends Red Pine (Counterpoint) for scholarship, Thich Nhat Hanh for accessibility, and A. F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam as the classic.