The Heart Sutra (MP3CD)

Description

In these teachings Mitra Karl Brunholzl gives a brilliantly clear and accessible series of talks on the meaning of the Heart Sutra as well as its implications for our own path to liberation. Initially, Karl describes the Heart Sutra as something like a meditation manual that teaches us how to let go and relax. He goes on to explain that we’re trying to look at all the “toys” in our mind and then let go of them. In fact, every passage in the sutra negating existence of phenomena is like a little koan or contemplation on emptiness. It negates the path, wisdom, four noble truths, twelve ayatanas, nine dhatus and the twelve links of interdependence. Essentially, it tells us to let go of everything. Included in these talks is a meditation instruction that involves substituting the negations in the sutra with our own personally meaningful ones such as “no job, no unemployment; no fear, no absence of fear; no house, no homelessness and so on” in order to connect with the emptiness of our own solidified perceptions of phenomena. By masterfully leading us step by step through the sutra, Karl’s teachings reveal to us that the wisdom of prajnaparamita represents the essence of the Buddhist path in its entirety and shows us how to make this “instruction manual” our own. 4 talks on 1 MP3 CD.

Features

MP3CD Recordings
MP3CDs look like ordinary CDs, but contain compressed audio files. While a regular audio CD holds a maximum of only 80 minutes of recorded audio, an identical-looking MP3CD can easily hold the audio files from an entire weekend or even week-long teaching. MP3CDs can be played in a computer and/or the audio files can be downloaded into an iPod or similar device. MP3CDs may also be played on a portable MP3CD player. Most ordinary CD players, such as the CD player in most older cars (roughly 2005 and earlier), will not play MP3CDs. Many but not all cars 2006 or later do have MP3-capable CD players. Any car or home stereo CD player that is capable of playing an MP3CD will have “MP3” or “MP3-WMA” clearly marked on the front of it.
The MP3CDs available for sale on this web site are all clearly labeled and packaged in a clear case. The audio files on them have proper ID3 tag information, which means that on a computer, iPod or similar device the audio files will display (and can be searched by) Album (Title of teaching), Song (Talk number within a teaching) and Artist (Teacher).