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Asterisms

Textual Transmissions - Week 35

Date: September 2, 2026

Last modified: Wednesday, 02-Sep-2026 22:48:50 UTC

Welcome back everyone to Textual Transmissions! Those who keep up to date with my posts may be interested in the name change for the weekly post. I was looking for something more punchy and memorable, fitting into my own style, when I saw Jakalopes’ weekly recap be called Genetic Linkage, which fits well into their ecology and genetics interests. I was thinking long and hard about it, when reading a Buddhist sutra actually gave me an idea for a name. Accurate transmission of texts has long been important to the tradition, as with any religion for that matter, which reminded me of my blogging adventures as I try to convey what I’ve experienced and thought about. Thus, the name Textual Transmissions was born!

As a quick note, the first topic I will be discussing this week deals heavily with depression and suicide. If those are triggering to you, feel free to skip ahead.

Mental Health

It is rather unfortunate to say that the defining feature of this week was an absolute nosedive into the depths of deep depression. I’m not sure what onset this, although I doubt there is really any cause besides a random roll of the dice that my brain seems to make on whether or not I will be happy. However, I’m sure that recent news has not helped me any. Regardless, I had been dealing with this depressive spell for a week already, but it made an unusual turn into going heavily into suicidal ideation. I hadn’t truly had a spell like this since my mid-teens, which worried me some.

It wasn’t as if I had given up to total apathy; I enjoyed being in class and talking with my boyfriend and roommate. In any time I had to myself, though, I grew utterly depressed and hopeless and genuinely for the first time in a was I consistently thinking of taking my life. I managed to partially reason my way out of this by considering that an equally viable option would be to renunciate and join a monastic order. If my reason for suicide was to escape the suffering of the present world and the responsibilities, then why not leave conventional society all together for the life of a monk? I didn’t find this terribly appealing as I would leave behind everyone I love– and that’s when I realized that what I wanted wasn’t death, but just an easing to my suffering. Now if I was a better Buddhist this realization should also further my conviction to join an order but c’est la vie. That’s for the next life, 南無阿彌陀佛, and all that. I’m doing much better now, as I’ve been through enough of these to just know it’s a phase that I go through.

Classes

Classes have been going wonderfully! For a refresher on what classes I’m taking, especially since there has been some changes, I’m taking five classes: Embodying Nirvana, East Asian Buddhism, Buddha and Beyond: Keywords in the Study of Buddhism (or as I will be referring to it, Buddhist Art), Being Human, and Media Chinese. The Buddhist classes have been pretty easy so far, as the first week has been dedicated to the basic tenents of Buddhsim, along with the life events of the Buddha. This is information I already knew, so it hasn’t been too bad at all. Media Chinese has probably been the most difficult class so far, as I feel like the difficulty level of the texts have exponentially increased. However, the difficulty is probably the result of my poor grasp of formal registers of Chinese.

Here’s a quick overview of each class:

Embodying Nirvana

This class investigates how Buddhist thinkers have regarded the state of being a Buddha and the state of reaching nirvāṇa These are two separate things. We haven’t gotten there yet, but Buddhist traditions, especially in Mahāyāna, distinguish between the nirvāṇa of buddhas and the nirvāṇa of arhats; this is principally the result of buddhas having reached the understanding of the dharma (or how the world truly is) on their own while arhats required a teacher. . How are we to make of the fact that the Buddha is said to have simultaneous, multiple bodies This being the trikāya, with buddhas having the dharma body (dharmakāya), which is equal to ultimate reality; the body of enjoyment (sambhogakāya), which is the body buddhas take in pure lands; and the manifestation body (nirmāṇakāya). Technically, only the dharmakāya is actually real. The joys of Buddhist theology! while also seeming to face constant physical ailment, such as back pain and food poisoning? There’s also the fact that Buddhist traditions characterize nirvāṇa as unknowable, but will also repeatedly characterize the experience.

East Asian Buddhism

As the name of the class suggests, we will be going over Buddhism… in East Asia. Once again, this week has primarily just been introductions to the Buddhist tradition. We also read the Heart Sūtra, which is notorious for its difficulty but also for its wide spread popularity in East Asia. The text premises itself around the idea of śūnyatā, translated as emptiness in English I’m personally not a huge fan of the translation as śūnyatā more refers to a “lack of inherent essence”, but I guess for a single word translation emptiness is fine enough., which promotes the understanding of śūnyatā as prajñāpārimitā (“perfection of wisdom”) which is necessary for the bodhisattva path. The text is incredibly short, so you can read it entirely here:

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom, saw clearly that the five aspects of human existence are empty*, and so released himself from suffering.  Answering the monk Sariputra, he said this:

Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.

The other four aspects of human existence –
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness –
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.

There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and so with no delusions,
they feel no fear,
and have Nirvana here and now.

All the Buddhas,
past, present, and future,
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and live in full enlightenment.

The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra.
It is the clearest mantra,
the highest mantra,
the mantra that removes all suffering.

This is truth that cannot be doubted.
Say it so:

Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!

Which means…

Gone,
gone,
gone over,
gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it! From here.

I also have jumped ahead a little to begin reading the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, which is… a bit of a slog. Yes Sukhāvatī is amazing we don’t need to keep going into more detail.

Buddhist Art

We also have been dealing with key tenents of Buddhism, but we also began talking about the ways one can differentiate a buddha from a bodhisattva in art. Attributes for buddhas (more particularly the Buddha) include:

For bodhisattvas they include:

Finally, we have begun looking at Sanchi Stupa.

Being Human

Not much to talk about here, mainly just talking about the syllabus. We only meet once a week but for 2.5 hours. We did talk a bit about what it means to be a human, with a lot of discussion on if its the mind, body, or a combination (and if so, what kind of combination) that makes a human a human.

Media Chinese

Our current topic is 網絡與媒體 “Internet and Media”, with the article we read being 自媒體行業：機遇與挑戰中的發展 “Self-produced media industry: opportunities and challenges in development”. The articles feel like a much greater leap in difficulty than I’m used to, but I think it’s at a fine enough difficulty level where it is still manageable but not super easy.

Linux

Out of a whim on Friday, I decided to reset my Framework computer and reinstall Arch. I was getting quite a bit tired of my keyboard not exactly working, which was rather frustrating as I find myself needing to use the diacritic keys rather often for pinyin or Sanskrit transliterations. I also wanted to move away from Hyprland and into Sway, so I thought a computer wipe would be beneficial.

Alas, I had forgotten how much of a process installing Arch is and getting everything functional; it’s not exactly a school night activity. As a result, I decided to dual boot with Linux Mint, just so I have a much easier to use machine that I don’t have to fight with. Perhaps eventually I will optimize my Arch install to fit my needs.

I haven’t been consuming much content as of late, but I got exposed to Granta and I’ve been greatly enjoying the writing within. I got a subscription to the magazine as a result, going through the latest edition on Scandinavia. I liked On Eternity and Nail Sizes (except for the last paragraph), and I’m working through the edition so probably in the next update I’ll add some more.