Five Things to Know About the Diamond Sutra, the Oldest Dated Printed Book

I love the Diamond Sutra. I read it every few years. To me, it's very funny. how can one read about all the absolutely galactic scale quantity of "merit" to be gained right next to explanations about the illusory nature of words without laughing?

It's layered like an onion. One layer is meant to free people from illbeing. Another layer is for error correction codes and to make the message 'viral'. Another layer opened my eyes to incontrovertible truth about the noisy approximations and lossy signals that comprise the the human experience. So many layers read rather mystically at first, but you can always cut through it and find out it's not magic, it's really the way things are.

From another angle, it's a blob of metadata around a packet that contains instructions to all sentient beings -- in my words: "Relax. Be compassionate to yourself and others. All barriers to compassion are illusions. Tell this to other people. If you need to reformat the content as a listicle to get through to grandma, that's cool."

There's other angles. It's a fascinating document.

I believe the massively intelligent person(s) who composed it had a sincere objective to help all life.

Full translated English text: https://diamond-sutra.com/read-the-diamond-sutra-here/

My favorite passages:

“This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:”

“Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream; Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream.”

“So is all conditioned existence to be seen.”

> So you should view this fleeting world—

> A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,

> A flash of lightening in a summer cloud,

> A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

row row row your boat

gently down the stream

merrily merrily merrily merrily

life is but a dream

I think there's some minor controversy over whether it's the oldest printed book. There are some printed fragments of the Lotus sutra and Dharani sutra that might be 100+ years older.

The article sentence mentions that this is in the British Library, and I assume it’s in the Treasures Gallery?

If you’re ever in London, you owe it to yourself to stop there. It’s a room on the first floor of the library, free to enter without any kind of ticket 7 days a week.

In this one room is the most incredible display of printed works you’ll ever find. Everything from a copy of the Magna Carta to Florence Nightingale‘s notebooks to Anne Boleyn’s Tyndale bible to Beatles lyrics on a napkin.

There’s no collection like it anywhere in the world and it’s all in one medium-sized room.

Ken McLeod[0] is teaching a 6 week class Tuesday evenings on the Diamond Sutra at The Alembic[1][2] in Berkeley. The first class was last week. It may be possible to join now and watch the first class online.

Ken recommends the Red Pine[3] and Thich Nhat Hanh[4] translations.

[0] https://unfetteredmind.org/ [1] http://berkeleyalembic.org/ [2] https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/practicing-the-diamond-sutra-w... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Sutra-Red-Pine/dp/1582432562/ [4] https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-That-Cuts-Through-Illusion/dp...

Can't resist also suggesting to those interested, listening to Osho's discourses on the Diamond Sutra, available here: https://oshoworld.com/the-diamond-sutra-by-osho-01-11/

The British Library online scan is fantastic and well worth a close look. They also have pre-restoration images of the scroll. Seeing it in person is a little disappointing since they only unroll a bit of it at any time.

Is there an English translation that is considered particularly important (perhaps comparable to the King James version of the Bible?) or particularly well translated?

KUOW, a local radio station, had a segment on Red Pine and his upcoming documentary on translations. Apparently, he's very popular in China.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/bill-porter-port-townsend-zen-p...

especially as combined with Buddha's explanation in his subsequent Lotus Sutra that he realized he was like the father of all beings, I find the recent discovery of treatment for structural dissociation and parts work to be a highly interesting corollary to the Diamond Sutra.

https://janinafisher.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/structur...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RHQ9GFZ

Given this was smuggled out of China, it feels like it belongs in a museum in China rather than in Britain.

the prc has recently enacted export control regulations to prevent strategic technologies from falling into the hands of geopolitical rivals such as the usa. among the first four items on the list, presumably included as a sort of joke, are papermaking techniques and movable type

[my error, not movable type; see below]

Books like this are a advocate that a countries cultural heritage should be spread around the world to survive localized bildersturm and destruction by fanatics . Oh and digital copies,while the real thing gets hidden.

Stolen treasure at the British Museum. Shocker.