Editor’s note: This bonus episode comes fromthe podcast Genius Girlfriend Goes Horse-Stealing, originally titled “Discussing the Diamond Sutra with Cheng Qing: Letting Go at the Cliff’s Edge Is Great Fearlessness; Only a Life without a Fulcrum Is Truly Free.”

Compared withthe previous episode on attachment, the Diamond Sutra’s marks and their dismantling are far more abstract. Professor Cheng says every mark in this world is illusory. Only by recognizing what deludes us amid these illusions can we avoid sinking into them or becoming bound by the external world. In a society of widespread spiritual exhaustion, perhaps the Diamond Sutra can help us reconsider our trusted cognitive model, our deep addiction to sensory desire, and the possibility of bodily and mental freedom.

But what exactly is a mark: a label, appearance, identity, conceptual cognition, or even the entire world? Which marks must be dismantled to subdue this crouching-tiger, hidden-dragon mind? And if every worldly mark is false and everything one great dream, how can we avoid nihilism?

Host Ming assembled a logical answer about marks and pressed Record, only to find Professor Cheng’s answer had changed.

Perhaps this is itself the Diamond Sutra’s essence: nothing is permanent, and no thing has fixed inherent nature—including our understanding of the concept of marks.

 

03:56 Principle may be suddenly awakened to, but affairs require gradual cultivation: understanding is one thing; applying it is difficult

04:55 Release the desire to dominate and control, and become much freer

09:22 “How does a dog understand this object?”

11:34 A mark is the realm appearing within cognition; it is not immovable

15:47 What are the marks of self, person, and sentient being?

24:29 Makeup, edited photos, and luxury cars attach themselves to a self with greater control

28:14 Haute couture versus mandala sand painting: using attachment to resist attachment

34:24 “Emotional value is an expression that turns people into tools”

37:27 “A relationship built according to your preferences can never be profound”

43:11 Is marriage possession, control, and constraint?

49:17 Understanding one’s own and others’ pain creates a grand sense of shared suffering

51:02 Intimate relationships: from romantic love to compassion

57:02 Do not reject relationships, but recognize human limits

01:05:13 The mark of loneliness: your connections with the world are already everywhere

01:09:12 Value preferences shape judgments of people

01:16:02 Notice each thought, but try doing nothing

01:22:28 “Feeling tension is relaxation”

01:24:47 “Steal horses, not hearts”: attachment continually produces suffering

01:25:56 After dismantling marks, what comes next?