The Three Hearts

The previous essay ‘A Beautiful Heart’ talked about the following:
Mature people do not ask about the past.
Clever people do not ask about the present.
Open-minded people do not ask about the future.

These are ‘worldly’ people. In fact, it is difficult to find such fine people in the world.
‘A mature person does not ask about the past, but he does ask about the present. (Thus, he is a practical person.)’
‘A clever person does not ask about the present, but he does ask about the future. (Thus, he is a farsighted and forward-thinking person.)’
‘An open-minded person does not ask about the future, but he does ask about the past. (Thus, he is a person who does not want to repeat past mistakes.)’

Therefore, these ‘worldly’ people may possess a beautiful heart, however, from a Buddhist point of view, they still have worldly worries. In Buddhism, it is often held ‘Let Go of the Three Hearts’:
Let go of the past heart,
Let go of the present heart and
Let go of the future heart;
the way to free oneself from worldly worries.

Those who can succeed in understanding the doctrine ‘Let Go of the Three Hearts’ are people of the ‘spiritual’ world; they are Buddhist practitioners!  On a more advanced level: if we have truly awakened to ‘Let Go of the Three Hearts’, then we still have a ‘heart’ to realize this doctrine!  The Buddha says that ‘Heartlessness’ (the real immaterial heart free from illusion) is the ‘ultimate state’ to free oneself from worldly worries, the only way to attain complete freedom.