The Heart of All Buddha's Teachings - Chapter 1
"All" refers to all directions and all times—past, present, and future. "Buddha" means awakened one. The Buddha taught countless methods, yet all clarify the meaning of the single mind. Therefore, it is said that the Buddha's words take the mind as their essence.
If one is confused about the mind and chases after words, then words become mere dregs. If one abandons words to seek the mind, then the mind becomes like a turtle's fur—nonexistent. Here, we use the mind to meet the words and use the words to verify the mind. Hence, this section is called "The Buddha's Words on the Mind."
Now, this sutra exists in three translations. This one is called the Song Dynasty translation, the earliest of the three. It consists of four volumes with only one section title. Next is the translation by Bodhiruci of the Northern Wei Dynasty, which has ten volumes and eighteen sections. Then comes the translation by Śikṣānanda of the Tang Dynasty, with seven volumes and ten sections. To fully understand the structure and meaning of this sutra, one must consult all three translations.
In the current translation, the introductory section is very brief, and the concluding section is missing. Therefore, we also refer to the other two translations to complete the three-part structure: first, the introductory section(brief in this translation, detailed in the other two); second, the main teaching section(one section in this translation, fifteen sections in the Wei translation, seven sections in the Tang translation); third, the concluding section(absent in this translation, two sections in the other two translations).