Welcome to Xwisdomx, the site for Sutra of the Boundless Heart.
Sutra of the Boundless Heart was written after ten years of studying Buddhism and looking for a way to practice it. The pivotal moment in my understanding came when I realized that the notion of rebirth could only have been a term for purity of lineage that is compelled. This fits perfectly with the importance of caste and lineage in the India of the Buddha's day. Recently I read Stephen Batchelor's Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. I find Stephen to be a kindred spirit. Stephen rejects the notion of rebirth because it is not rationalistic, seeing it as a holdover from Brahmanism, which the Buddha rejected. I also had rejected rebirth at one point. But unlike Stephen, I came to the conclusion that the notion of rebirth was valid, though not spiritual in the usual sense. Still, one of Stephen's major themes in Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist--the decimation of the Buddha's clan because his cousin had "tainted" (with slave ancestry) the lineage of another royal family through intermarriage--lends support to the understanding of rebirth, and of Buddhism in general, that is expressed in Sutra of the Boundless Heart: that they were concerned with the social stigma of slave and low-caste ancestry.
The uniqueness of this book is to treat the Buddha’s notion of rebirth not as a spiritual phenomenon, but literally as the repeat or purity of birth in the same line that is motivated by prejudice.
The notion of rebirth or samsara comes to life as lineage and birthright in the caste reality of ancient India. In language that is both lyrical and profound, the eighty-five prose poems address the caste alienation of the Buddha, and show the pain that this caused. They address the practice of nonidentity or anatta that allowed the Buddha to escape rebirth, and the joy of nirvana that this brought.
Thus the notion of rebirth is preserved in a rational way—in the desire that exists in all societies to perpetuate lineage; as is the notion of anatta in the need to refute the stigma and stereotype that is directed at lineage.
Long have I searched for that logic which would lock our hearts into reason. Never again to be dismayed, the logic of dharma I have found.-57-
Jealous householder, soiled by the duties of birth, reality you cannot know. Worthy is the universal born, thus traveled across the churning ocean.-41-
And they will turn away in great consternation because you refuse to accept the slave’s identity and the listing through life that they have set for you. Do not satisfy detractors.-40-
—Tailor of illusions, you told the world I was clothed in stains, and all the world turned away, everyone was ashamed of me, no one would be seen in my presence.-73-
The uniqueness of this book is to treat the Buddha’s notion of rebirth not as a spiritual phenomenon, but literally as the repeat or purity of birth in the same line that is motivated by prejudice. 
