Reconstructing a Unified Cognitive–Soteriological Architecture of the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra

This project has been updated to align with the currently pending OSF preprint. The manuscript has been retitled and substantially revised to clarify scope, structure, and core claims; the previous draft is superseded and retained only for record purposes. The study reconstructs a unified cognitive–soteriological architecture across the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra by proposing a functional mapping between their core formulations. It reads the four gāthās of the Diamond Sutra as a coherent sequence—goal (identity deconstruction), method (non-abiding cognition), diagnostic criterion (non-recognition through form/characteristics), and praxis (dreamlike observation)—and maps this mechanism onto the Heart Sutra’s compressed presentation of emptiness. On this reading, “the five aggregates are empty” is treated as the operational outcome of non-abiding cognition rather than a static metaphysical claim, and observation (觀) functions as an active cognitive operator that stabilizes non-reifying engagement with experience. The reconstruction aims to reduce interpretive ambiguity that arises when the two texts are read in isolation and to provide a coherent framework for understanding emptiness as a functional process enacted through cognition and observation.