The Heart Sutra

The Heart of the Prajna Paramita Sutra

(The Heart of the Sutra of Perfect Understanding)

(The Heart Sutra)

When the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was practicing the Perfection of Understanding, he illuminated the five skandhas [form (or body), feelings, cognition, mental formations, and consciousness] and found them equally empty, and he crossed beyond all suffering and difficulty.

Listen Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness; emptiness does not differ from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. So, too, are feeling, cognition, mental formations, and consciousness.

Hear, Shariputra, all dharmas are empty of characteristics. They are not produced, not destroyed, not defiled, not pure, and they neither increase nor diminish. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, mental formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, note, tongue, body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, or dharmas; no realms corresponding to the eyes, up to and including the field of mind-consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, no way, and no understanding, and no attaining.

Because nothing is attained, the bodhisattvas, through relying on Perfect Understanding, find no obstacles for their minds. Having no obstacles, they overcome fear, and he leaves distorted dream-thinking far behind, realizing perfect nirvana.

All Buddhas of the past, present, and future, thanks to this Perfect Understanding, arrive at full, right, and universal enlightenment. Therefore know that Perfect Understanding is a great spiritual mantra, a great bright mantra, a supreme mantra, an unequalled mantra. It can remove all suffering; it is genuine and not false. That is why the mantra of Perfect Wisdom was spoken. Recite it like this:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

Gate means gone--from suffering to liberation, from forgetfulness to mindfulness, from duality into non-duality.

Paragate

means gone all the way to the other shore.

Parasamgate

means that all beings have gone over.

Bodhi

is the light inside, enlightenment, or awakening.

Svaha

is a cry of joy or excitement like "Welcome!" or "Hallelujah!"