The Heart Sutra

Prajna-paramita-hridaya Sutra

(Heart-of-transcendent-wisdom Discourse)

When the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara was engaged in the practice of deep transcendent wisdom, he perceived: there are the five aggregates; and these he saw in their self-nature to be empty.

Here, Shariputra, form is emptiness, emptiness is form; form is no other than emptiness, emptiness is no other than form; what is form that is emptiness, what is emptiness that is form. The same can be said of sensation, thought, confection, and consciousness.

Here, Shariputra, all things are characterized with emptiness: they are not born, they are not annihilated; they are not tainted, they are not pure; they do not increase, they do not decrease.

Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no formations, no consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, objects; no element of vision, till we come to no element of consciousness; there is no knowledge, no ignorance, no extinction of knowledge, no extinction of ignorance, till we come to there is no old age and death, no extinction of old age and death; there is no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path; there is no knowledge, no attainment, and no non-realization.

Therefore, Shariputra, without attainment, bodhisattvas dwell depending on transcendent wisdom there are no obstacles; and because there are no obstacles in his mind, he has no fear and, going beyond wrong views he reaches final nirvana. All the awakened ones of the past, present, and future, depending on transcendent wisdom, attain to the highest perfect enlightenment.

Therefore, one ought to know that the transcendent wisdom is the great mantra, the mantra of great wisdom, the highest mantra, the peerless mantra, which is capable of allaying all pain; it is truth because it is not falsehood; this is the mantra proclaimed in transcendent wisdom. It runs:

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, svaha!

(Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond: Awakening! Hail!)

(Adapted by the author from D.T. Suzuki's translation of the Heart Sutra, with reference to many other renderings of the text)