Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra
The Heart Sutra, an ancient scripture from the Mahayana wisdom school of Buddhism, offers us insight into the nature of ultimate reality through intuitive wisdom. In Mahayana understanding, it is only through this intuitive wisdom that one can realize the true nature of the phenomenal world, let go of all clinging to it, and reach the "other shore" of liberation.
--Mu Soeng, The Heart of the Universe: Exploring the Heart Sutra
The Bodhisattva Avalokita,
while moving in the deep course of perfect understanding,
shed light on the five skandhas and found them equally empty.
After this penetration, he overcame ill-being.
Listen Shariputra,
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form.
The same is true of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
Listen Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness.
They are neither produced nor destroyed,
neither defiled nor immaculate,
neither increasing nor decreasing.
Therefore in emptiness there is neither form nor feelings,
nor perceptions, nor mental formations, nor consciousness.
No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind.
No form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind.
No realms of elements (from eyes to mind consciousness),
no interdependent origins and no extinction of them
(from ignorance to death and decay).
No ill-being, no cause of ill being, no end of ill-being,
and no path.
No understanding and no attainment.
Because there is no attainment,
the bodhisattvas, grounded in perfect understanding,
find no obstacles for their minds.
Having no obstacles, they overcome fear, liberating themselves forever from illusion and realizing perfect nirvana.
All Buddhas in the past, present and future,
thanks to this perfect understanding,
arrive at full, right, and universal enlightenment.
Therefore one should know
that perfect understanding is the highest mantra,
the unequaled mantra, the destroyer of ill-being,
the incorruptible truth. A mantra of prajnaparamita
should therefore be proclaimed:
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha