(chant)
Text
THE SUTRA OF THE HEART OF TRANSCENDENT KNOWLEDGE
Thus have I heard. Once the Blessed One was dwelling in Rajagriha at Vulture Peak mountain, together with a great gathering of the sangha of monks and a great gathering of the sangha of bodhisattvas. At that time the Blessed One entered the samadhi that expresses the dharma called “profound illumination,” and at the same time noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, while practicing the profound prajnaparamita, saw in this way: he saw the five skandhas to be empty of nature.
Then, through the power of the Buddha, venerable Shariputra said to noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, “How should a son or daughter of noble family train, who wishes to practice the profound prajnaparamita?”
Addressed in this way, noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, said to venerable Shariputra, “O Shariputra, a son or daughter of noble family who wishes to practice the profound prajnaparamita should see in this way: seeing the five skandhas to be empty of nature. Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness are emptiness. Thus, Shariputra, all dharmas are emptiness. There are no characteristics. There is no birth and no cessation. There is no impurity and no purity. There is no decrease and no increase. Therefore, Shariputra, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no dharmas; no eye dhatu up to no mind dhatu, no dhatu of dharmas, no mind consciousness dhatu; no ignorance, no end of ignorance up to no old age and death, no end of old age and death; no suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, no wisdom, no attainment, and no nonattainment. Therefore, Shariputra, since the bodhisattvas have no attainment, they abide by means of prajnaparamita. Since there is no obscuration of mind, there is no fear. They transcend falsity and attain complete nirvana. All the buddhas of the three times, by means of prajnaparamita, fully awaken to unsurpassable, true, complete enlightenment. Therefore, the great mantra of prajnaparamita, the mantra of great insight, the unsurpassed mantra, the unequaled mantra, the mantra that calms all suffering, should be known as truth, since there is no deception. The prajnaparamita mantra is said in this way:
OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
Thus, Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound prajnaparamita.”
Then the Blessed One arose from that samadhi and praised noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, saying, “Good, good, O son of noble family; thus it is, O son of noble family, thus it is. One should practice the profound prajnaparamita just as you have taught and all the tathagatas will rejoice.”
When the Blessed One had said this, venerable Shariputra and noble Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva mahasattva, that whole assembly and the world with its gods, humans, asuras, and gandharvas rejoiced and praised the words of the Blessed One.
Lotsawa bhikshu Rinchen De translated this text into Tibetan with the Indian pandita Vimalamitra. It was edited by the great editor-lotsawas Gelo, Namkha, and others. This Tibetan text was copied from the fresco in Gegye Chemaling at the glorious Samye vihara. It has been translated into English by the Nalanda Translation Committee, with reference to several Sanskrit editions.
Explanation
Overview
Terms
sutra (San.): The hinayana and mahayana texts in the Buddhist canon that are attributed to Shakyamuni Buddha; the teaching often takes the form of a dialogue between the Buddha and one or more of his disciples.
heart: The essence or key point. Because this sutra is one of the shortest and pithy expositions of prajnaparamita, it is referred to as the “heart.”
transcendent knowledge (San. prajna-paramita; “perfection of knowledge” or “knowledge gone to the other shore”): The highest kind of prajna, which sees the nature of shunyata. Paramita means “gone to the other shore”; that is, having transcended samsara and attained nirvana.
shunyata (San. “emptiness”): Shunyata is the principal theme of the sutra. Shunyata mean emptiness of any inherent existence or solid reality, either in oneself or in phenomena. It is an awareness that apparent phenomena are without origination or basis; it is freedom from conceptuality. In particular, it is the realization of threefold purity: that there is no “I” as actor, no action, and no “other” to be acted upon. It is very important to understand that shunyata is not the nihilistic idea of nothing, or voidness. As the sutra says, it is inseparable from the appearance of perceived objects such as forms.
prajna (San.; Tib. sherap, “superior knowledge”): Prajna, or “discriminating awareness,” in this case is the perception of shunyata. The perception of shunyata is simultaneous with the experience of the great warmth of compassion.
Thus have I heard: All sutras, or reports of the Buddha’s oral teachings by his disciples, begin with this formula. It is said to have been uttered by Ananda, the Buddha’s constant attendant, who later recounted his master’s teachings.
Blessed One (San. bhagavat): Buddha Shakyamuni.
Rajagriha: Modern town of Rajgir in Bihar, northeastern India.
Vulture Peak: Small mountain near Rajgir where the Buddha delivered the mahayana teachings of the second turning of the wheel of dharma, all of which emphasize shunyata.
sangha (San.): Community of Buddhist practitioners. The term sangha originally was applied only to the monastic community. It is said that the arhats, those who had attained full hinayana realization, died of heart attacks when they heard the Buddha’s teaching on shunyata, because they were attached to their own realization.
bodhisattvas (San.): Practitioners committed to the mahayana teachings, who vow to attain enlightenment in order to work for the benefit of sentient beings.
samadhi (San.): The meditative state.
Avalokiteshvara: The bodhisattva of compassion. Through his own great power of meditation, the Buddha causes a profound realization of the nature of reality in Avalokiteshvara, who then becomes his spokesman for presenting the teachings on shunyata.
mahasattva (San. “great being”): A bodhisattva who has attained the seventh bhumi or beyond.
skandhas (San. “heaps”): These are the five heaps of the aspects of experience that make up the individual and his world: form, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness.
Shariputra: One of the Buddha’s principal disciples; he often figures in sutras as the person who asks questions and provokes the teachings.
dharmas: In this context, dharmas refer to phenomena, rather than to the Buddha’s teachings.
characteristics: Any name or label or description that could be attached to a thing; any qualities perceived with fixation.
birth: Arising, or coming into existence, of apparent phenomena.
cessation: Destruction, or fading out of existence, of apparent phenomena.
eye … mind: The six sense organs, which include mind.
appearance … dharmas: The six types of sense objects, which include mental objects or thoughts. The six organs and six objects together are referred to as the twelve ayatanas, or “sense fields.”
eye dhatu … mind consciousness dhatu (San. “element”): There are eighteen dhatus, which include the six sense organs, the six kinds of sense objects, and the six consciousnesses associated with them.
ignorance … old age and death: The twelve nidanas, or links in the chain of samsaric cause and effect: ignorance, karmic formations, consciousness, name and form, the six senses, contact, feeling, craving, grasping, becoming, birth, and old age and death.
no suffering … path: The four noble truths.
attainment and nonattainment: That is, of meditative realizations, the highest of which is enlightenment itself.
mantra (San. “mind protection,” according to the Tibetan tradition): Sanskrit words or syllables that express the quintessence of various energies, whether or not they have conceptual content as words. In vajrayana, mantra is explained as that which protects the vajra mind, the indestructibly awake nature of mind.
OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA: This Sanskrit mantra represents the quintessence of the sutra beyond concept. It means: “OM gone, gone, gone beyond, completely gone beyond, awake, so be it.”
tathagatas (San. “ones thus gone”): An epithet of the buddhas, or fully awakened ones, who have “gone to the other shore in this very way.” Those who have journeyed on the same path as all the enlightened ones and reached the goal: freedom from the two obscurations of conflicting emotions and mistaken views about reality.
gods … gandharvas: In other words, various inhabitants of the six realms of existence.
asuras (San. “demigods”): The jealous gods.
gandharvas (San.): Celestial musicians who derive their sustenance from smells.