The Heart Sutra (translation)

Avalokiteśvara, Padmapani. What is the personification of the Perfection of Wisdom?

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The deva Avalokiteśvara

Om! Hail, the Perfection of Wisdom, beautiful and wholesome!

The being bent on supreme enlightenment was moving through the wisdom that has gone beyond, looking down from on high, beholding only five heaps, seeing that in and of themselves they are empty.

Here within this Dharma, O Foremost in Wisdom, FORM is emptiness, and the very emptiness is form.

Emptiness does not differ from form, and form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness.

Prajnaparamita of Java

The same is true of FEELINGS, PERCEPTIONS, FORMATIONS, and CONSCIOUSNESS.

Herein, O Foremost in Wisdom, all phenomena bear the mark of emptiness. They are not dual, not produced nor stopped, not defiled nor immaculate, not deficient nor complete.

Therefore, O Foremost in Wisdom, in emptiness, in being impersonal, there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor formation, nor consciousness.

Bodhisattva, Dambulla, Sri Lanka

There are no bases -- no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles or objects of mind; no sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to:

There is no mind-consciousness element; there is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.

There is no cognition, no attainment, and no nonattainment.

Prajna, Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom

Therefore, O Foremost in Wisdom, it is because of this non-striving to attain that a being bent on supreme enlightenment, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings, one is not made to tremble.

One has overcome what can upset, and in the end is quenched, having let go, having glimpsed Nirvana.

Tibetan Avalokiteśvara with 11 faces

All who appear as supremely enlightened beings in the three periods of time -- past, present, and future -- fully awake to the utmost, to right and supreme enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.

Therefore, one should recognize the Perfection of Wisdom, the Prajnaparamita, as the great mantra, the mantra of great knowledge, the utmost mantra, the unequalled mantra, allayer of all suffering, in truth -- for what could go wrong? By the Prajnaparamita has this mantra been realized. It runs like this:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

(Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O, what an awakening, all hail!)

This (having seen all conditioned phenomena as impermanent, disappointing, and impersonal) completes the Heart of perfect Wisdom.

• Mantra Music: Heart Sutra Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya in Sanskrit in for Recitation (Buddha Weekly)
• Translated by Dhr. Seven, based on the Sanskrit original as translated by Edward Conze (via DharmaNet International), for Wisdom Quarterly