THE HEART SUTRA is a classic. It is the most read, most chanted, and certainly the least understood of all the apocryphal Mahayana Buddhist texts. Here is a new translation by Wisdom Quarterly.
The Heart Sutra
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| Who looks down and hears cries of the world? |
Amen (aum'n). All honor to the [personification of the] Perfection of Wisdom, lovely and holy!
He looked down from on high and beheld only FIVE HEAPS, seeing that in and of themselves they were impersonal, utterly empty.
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| The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara |
The same is true of [the other four heaps]
- feelings,
- perceptions,
- formations,
- consciousness.
Herein, O Sariputra, all things (dhammas) are marked with emptiness; they are [non-dual] neither produced nor stopped [neither originated nor annihilated], neither defiled nor immaculate, neither deficient nor complete.
Therefore, O Sariputra,
in emptiness [in that they are impersonal and not the thing themselves but what they depend on] there is neither form nor feeling, nor perception, nor formation, nor consciousness;
- no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
- no forms, sounds, scents, tastes, tangibles, nor objects of mind;
- no sight-organ element, no sound-organ element, no scent-organ element, no taste-organ element, no touch-organ element, no mind-consciousness element.
- There is neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance...there is neither decay and death nor extinction of decay and death.
- There is no suffering, no origination, no cessation, no path.
- There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.
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| The Heart Sutra is brief in Sanskrit, the cul- mination of 100,000 lines of explanation |
Therefore, O Sariputra,
it is because of one's [letting go, no longer clinging, and] non-attaining that a being-bent-on-enlightenment, through having brought about the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings.
In the absence of thought-coverings, one no longer trembles; one has overcome what can upset, and in the end one nirvanas [nirvana as a verb].
All of those who appear as supremely awakened ones in the three periods of time [past, present, future] fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect enlightenment because they have brought about the Perfection of Wisdom.
Therefore, one should know the perfection of wisdom as the great mantra ["thought instrument"], the mantra of great knowledge, the utmost mantra, the unequalled mantra, allayer of all suffering, in truth, for what could go wrong?
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| Heart as in emotions, love, eros? - No |
("Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, so it is!)
This completes the heart [pithy telling, summary, conclusion, culmination] of perfect wisdom.
- When is "self" (I, me, mine, soul, myself) not-self? When wisdom is perfected to see that all things (but particularly the Five Aggregates clung to as self) are not only impermanent, not only unsatisfactory, but are also impersonal (anatta), which is to say "empty" (shunyata), devoid of self, essence, ego, thingness.
- Well, then, if this is the perfection of wisdom, wouldn't "I" rather be ignorant? Why? Well, that way I could exist forever and ever, right? Ignorance is bliss, and if it gives you eternal life or, in any case, endless wandering in this impermanent, miserable, impersonal illusion, stay as you are. Well, but, isn't it better than not existing? The other choice isn't not existing; it is waking up. I think I'd rather dream on and on, I mean, if it weren't such a nightmare sometimes. Can I go to heaven? Yes, the Buddha pointed the way to heaven (sagga), many heavens of extreme longevity, very blissful. They all still bear these Three Marks of Existence, but they are good respites.
Background
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| Ven. Sariputra, monk foremost in wisdom |
The Buddha did not utter this "sutra," but Mahayana Buddhism is not too concerned with what the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) taught. Its interests are in Cosmic Amitabha and Kwan Yin (Avalokita, Avalokiteshvara).
- This figure is transformed in some cultures into a female figure, a feminine icon, called Kwan Yin (Kwun Yum, Guanyin, Kuanyin, Kannon, Kanzeon, Chenrezig, Lokanat, Lokabyuharnat, Lokesvara, Gwaneum, Quan Am, Nātha...).
And instead of the historical Buddha and his teachings, focus is turned to new "Cosmic Buddhas" like Amitābha and Medicine Buddha and Great Bodhisattvas like Ksitigarbha and other Vedic and Hindu syncretistic figures. Gone are countless Vedic gods, now reborn as Buddhist figures.
Who was the deva (god, godling, deity, lit. "shining one") Avalokiteśvara, this tenth-level bodhisattva?
Originally, it was a male deity who looked down and heard the cries of the world with boundless compassion. And this is the central figure in this, the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra.
Buddhism may be described as the marriage of wisdom and compassion. One represents compassion, so who represents wisdom?
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| Heart Sutra, Siddham script, Japan (wiki) |
It is the other figure in this work, the overly intellectual disciple Śāriputra, whom the Buddha declared "foremost in wisdom" among monks but viewed dimly in Mahayana Buddhism, just as in Theravada, where everyone loves easy-to-love Ānanda and Sariputta gets short shrift.
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| Avalokiteshvara (Mes Indes Galantes) |
Who is the author here, a Vedic Brahmin, an ancient Central Asian scholar writing in Gandhari, a Chinese compiler of Hindu and Buddhist texts brought to China by the Monkey King in the Journey to the West? We would like to know.
- What is Buddhism?
- The Diamond Sutra
- The Lotus Sutra
- The Sayings of the Buddha in Forty-Two Sections
- The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment
- Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra (氆丐惕)
- Background: Heart Sutra - Wikipedia
- Translated and edited by Dhr. Seven for Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal based on the original rendition of the ancient text by Edward Conze, The Heart Sutra (buddhism.org)
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