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The Heart Sutra
Translation by Edward Conze
Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lovely, the Holy!
Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep
course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, He
beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own-being they were empty.
Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form;
emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness;
whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form,
the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
Here, Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not
produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.
Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor
perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body,
mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No
sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: 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 non-attainment.
Therefore, Sariputra, it is because of his non-attainment that a
Bodhisattva, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells
without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not
been made to tremble, he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he
attains to Nirvana.
All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time fully
awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have
relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.Therefore one should know the
prajnaparamita as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost
spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth - for what
could go wrong? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs
like this:
Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening,
all-hail!