The Heart Sutra 心經

Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya · Xuanzang's Chinese text (649 CE)

中文

觀自在菩薩，行深般若波羅蜜多時，照見五蘊皆空，度一切苦厄。舍利子，色不異空，空不異色，色即是空，空即是色，受想行識，亦復如是。舍利子，是諸法空相，不生不滅，不垢不淨，不增不減。是故空中無色，無受想行識，無眼耳鼻舌身意，無色聲香味觸法，無眼界，乃至無意識界，無無明，亦無無明盡，乃至無老死，亦無老死盡。無苦集滅道，無智亦無得。以無所得故，菩提薩埵，依般若波羅蜜多故，心無罣礙，無罣礙故，無有恐怖，遠離顛倒夢想，究竟涅槃。三世諸佛，依般若波羅蜜多故，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。故知般若波羅蜜多，是大神咒，是大明咒，是無上咒，是無等等咒，能除一切苦，真實不虛。故說般若波羅蜜多咒，即說咒曰：揭諦揭諦，波羅揭諦，波羅僧揭諦，菩提薩婆訶。

English

Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva who sees freely, practising deeply the perfection of wisdom, saw clearly that all five aggregates are empty, and crossed beyond all suffering and distress.

Shariputra, form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form. Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness is exactly form. Feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness are also like this.

Shariputra, all things are marked by emptiness: not born, not destroyed, not stained, not pure, not increasing, not decreasing.

Therefore in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, perception, formations or consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind; no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or object of mind; no realm of the eye, and so on up to no realm of mind-consciousness.

There is no ignorance and no ending of ignorance, and so on up to no old age and death and no ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path; no wisdom and no attaining.

Because there is nothing to attain, the bodhisattva relies on the perfection of wisdom, and the mind has no hindrance. With no hindrance there is no fear. Far beyond upside-down dream-thinking, they reach complete nirvana.

All buddhas of past, present and future rely on the perfection of wisdom and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect awakening.

So know that the perfection of wisdom is the great spirit mantra, the great bright mantra, the unsurpassed mantra, the unequalled mantra. It removes all suffering. It is true, not false.

So speak the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra that says:

Gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā. (Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond: awakening, so be it!)

This English rendering was made for this site and is released to the public domain (CC0). The Chinese text is public domain.

About this sutra

The Heart Sutra is chanted every day at the Shaolin Temple, in Zen halls in Japan and Korea, in Tibetan monasteries and in Vietnamese temples. It is the most chanted text in Mahayana Buddhism. In a few lines, Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion) teaches Shariputra that all things are empty (shunyata) of fixed self-nature, and that this emptiness is not a void but freedom. "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form."