The Heart Sutra

Art available at Mandalas.com

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, while meditating saw that  human existence is inherently empty*, at that moment he was released from suffering. He share his experience  by saying:

Form is emptiness,
emptiness is  form.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

Emptiness, has no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.

There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

This is truth that cannot be doubted.

Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!

The Dalai Lama translates this as:
go,
go,
go beyond,
go thoroughly beyond,
and establish yourself in enlightenment.

* Emptiness is the usual translation for the Buddhist term Sunyata. It refers to the fact that no thing — including human existence — is permanent and no thing is totally independent of everything else. In other words, everything in this world is interconnected and in constant flux. A deep appreciation of this idea of emptiness thus saves us from the suffering caused by our egos, our attachments, and our resistance to change and loss.

[This is an interpretation based on the work of others. I accept responsibility for any errors.]

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