The Shorter Prajñā­pāramitā H?daya Sūtra

Trans­lated from Taishō Tripi?aka vol­ume 8, num­ber 251

WhenAval­okite?vara Bod­hisattva was prac­tic­ing the pro­foundPrajñā­pāramitā, he il­lu­mi­nated the Five Skand­has and saw that theywere all empty, and crossed over all suf­fer­ing and af­flic­tion.

“?āripu­tra,form is not dif­fer­ent from empti­ness, and empti­ness is notdif­fer­ent from form. Form it­self is empti­ness, and empti­nessit­self is form. Sen­sa­tion, con­cep­tion, syn­the­sis, anddis­crim­i­na­tion are also such as this. ?āripu­tra, all phe­nom­enaare empty: they are nei­ther cre­ated nor de­stroyed, nei­ther de­filednor pure, and they nei­ther in­crease nor di­min­ish. This is be­causein empti­ness there is no form, sen­sa­tion, con­cep­tion, syn­the­sis,or dis­crim­i­na­tion. There are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, orthoughts. There are no forms, sounds, scents, tastes, sen­sa­tions, orphe­nom­ena. There is no field of vi­sion and there is no realm ofthoughts. There is no ig­no­rance nor elim­i­na­tion of ig­no­rance,even up to and in­clud­ing no old age and death, nor elim­i­na­tion ofold age and death. There is no suf­fer­ing, its ac­cu­mu­la­tion, itselim­i­na­tion, or a path. There is no un­der­stand­ing and noat­tain­ing.

“Be­cause there is no at­tain­ment, bod­hisattvasrely on Prajñā­pāramitā, and their minds have no ob­struc­tions. Sincethere are no ob­struc­tions, they have no fears. Be­cause they arede­tached from back­wards dream-think­ing, their final re­sult isNirvā?a. Be­cause all bud­dhas of the past, pre­sent, and fu­ture relyon Prajñā­pāramitā, they at­tain Anut­tarā Samyaksa?bodhi. There­fore,know that Prajñā­pāramitā is a great spir­i­tual mantra, a greatbril­liant mantra, an un­sur­passed mantra, and an un­equalled mantra.The Prajñā­pāramitā Mantra is spo­ken be­cause it can truly re­move allaf­flic­tions. The mantra is spo­ken thusly: