般若心經 般若波羅蜜多心經 · 全經白話（通讀）

Two hundred sixty characters — across a thousand years the most recited of all sūtras in the Chinese tradition. It is this short because it was condensed to begin with: the most solid, most essential heart of the vast Mahā-prajñāpāramitā (般若), drawn out and made into a single sūtra. So 「心」 (hṛdaya) is not the "heart" of psychology, but the heart as core, as pivotal essence: to read it is to read the very heart of the whole of Prajñā.

It opens with no pleasantries; head-on, a bodhisattva sees that 「五蘊皆空」 ("the five aggregates are all empty") and right then crosses beyond all suffering and calamity. Then it does a thing that seems self-contradicting: the five aggregates, the eighteen elements, the twelvefold dependent origination, the Four Noble Truths, and even "wisdom" and "attainment" — one by one it "no's" them all away, on and on until nothing at all is attained.

Yet right there, at the dead end of this "nothing attained," the deepest secret of the whole sūtra is turned out: let go until you grasp at nothing whatever, and what is gained turns out to be a heart with no snag, with no fear, in final nirvāṇa — and even the supreme awakening of the buddhas of all three times.

Emptiness, it turns out, is not telling you to negate this world; it is telling you to see through that layer of "substantial existence" pressing down on top of it — the world is still here, and the heart is already sovereign and free.

So push open this gate, beginning with the three words "Avalokiteśvara."

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。

There was a bodhisattva named Avalokiteśvara. When he was coursing deeply in that great wisdom which can carry one across to the far shore, he saw — clearly and plainly — that the five things which make up body and mind (form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness) are, every one of them, empty; and just so, he crossed beyond all suffering and calamity.

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。

Śāriputra! The visible, tangible form that we see and touch, and that emptiness, are not two separate things — form does not stand outside emptiness, nor does emptiness stand outside form; what is more, this form right here is itself emptiness, and this emptiness right here is itself form. And the other four — feeling, perception, formations, consciousness — are every one of them just the same as form.

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。

Śāriputra! As for that "emptiness" which is the true mark of all these dharmas, it is like this: it has never arisen and never ceased, it has never been defiled and never been purified, it never increases and never decreases. And therefore, within this true mark of emptiness: there is no substantial form, and no substantial feeling, perception, formations, or consciousness; there are none of the six faculties — no substantial eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind; there are none of the six objects — no substantial form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or mental object; from the eye-element all the way to the mind-consciousness-element, not one of the eighteen elements is substantial; there is no substantial ignorance and no substantial ending of ignorance, and so on down to no substantial aging-and-death and no substantial ending of aging-and-death; there are none of the Four Truths — no substantial suffering, origin, cessation, or path; and even the cognition that realizes and the fruit that is gained — these too are not substantial, not anything that can be gained.

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。

It is precisely because one arrives at this point of nothing-being-gained — the bodhisattvas, relying on this prajñā wisdom, have in their hearts no more snag and no more hindrance of any kind; and because there is no snag, there is therefore no fear, and they leave far behind every upside-down notion and illusory dream, and reach, all the way through, that cool stillness of final extinction. And the buddhas of all three times — past, present, and future — also rely on this very prajñā wisdom, and so they realize that supreme, right, and even and complete awakening.

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：

So one should know: this prajñā-pāramitā is the mantra of great spiritual power, the mantra of great radiance, the supreme mantra, the mantra beyond all equal — it can remove all suffering; it is true and not empty. Therefore the mantra of this prajñā-pāramitā is proclaimed. And forthwith the mantra is spoken:

揭帝　揭帝　般羅揭帝　般羅僧揭帝　菩提　莎婆訶。

揭帝　揭帝　般羅揭帝　般羅僧揭帝　菩提　莎婆訶 (gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā).

(From of old the mantra has mostly been kept in its Sanskrit sound for recitation; here the ancient masters either keep the Sanskrit sound untranslated, or render it as "Go, go, go over to the far shore, everyone together go over to the far shore, awakening, perfect accomplishment" — all of this is what the ancient masters have transmitted, and the reciter follows along.)

A Sūtra "Condensed Down to Nothing but Its Heart"

The Heart Sūtra (Prajñā-pāramitā-hṛdaya-sūtra) is only two hundred sixty characters, and it is the most recited of all sūtras in the Chinese tradition. It is this short because it was condensed to begin with — the ancient masters say that the Mahā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra is vast in its many fascicles, and, fearing that readers might lose heart at the size of it, the most solid and most essential purport within it was drawn out and made into this separate sūtra. The word 「心」 ("heart") means exactly this: not the "heart" of psychology, but the heart as core, as pivotal essence. So to read the Heart Sūtra is to read the very heart of the whole of Prajñā.

And precisely because it is a distillation of essentials, it has neither the "opening section" (序分, 「如是我聞…」, "Thus have I heard…") nor the "circulation section" (流通分, 「信受奉行…」, "received it in faith and put it into practice…") that ordinary sūtras carry. The three houses of ancient masters — Kuiji, Woncheuk, Fazang — all judge it so. It opens its mouth straight onto the main matter, clean and direct.

One Path, from "the Cognition that Observes" to "the Fruit Attained"

Do not be misled by its brevity: it is a complete path. Following Woncheuk's textual division, the whole sūtra falls into three divisions and nine sections:

First, it establishes the cognition that observes (the first division). Avalokiteśvara the bodhisattva (who is observing) → coursing in the deep prajñā (what one observes with: the deep cognition that is nondiscriminating, nirvikalpa) → seeing the five aggregates as all empty (what is seen: the emptiness of body and mind) → crossing beyond all suffering (the result of the observing: deliverance from suffering). Four lines, sweeping in one breath through how a practitioner takes up prajñā, illumines and breaks through the grasping at the substantial, and escapes the sea of suffering.

Next, it speaks of the object observed (the second division). Then it slows down and tells in detail what that "emptiness" actually is: 「色不異空」, 「色即是空」 ("form is not different from emptiness," "form itself is emptiness" — emptiness does not cancel form away) → 「是諸法空相，不生不滅」 ("these dharmas have the mark of emptiness, neither arising nor ceasing" — even arising and ceasing, defilement and purity, find no footing on it) → a string of "no's" that negate, one gate at a time, the five aggregates, the twelve sense-fields, the eighteen elements, the twelvefold dependent origination, the Four Truths, and at last even "cognition" and "attainment."

Finally, it discloses the fruit attained (the third division). At the last it draws everything to a close: 「以無所得故」 ("because nothing is attained" — releasing the very last hand's grip) → 「心無罣礙」, 「究竟涅槃」 ("the heart with no snag and no hindrance," "final nirvāṇa" — the bodhisattva's fruit) → the buddhas of all three times realizing supreme awakening (the buddhas' fruit) → a single mantra (compressing the whole sūtra into one utterance and sending you off down the road).

To let go down to nothing-being-gained, and yet what is gained is great sovereign freedom and a thoroughgoing awakening — this is the very thing the Heart Sūtra means to tell you.

Why Read Through the Mirror of "Yogācāra"

This book's exposition layer reads the Heart Sūtra through the mirror of Yogācāra. This needs explaining, lest it be misunderstood.

Prajñā speaks of "emptiness"; Yogācāra speaks of "the three natures (trisvabhāva), the three non-natures (niḥsvabhāvatā), the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti)" — seemingly two houses, yet what they illumine is one and the same reality. The Heart Sūtra's single line 「色即是空」 ("form itself is emptiness"), put into the words of Yogācāra, becomes "negate the wholly-imagined nature (parikalpita), keep the other-dependent (paratantra) and the perfectly-accomplished (pariniṣpanna)" — what is emptied is the "substantial existence" you yourself force onto things, not a wiping away of the world that arises through conditions. Read this way, "emptiness" cannot be misheard as annihilation; it is rather a coolness in which the grasping at the substantial is seen through while the world stays vividly alive.

And this mirror was ground by the ancient masters, not contrived by people of today. The two finest Heart Sūtra commentaries in the Chinese tradition — Kuiji's 《幽贊》 and Woncheuk's 《贊》 — are themselves readings through Yogācāra (Woncheuk even cites the two houses of Dharmapāla and Bhāviveka discussing emptiness and existence). So in reading the Heart Sūtra through Yogācāra, there is, underfoot, the ground of the ancient masters' treatise-roots.

But one line must be kept in mind: the mirror is not the sūtra. Yogācāra is one mirror in which to read the Heart Sūtra, not the source of the Heart Sūtra; Prajñā is the sūtra, Yogācāra is the mirror. We use the mirror to illumine the sūtra so as to see the sūtra more clearly — not to let the mirror usurp the sūtra, and not to rewrite the Heart Sūtra into a Yogācāra treatise. Once the seeing is done, the mirror can be set down.

How to Read This Book: Five Layers

For each segment this book provides five layers, from shallow to deep, each to take what it needs:

• Source (原典): Xuanzang's word-for-word sūtra text, with not a character altered.
• Vernacular (白話): the classical Chinese said in today's language, faithful and readable, adding no doctrine.
• Exposition (義疏): through the mirror of Yogācāra, led by one live question, bringing this segment to life — this is for those willing to go deep.
• Apparatus (考據): collation across six Chinese translations, word-for-word citation of the ancient masters, terminology and Sanskrit sound — this is for scholars and collators.
• Essence (心要): one landing-piece of short prose, a held suspense plus one question, for those who only want a first taste.

You may read the vernacular alone, or read all the way through to the apparatus; you may enter through the essence, or take up the source text and chew on it carefully against the exposition. The road has its broad stretches and its narrow ones, the gates their depths and their shallows — as you please.

So push open this gate, beginning with the three words "Avalokiteśvara."