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The Heart Sutra

般若波羅蜜多心經

The Heart Sutra is the shortest and most widely chanted Buddhist scripture in East Asia. The Chinese version used here was translated by the monk Xuanzang in 649 CE and is exactly 260 characters long. It is chanted daily in temples across China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

What it says

The sutra is a short teaching given by Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) to the disciple Shariputra. Its central claim is that everything we take to be solid, including body, feelings, thoughts and the self, is “empty”: nothing exists on its own, apart from everything else.

This is not meant as bleak. The text says that a mind which stops clinging to fixed things is “without hindrance”, and a mind without hindrance has no fear. That line is why many people chant it when they are anxious.

It ends with a mantra in Sanskrit, kept untranslated in the Chinese: gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha, roughly “gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, awakening, so be it.”

How to chant it

Traditionally the sutra is chanted aloud at a steady pace, one syllable to each beat of the wooden fish. In the hall you can strike the wooden fish and follow it one phrase at a time.

Chant it in the hall

Full text, phrase by phrase

  1. 觀自在菩薩Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva who hears the world,
  2. 行深般若波羅蜜多時while practising the deep perfection of wisdom,
  3. 照見五蘊皆空saw clearly that the five aggregates are all empty,
  4. 度一切苦厄and crossed beyond all suffering.
  5. 舍利子Shariputra,
  6. 色不異空form is not other than emptiness,
  7. 空不異色emptiness is not other than form.
  8. 色即是空Form is emptiness,
  9. 空即是色emptiness is form.
  10. 受想行識Feeling, perception, intention and consciousness
  11. 亦復如是are also like this.
  12. 舍利子Shariputra,
  13. 是諸法空相all things bear the mark of emptiness:
  14. 不生不滅they do not arise or cease,
  15. 不垢不淨are not stained or pure,
  16. 不增不減do not grow or diminish.
  17. 是故空中無色So in emptiness there is no form,
  18. 無受想行識no feeling, perception, intention or consciousness;
  19. 無眼耳鼻舌身意no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind;
  20. 無色聲香味觸法no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought;
  21. 無眼界no realm of seeing,
  22. 乃至無意識界and so on to no realm of mind-consciousness;
  23. 無無明no ignorance,
  24. 亦無無明盡and no end of ignorance;
  25. 乃至無老死and so on to no old age and death,
  26. 亦無老死盡and no end of old age and death;
  27. 無苦集滅道no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path;
  28. 無智亦無得no wisdom and nothing to attain.
  29. 以無所得故Because there is nothing to attain,
  30. 菩提薩埵the bodhisattva
  31. 依般若波羅蜜多故relies on the perfection of wisdom,
  32. 心無罣礙and the mind is without hindrance.
  33. 無罣礙故Without hindrance,
  34. 無有恐怖there is no fear;
  35. 遠離顛倒夢想far beyond confused and dreamlike thinking,
  36. 究竟涅槃nirvana is reached.
  37. 三世諸佛All Buddhas of past, present and future
  38. 依般若波羅蜜多故rely on the perfection of wisdom
  39. 得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提and awaken fully and completely.
  40. 故知般若波羅蜜多Know, then, that the perfection of wisdom
  41. 是大神咒is the great sacred mantra,
  42. 是大明咒the mantra of great clarity,
  43. 是無上咒the unsurpassed mantra,
  44. 是無等等咒the mantra beyond compare.
  45. 能除一切苦It can remove all suffering;
  46. 真實不虛it is true and not false.
  47. 故說般若波羅蜜多咒So the mantra of the perfection of wisdom is spoken.
  48. 即說咒曰It goes:
  49. 揭諦揭諦Gate, gate,
  50. 波羅揭諦paragate,
  51. 波羅僧揭諦parasamgate,
  52. 菩提薩婆訶bodhi svaha.

English translation by Pocket Temple.