Heart Sutra
short Mahayana sutra, surviving in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan, expounding the Two Truths doctrine that ultimately all phenomena are sunyata
The Heart Sutra is a popular sutra in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Quotes
edit- Śāriputra,
- form is not different from emptiness,
- and emptiness is not different from form.
- Form itself is emptiness,
- and emptiness itself is form.
- Sensation, conception, synthesis, and discrimination are also such as this.
- Śāriputra,
- all phenomena are empty of characteristics:
- they are neither created nor destroyed,
- neither defiled nor pure,
- and they neither increase nor diminish.
- This is because in emptiness
- there is no form, sensation, conception, synthesis, or discrimination.
- There are no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or thoughts.
- There are no forms, sounds, scents, tastes, sensations, or phenomena.
- There is no field of vision
- and there is no realm of thoughts.
- There is no ignorance nor elimination of ignorance,
- even up to and including no old age and death,
- nor elimination of old age and death.
- There is no suffering,
- its accumulation,
- its elimination,
- or a path.
- There is no understanding
- and no attaining.
- Because there is nothing to attain, bodhisattvas rely on Prajñāpāramitā, and their minds have no obstructions.
- With no obstructions, they have no fears.
- Because they are far removed from backward dream-thinking, their final result is Nirvāna.
See also
edit- Apophatic theology (negative theology)
- Nothingness
- Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite