Prajña-pâramitâ-hridaya (Heart Sutra) · 1 of 1 · tr. F. Max Müller
Section 1
THE SMALLER PRA GÑ Â-PÂRAMITÂ- H RI DAYA-SÛTRA. ADORATION TO THE OMNISCIENT! The venerable Bodhisattva Avalokite s vara, performing his study in the deep Pra gñ âpâramitâ (perfection of wisdom), thought thus: 'There are the five Skandhas, and these he considered as by their nature empty (phenomenal).' 'O S âriputra,' he said, 'form here is emptiness, and emptiness indeed is form. Emptiness is not different from form, form is not different from emptiness. What is form that is emptiness, what is emptiness that is form.' 'The same applies to perception, name, conception, and knowledge.' 'Here, O S âriputra, all things have the character of emptiness, they have no beginning, no end, they are faultless and not faultless, they are not imperfect and not perfect. Therefore, O S âriputra, in this emptiness there is no form, no perception, no name, no concepts, no knowledge. No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No form, sound, smell, taste, touch, objects.' 'There is no eye,' &c., till we come to 'there is no mind.' (What is left out here are the eighteen Dhâtus or aggregates, viz. eye, form, vision; ear, sound, hearing; nose, odour, smelling; tongue, flavour, tasting; body, touch, feeling; mind, objects, thought.) 'There is no knowledge, no ignorance, no destruction of knowledge, no destruction of ignorance,' &c., till we come to 'there is no decay and death, no destruction of decay and death; there are not (the four truths, viz. that there) is pain, origin of pain, stoppage of pain, and the path to it. There is no knowledge, no obtaining (of Nirvâ n a).' 'A man who has approached the Pra gñ âpâramitâ of the Bodhisattva dwells enveloped in consciousness. But when the envelopment of consciousness has been annihilated, then he becomes free of all fear, beyond the reach of change, enjoying final Nirvâ n a.' 'All Buddhas of the past, present, and future, after approaching the Pra gñ âpâramitâ, have awoke to the highest perfect knowledge.' 'Therefore one ought to know the great verse of the Pra gñ âpâramitâ, the verse of the great wisdom, the unsurpassed verse, the peerless verse, which appeases all pain--it is truth, because it is not false-the verse proclaimed in the Pra gñ âpâramitâ: "O wisdom, gone, gone, gone to the other shore. landed at the other shore, Svâhâ!"' Thus ends the heart of the Pra gñ âpâramitâ. [1. See Childers, s.v. k ittam.]
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The practice involves annihilating the envelopment of consciousness to achieve freedom from fear and attachment.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The text describes the annihilation of the envelopment of consciousness as a key step toward liberation.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The passage begins with the Bodhisattva performing his study in the deep Prajña-pâramitâ.
Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).
The text describes a state of being free of all fear and beyond the reach of change, aligning with the concept of emptiness.
The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.
The passage centrally defines all phenomena as 'empty' and discusses the non-duality of form and emptiness.