The Heart Sutra - Koei's Translation

The Great Perfection of Wisdom Heart Sutra Spoken by the Buddha

The Bodhisattva All-seeing Lord

Going deeply in Perfect Wisdom

With perception piercing to the core 

Saw the Five Heaps as nothing more 

Than emptiness, and crossed away

Beyond all suffering and dismay. 

To Shariputra he spoke thus:

Form is no different from emptiness,

And emptiness, no different from form.

Form is exactly emptiness, 

Emptiness is exactly form. 

The same is true for the other four heaps,

Sensation, perception, formations, and mind.

Emptiness, oh Shari's Son,

Is the nature of every phenomenon:

Unborn and undying, not stained, not clean,

Not increasing at all, nor diminishing.

In emptiness, thus, no form or sensation,

No perceptions, formations or mind's ideation,

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, 

No body, no mind, no object to see,

Or hear, or smell, or taste, or feel,

No realm of sight, and all the rest,

To even no realm of consciousness.

No delusions, nor any exhaustion of them,

No aging or death, nor a hint of their end,

No suffering, its causes, nor its fading away,

No path to practice, nor wisdom to gain,

No attainment at all, and naught to attain.

The bodhisattvas, placing their faith 

In Perfect Wisdom's great embrace, 

Unsnare their minds, and doing so

Are free from fear wherever they go.

Far removed from all confusion 

They dwell in Nirvana, suffering's conclusion. 

The Three Worlds' myriad Enlightened Ones 

Depending on this, the Perfect Wisdom,

Awaken entirely, irrevocably,

and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.

Thus know that this Perfection of Wisdom

Is the transcendent incantation.

It illuminates all, is surpassed by none,

Can strip away suffering without exception.

It is true and not false, and so I proclaim

Wisdom's Perfection beyond mere word and name:

Gate gate pāragate 

Pārasamgate bodhi svahā

Gone, gone, gone beyond,

Perfectly gone - Bodhi, Svaha

The Perfection of Wisdom Heart Sutra

This translation is for pilgrims, and is an attempt to balance accuracy of meaning with chantability and ease of memorization. It should be used in consultation with rigorous scholarly translations to get a full picture of the sutra's meaning and scope. This version may be shared and printed freely, but please include a link to this blog so people know who to email when they see an improvement that could be made.

May these merits be shared by all beings everywhere so that we all attain swift awakening together.