The Heart Sutra is short. I read somewhere once that it is the shortest of all Buddhist sutras, or recorded teachings. It is shorter than this blog post (and not just because I’m appending it to the end!) So what is a sutra? In this case, spiritual advice strung together. According to sanskritdictionary.com, sutra (सूत्र) is a Sanskrit word that means “string,” which is a cousin of the Latin word sutura (sewing together), which is an ancestor to the English word “suture”. What are paragraphs and books but organized strings of ideas in the form of sentences? What is a sentence but a string of words? These strings are magic. You’re looking at strings I have written, which have entered your eyes as patterns of light and darkness, converted to electrochemical signals in the backs of your eyes that travel to a lump of fat and gelatinous tissue in your skull and, after transforming via a whole bunch of other pulleys and levers inside that black box, become ideas that you hear, that filter through perception, impressions, discernment, and other vestiges of lived experience to recombine and emerge as feelings and impressions. Reading is a way to hear someone else’s thoughts across time and space. Wild! That Rube Goldberg machine is one of the subjects of the Heart Sutra.

As amazing as the transmission and exchange of ideas is, ideas are both limited and limiting compared to the person/place/thing/phenomenon/experience (aka Thing) itself. They are a low res reflection of a fragment of a Thing, even when we generate them ourselves about a Thing that we are in the presence of right now. Ideas transmitted to others through language are the same, but taken out of the context of that person’s lived experience and shoehorned into the recipient’s. It’s pretty amazing that we can understand anything about another’s experiences! Our flattened, low res ideas about Things can be alluring, though. Working with the idea of a Thing can feel easier or less exhausting, or at least faster, than working with the Thing itself. The Heart Sutra addresses this: wisdom is accepting whatever you encounter as it is, and compassion comes from this wisdom. Your idea of what a thing (person, circumstance, experience, object, etc.) is different than what the thing actually is. Clinging to that idea of a thing is a cause of a lot of suffering for yourself and others. When you let go of your idea of a thing, let the thing show you itself, and accept that, warts and all, you’ll see how things relate to each other and be able to move forward. This sort of acceptance is something to practice, even for Avalokitesvara herself! So, if you think you’ve got it all figured out, keep practicing, Bub. Also, don’t beat yourself up if you catch yourself stuck on your ideas. Being human is hard. Just keep practicing.

A lot of smart people and diligent practitioners have written about the Heart Sutra. I haven’t read all, or even most of the available writings. Contemplating its lessons through reflecting and writing about situations in my life has helped me to face things, meet them, and choose paths of less harm more often. So, I’m putting these out here in case something I write helps you to reflect on your own experiences. Although it is brief, the individual ideas strung together in The Heart Sutra are threads of their own. This is another key lesson: every Thing comes from other Things. Over the years, I’ve followed many of these threads. One thing I’ll do in this series is to elaborate on these. Understanding these characters and concepts may help the meaning to shine through brighter for you.

Here is an English translation of The Heart Sutra from the Kwan Um School of Zen Online Chant Book. The Indianapolis Zen Center is affiliated with the Kwan Um School.

The Maha Prajna Paramita Hrdaya Sutra 

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva 

when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita 

perceives that all five skandhas are empty 

and is saved from all suffering and distress. 

Shariputra, 

form does not differ from emptiness, 

emptiness does not differ from form. 

That which is form is emptiness, 

that which is emptiness form. 

The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. 

Shariputra, 

all dharmas are marked with emptiness; 

they do not appear or disappear, 

are not tainted or pure, 

do not increase or decrease. 

Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. 

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; 

no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; 

no realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness. 

No ignorance and also no extinction of it, 

and so forth until no old age and death and also no extinction of them. 

No suffering, no origination, 

no stopping, no path, no cognition, 

also no attainment with nothing to attain. 

The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita 

and the mind is no hindrance; 

without any hindrance no fears exist. 

Far apart from every perverted view one dwells in Nirvana. 

In the three worlds 

all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita 

and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi. 

Therefore, know that Prajna Paramita 

is the great transcendent mantra 

is the great bright mantra, 

is the utmost mantra, 

is the supreme mantra,

which is able to relieve all suffering 

and is true, not false. 

So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra, proclaim the mantra which says: 

gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha! 

gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha! 

gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha!