The English translation of the Heart Sutra

質問：
般若心経を英訳して

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回答：
The Heart Sutra

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing prajna paramita, clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering and distress.

Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness; emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness; emptiness itself is form. So too are feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness.

Shariputra, all dharmas are empty of characteristics. They are not produced, not destroyed, not defiled, not pure, and neither increase nor decrease.

Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition, formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, or dharmas; no field of the eyes up to and including no field of mind consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, and no Way, and no understanding and no attaining.

Because there is nothing to attain, the Bodhisattva relying on prajna paramita has no obstruction in his mind. Because there is no obstruction, he has no fear, and he passes far beyond confused imagination and reaches ultimate nirvana.

All the Buddhas of the past, present, and future, relying on prajna paramita, attain Anuttarasamyaksambodhi and therefore know and reveal the prajna paramita.

This is the mantra of prajna paramita: Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha.

(Gate means gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond. Paragate means gone to the other shore. Parasamgate means gone completely to the other shore. Bodhi Svaha means enlightenment, so be it.)