The Heart Sutra | ཤེས་རབ་སྙིང་པོ། ། | Sherab Nyingpo

༄༅། །བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ། །

The Sūtra of the Heart of Transcendent Wisdom by Gyalwang Karmapa

ཤེས་རབ་སྙིང་པོ། ། | The Heart Sūtra or Sherab Nyingpo The Heart Sūtra or Sherap Nyingpo (ཤེས་རབ་སྙིང་པོ་) is one of the most popular Buddhist sūtra and certainly among the most widely used and chanted sutra-s in Tibet. Its full title in Sanskrit is Bhagavatīprajñāpāramitāhṛdaya and in Tibetan བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ which translates as The Heart of the Blessed Perfection of Wisdom. The followers of Mahāyāna Buddhism consider it as sacred literature that falls within the category of the words of the Buddha. Thus, it is placed within the Perfection of Wisdom (ཤེར་ཕྱིན་) section of the Kagyur (བཀའ་འགྱུར་) canon. According to the sūtra itself, the Heart Sūtra was taught by the Buddha while he was on Vulture Peak, Rajagṛha, with his monastic and bodhisattva followers. The Buddha entered a meditative state called Profound Illumination and through his power made Śāriputra query Avalokiteśvara about how a person engages in the practice of Perfection of Wisdom. The main sūtra is constituted of the response that Avalokiteśvara gives Śāriputra, instructing how a son or daughter of a noble family should view everything as empty (སྟོང་པར་རྣམ་པར་བལྟ་བར་བྱ་) including form, sensation, feelings, volitions, consciousness, the six sense faculties, the six sense fields, the six consciousnesses, the twelve links of dependent origination, and the four noble truths. He puts this in the formulaic phrase: form is emptiness, emptiness is form, emptiness is no other than form, and form is no other than emptiness.