Understanding Heart Sutra: Liberating Self From Suffering

A cop caught a woman red-handed with cocaine in the bathroom of a nightclub.

Pleading not guilty, the woman swears by God, “They aren’t mine — I found them lying here, and I even tried to flush them down the toilet. However, every time I flush the bloody drugs down the drain, they just keep reappearing magically in my pockets!”

The cop, obviously in disbelief, tells the woman, “Show me how.”

So the woman tosses the pouch of drugs into the toilet, then flushes it promptly. The pouch swirls down. The cop stares at the woman’s empty pockets as the pouch is eventually flushed.

“Okay, where are the drugs now?”, says the cop with a puzzled face.

“What drugs?”, asked the woman with a surprised tone.

Moral of the story: The Art of Emptiness 🙂

“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form” states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.”

― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Composed of just 14 shlokas, the Heart Sutra (prajnaparamita hridaya) imbibes the very essence of Buddhist philosophy.

The origination of the Heart Sutra is from the dialogue between Sariputra, a leading disciple of the Buddha, and the Bodhisattva (enlightened monk), Avalokiteshvara.

Sariputra desires to learn the practice of prajnaparamita — the transcendental wisdom, to set free from worldly sufferings. To this, Avalokiteshvara emerges from his deep meditation to provide an answer.

Avalokiteshvara, during his discourse of prajnaparamita, perceived all five skandhas(aggregates) as empty, thereby transcending all sufferings afflicted by the skandhas. The five skandhas are:

• Body or Form
• Feelings/Sensations
• Perceptions
• Mental formation
• Consciousness

Then came the most important lesson:

Sariputra, form is not other than emptiness, and emptiness is not other than form.

Now this paradox gets confusing, so let's dig into this further!

First, we should not compare emptiness with nothingness or non-existence. I will tell you, why.

Suppose I have an empty glass; but is the glass truly empty?

From a scientific bent, the answer is no, as it still contains air. Even the so-called vacuum comprises space, light, or radiation.

Hence, the emptiness here means that it is devoid of the real substance, or which it is supposed to contain.

Let’s think of an Orange — the fruit, and see what image naturally comes to your mind.

Based on past knowledge, your mind can map the Orange with its round shape, the orange peel, and the delicious citrus taste.

Now imagine if any of these characteristics get lost or altered — for example, it comes in the shape of a square, or turns blue, or has a chocolate flavor instead. Certainly, you cease to classify it as an Orange.

Similar is the perception of emptiness by the enlightened monk. The nature of this worldly experience is dynamic, fleeting, and in constant flux. A true realization of this idea of emptiness thus saves us from the suffering caused by our egos, our attachments, and our resistance to change and loss.

Deviating from the ‘absolute truth’ and clinging to perceived reality or illusions, is the cause of our suffering. It is like the story of 6 blind men, each describing different parts of an elephant, none of them being completely accurate.

The 5 skandhas; together constitute a human entity. Even having one skandha in isolation accounts for the emptiness of the attribute itself. The Buddhist concept of emptiness is not to be confused with nihilism.

While nihilism is the outright rejection of all beliefs, the emptiness here is simply the lack of an essential attribute. Like, the emptiness of a water well doesn’t imply the non-existence of the well, but rather its insignificance without water.

Dwelling further into the sutra, this emptiness of all forms is not born, destroyed, tainted, or pure, and does not increase or decrease.

In addition, this emptiness is imbibed to the 12 ayatanas(abodes) viz. eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought.

There is no ignorance, no end to ignorance, no aging, no death, and no end to aging and death.

There is no suffering, cause of suffering, cessation, or path.

There is no knowledge or accomplishment.

With nothing to achieve, the ‘enlightened soul’ relying on Prajnaparamita has no impediments in their minds. In the absence of obstacles, there is no fear, no suffering, and departing far from any confusion and illusions, they attain ultimate Nirvana.

Our ego comes the way of hindering our awareness to understand the truth of life. By letting go of our ego and being non-judgmental; we create spaces in our hearts to assimilate the experience. Mindfulness helps us to bridge the gap between truth and illusion.

Avalokiteshvara was practicing this wisdom in a heartfelt, detached manner. His compassion aroused on hearing the question from Sariputra, and he shared this insight from his immediate ‘experiential’ state.

The sutra ends with a powerful message :

gate gate paragate parasmagate bodhi svaha

which roughly translates to “Homage to the awakened soul which has gone over to the other shore.”

The one who has gone beyond is the enlightened individual who sees reality without any biases or mental barriers.

It is the realization of the perfection lying within us.

The other shore is the state of bliss!

Here is the video of this profound sutra along with the English lyrics in the captions: