Observations placeholder
The Heart of Prajñāpāramitā - 'Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, gone together to the other shore.
Identifier
023475
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Prajñāpāramitā means "the Perfection of (Transcendent) Wisdom" in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Prajñāpāramitā refers to this perfected way of seeing the nature of reality, as well as to a particular body of sutras. The word Prajñāpāramitā combines the Sanskrit words prajñā "wisdom" with pāramitā "perfection".
The Prajñāpāramitā Sutras are a collection of about forty texts...composed in India between approximately 100 BC and AD 600. Some Prajñāpāramitā sūtras are thought to be among the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras.
A description of the experience
The Heart of the Prajñāpāramitā - Translated from the Chinese by Nhat Hanh
The bodhisattva Avalokita, while moving in the deep course of the Perfect Wisdom, shed light on the five aggregates and found them equally empty. After this penetration, he overcame all pain.
"Listen, Sariputra, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. The same thing is true with feeling, perception, mental functioning, and consciousness.
"Here, Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are neither produced nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing. Therefore, in emptiness there is neither form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor mental functioning, nor consciousness; no eye, or ear, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind; no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touchable, no object of mind, no realm of elements (from sight to mind-consciousness), no interdependent origins (from ignorance to death and decay), no extinction of death and decay, no suffering, no origination of suffering, no extinction, no path, no wisdom, no attainment.
"Because there is no attainment, the bodhisattva, basing on the Perfection of Wisdom, finds no obstacles for his mind. Having no obstacles, he overcomes fear, liberating himself forever from illusion and assault and realizing perfect Nirvina. All Buddhas in the past, present, and future, thanks to this Perfect Wisdom, arrive to full, right, and universal Enlightenment.
"Therefore one should know that the Perfect Wisdom is a great mantra, is the highest mantra, is the unequalled mantra, the destroyer of all suffering, the incorruptible truth. A mantra of Prajñāpāramitā should therefore be proclaimed. It is this:
'Gone, gone, gone to the other shore, gone together to the other shore.
O Awakening! All hail!' "