The Prajna Paramita

This posting contains a translation of the Prajna Paramita. This is a prayer I use to meditate and center myself.




Our true self, Translation of The Prajna Paramita: Heart Sutra
By Mel Ash

When practicing fearless self-examination and mindfulness.
Discovers that our beliefs, character defects and diseases are empty and without any true existence.

Our true self,
Understanding this truth,
Reminds our small self through suffering and ego deflation,
That the form these things take is no different from their emptiness and that their emptiness is no different from their form.
Only our minds, which divide experience into this and that make it appear wise.

All things are clear and exist like space;
They are potentials activated only by our minds.
They cannot be created and they cannot be destroyed,
They are not good or evil and they do not increase or decrease.

There is no ignorance to be lost and no knowledge to be gained,
No compulsion and no wholeness,
As well as no end to them until we admit our powerlessness.
There is no path,
No program and no practice to follow.

There is no attainment because there is really nothing to attain.
In our true selves,
There are no obstacles and no fears.
Transcending all dualistic beliefs about small self,
Denial and disease,
One recovers one’s true self as having always been complete and knows there was never really anything to recover.

All is well.

Therefore, you should know the truth of the recovery of true self,
The truth which teaches that there was a truth to be found,
The truth which teaches that there was never a truth to be lost,
The transcendent and mundane truth,
The truth which everything else is denial,
The truth you’ve kept from yourself for so long,
And which you can now admit:

“True self!
I know you know!
Gone, gone, gone to the other share of unity, wholeness and love.
Gone, gone, gone to the other shore beyond the sea of denial and disease.
Awake in the place never left!
Completely recovered and gone from suffering
Completely gone!”