Prajnaparamita Mantra Benefits – Heart Sutra Mantra

Heart Sutra mantra lyrics in Sanskrit:

Gate gate paragate parasamgate. Bodhi! Svaha!

Prajnaparamita mantra translation:

Gone, gone, gone over, gone fully over. Awakened! So be it!

Translation in English, according to Edward Conze:

Gone gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all hail!

Prajnaparamita means “the Perfection of (Transcendent) Wisdom” in Mahayana Buddhism. The word Prajnaparamita combines the Sanskrit words prajna “wisdom” with paramita “perfection”.

Prajnaparamita is a central concept in Mahayana Buddhism and its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva path. The practice of prajnaparamita is elucidated and described in the genre of the Prajnaparamita sutras, which vary widely in length and exhaustiveness.

The Prajnaparamita sutras suggest that all things including oneself, appear as thought-forms (conceptual constructs). Some Prajnaparamita sutras are thought to be among the earliest Mahayana sutras.

This mantra is also the great bright mantra. Because it is great brightness, the store of light of the Thus Come One, this great bright mantra illumines and destroys all darkness. If you recite the Heart Sutra, you illumine and destroy your darkness, ignorance, and affliction of life after life in limitless previous kalpas.

Illumining and destroying your own affliction and ignorance is talking about the internal direction.  If you wish to speak of the external direction, when you recite this great mantra, you are able to emit light, which illumines the great trichiliocosm.

The Heart Sutra full transcript:

“When Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara practiced the deep Prajnaparamita, he saw that the five skandhas were empty; thus he overcame all ills and suffering.

“O Sariputra! Form does not differ from the void, and the void does not differ from the form. Form is the void, and the void is form. The same is true for feelings, conceptions, impulses and consciousness.

O Sariputra, the characteristics of the void is not created, not annihilated, not impure, not pure, not increasing, not decreasing.

Therefore, in the void there are no forms and no feelings, conceptions, impulses and no consciousness: there is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind; there is no form, sound, smell, taste, touch or idea; no eye elements, until we come to no elements of consciousness; no ignorance and also no ending of ignorance, until we come to no old age and death; and no ending of old age and death.

Also, there is no truth of suffering, of the cause of suffering, of the cessation of suffering or of the path. There is no wisdom, and there is no attainment whatsoever. Because there is nothing to be attained, a Bodhisattva relying on Prajnaparamita has no obstruction in his heart. Because there is no obstruction he has no fear, and he passes far beyond all confused imagination and reaches Ultimate Nirvana.

All Buddhas in the past, present, and future have attained Supreme Enlightenment by relying on the Prajnaparamita. Therefore we know that the Prajnaparamita is the great magic Mantra, the great Mantra of illumination, it is the supreme Mantra, the unequaled Mantra which can truly wipe out all suffering without fail.”

Therefore, he uttered the Prajnaparamita mantra, by saying:

“Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasemgate Bodhi-svaha!”

All Buddhas, ten directions, three times
All beings, Bodhisattva Mahasattvas
Wisdom beyond wisdom, Mahaprajna Paramita”

More healing mantras are available to watch on insightstate, like: Green Tara, Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum Mantra, or Mul mantra.