The Other Shore: A New Translation of the Heart Sutra with Commentaries

by Thich Nhat Hanh

Emptiness does not mean nothingness. Emptiness means that something is empty of a separate self.

“But you just said that the nose doesn’t exist. So if there is no nose, then what’s hurting?”

All phenomena are products of interdependent co-arising; they do not have a separate self.

Emptiness means only the emptiness of self, not the nonbeing of self, just as when a balloon is empty inside it doesn’t mean that the balloon doesn’t exist.

It is empty of a separate self. But empty of a separate self means full of everything.

The essence of the Heart Sutra lies in the formula: This body itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is this body. If we can understand this phrase, it will not be difficult to understand the rest of the sutra. The word rūpa in Sanskrit is usually translated as “form,” hence: form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Here, rūpa, as one of the five skandhas, specifically refers to the body—and by extension, to living matter. This is why, in this translation, we have replaced the word “form” with “body.”

If the sheet of paper weren’t empty, how could the sunshine, the logger, and the forest come into it? How could it be a sheet of paper? The cup, in order to be empty, has to be there. In the same way, the body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, in order to be empty of a separate self, have to be there.

All phenomena contain the whole universe. Nothing can be by itself alone.

So there is no self, there is no permanent soul, there is nothing unchanging, but there is continuation.

So you are an ever-changing stream, and the river is also an ever-changing stream.

The insight of interbeing is that nothing can exist by itself alone, that each thing exists only in relation to everything else. The insight of impermanence is that nothing is static, nothing stays the same. Interbeing means emptiness of a separate self, however impermanence also means emptiness of a separate self. Looking from the perspective of space we call emptiness “interbeing”; looking from the perspective of time we call it “impermanence.”

No birth and no death; no being and no nonbeing; no coming and no going; no same and no different, are known as the Eight Negations.

“This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not. This is like this, because that is like that.” This is the Buddhist teaching of Genesis.

There is an old proverb that says: Be humble; you are made of dust. Be noble; you are made of stars.

Let us not be afraid of diminishing. It is like the moon. We see the moon waxing and waning, but it is always the moon.

No-self is the absence of an unchanging, enduring self who stands outside of the action.

Aimlessness means not running after things, not putting an object in front of you and continually reaching for it.

The things you’re running after, you already have. The Buddha nature is present in its entirety in the nature of a human being. You do not need to become something, because you already are what you want to become. This is the door of aimlessness that can free us from running.

If you consider something to be the truth, and if you are attached to that, you are caught. Even when the truth itself comes and knocks at your door, you will not open it. The practice of releasing your knowledge is very important in Buddhism. Knowledge is the first obstacle of the mind that a meditator should be able to remove. We should not be too sure of anything.