The Heart Sutra is the highest Sutra, the ultimate Sutra, the perfect Sutra. The Heart Sutra represents the state of Gautama Buddha, the state of complete and unsurpassed enlightenment, the ultimate achievement which is also the ultimate non-achievement. It represents the perfection of wisdom.

Most everyone on the spiritual path who think they understand, cite or comment on the Heart Sutra, do not, in reality, understand the Heart Sutra. If you completely understand the Heart Sutra, there is nowhere left to go, you are the ultimate Buddha. It is true that the intellectual understanding always comes first, so even if you authentically understand the Heart Sutra, there may still be some unfolding left for you. That is normal, that is expected. But unfortunately, most people who think they understand the Heart Sutra, do not really understand it. If you feel or intuit that there’s “more learning” to do for you, or “it’s an infinite path”, and at the same time think you understand the Heart Sutra, you do not actually understand it. The Heart Sutra is about the Absolute. There’s nothing beyond the Absolute, that’s why it’s called the Absolute, hehehe.

I have read somewhere that “the Heart Sutra” was actually an inexact translation, that the more appropriate translation would be “the Mind Sutra”. I don’t know if it’s true, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The Heart Sutra isn’t about the heart, the issues of the heart have actually already been dealt with, for the most part, before one even begins to properly understand the Heart Sutra, it is about the mind, or, to be more precise, the absence thereof (not the presence thereof).

The Heart Sutra is long, uses outdated, esoteric language, is hard not to loose in meaning when translated into English, and I’m pretty sure even the original lost a lot of meaning or nuance as the modern Chinese evolved. There’s a vast number of commentary on the Heart Sutra, and I absolutely wasn’t able to dig into what every word means exactly, because when you really understand the Heart Sutra, words just doesn’t matter anymore. None of them. At all. When you truly understand the Heart Sutra, experientially, every spiritual term in it has about as much significance to you as a fart in the wind. Which is to say, zero. That’s the paradox.

So, most of the commentary on the Heart Sutra is absolutely, without doubt, an egoic commentary on it, it’s the interpretation of the Heart Sutra by the ego. I am sorry, but it’s true.

I am not a Buddhist, I did not study Buddhism, I don’t know Chinese and I don’t like nuance, so I do not understand all the nuances of the cultural commentary on the Heart Sutra, especially since the goal of enlightenment is to remove all the cultural commentary from your mind.

But I understand Gautama. I understand him better than most everyone else did, except maybe Osho. These men were giants, true giants of equality, true giants of love, true champions of freedom. If you cannot love them, you cannot love me, and there’s something wrong with you, you’re in a state of dis-ease, in a state of constant stress. What passes for enlightenment nowadays is, frankly speaking, pathetic to me. You guys are doing alright, but please, less arrogance! You are flying so high above us all in your Nirvana, hahaha. Do I sound distasteful to you? Good.

So to bring myself to provide a commentary on the Heart Sutra was not an easy task, for it is the highest honor, the ultimate honor, and I didn’t touch it even as I was writing a storm about pretty much everything else. Well, it’s either that or I was just lazy and it didn’t cross my mind hahaha.

I am usually very direct. And I will be direct with regards to Heart Sutra, also. The Heart Sutra basically says a few most central, very important things:

1. “the form is emptiness and emptiness is form”. There is also a much more proper translation, but of course, it is also much less frequently used one, because ego doesn’t like direct, it really wants to stay ambiguous. Nevertheless, I have seen it once: “the body is emptiness and emptiness is the body”.

What does it mean for you? Simple:

If you identify with awareness, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

if you understand emptiness as the central quality of awareness, as in “a deep void within me”, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

if you feel like “I am everything/the universe”, “I am not the body”, or “there is no body” you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

That’s all you need to know.

2. “Consciousness and its formations, being and non-being are not separate from self”

The Heart Sutra doesn’t say that there is no self. Quite the opposite, it says that everything belongs to the self. Your consciousness, your senses, your being (your life), and your non-being (your death). All of that is for you, all of that is for you to enjoy, from start to finish. And that includes all your emotions, also, and all your fear. The only one who protests it all is ego. So:

if you think the Self is consciousness or awareness, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

if you think that “non-being” means “non-being of ego”, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

if your primary identity is Being, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

similarly, if you feel you are infinite, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra, Being is infinite, Being is not self, it is non-separate from self

If you feel like there’s no free will, and things just happen, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

If you think you will be reincarnated or have any sort of a spiritual experience during/after death, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra.

3. “Ill-being, causes of ill-being, the end of ill-being, insight and attainment, are also not separate from self”

This basically means that there were no path, no bondage, no insight and no attainment. They are all not separate from self, meaning that you literally made it all up and played it out, just for show, for your perverse enjoyment. You made up your bondage, you made up your attainment, but the reality is, you have always known all of this, always. You always knew. You just didn’t want to admit it and pretended that you didn’t. In other words, it was all just a big game with yourself. Consequently:

if you feel like you have attained some state of consciousness, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra

if you feel like you’re on a spiritual path in any way, if you’re healing, de-conditioning yourself etc., you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra, but please, keep going, you’re doing a great job!

if you feel like you are developing insight or understanding, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra

if you feel like you are more self-aware, wiser or freer than other people, you don’t yet understand the Heart Sutra

4. and then it says: “whoever understands it, no longer needs anything to attain”

It means “finita la comedia”. Game over. The spiritual quest is complete. Absolutely complete, in its totality. Now live!

Those are the most important things you need to know about the Heart Sutra. I was trying to be succinct and brief, I don’t like Osho’s exploratory style of commentary, simply because, in my experience, absolutely nothing will make you understand something on this path, which you do not yet understand experientially. But it is very easy to imagine that you do. I did not properly understand the Heart Sutra pretty much until the very end. This is why it’s the highest Sutra, after all, that’s the very reason for it. I thought I understood it at times, but I only imagined I did, because my earlier interpretations were all proven incorrect much later. So I’m trying to give you the minimum you need to know. All attempts at understanding something on the intellectual level, not on the experiential level, are generally counter-productive.

I will try to summarize my endless blabbering this way:

The Heart Sutra basically says that in complete enlightenment, there is no body, no ego, no consciousness, no being, no non-being, no insight and no attainment. And at the same time, it says that there is body, ego, consciousness, being, non-being, insight and attainment. It transcends the difference between being and non-being, body and bodilessness, death and deathlessness, fear and fearlessness, ego and egolessness, and with that, it ultimately transcends the difference between Nirvana and Samsara, attainment and non-attainment, enlightenment and ignorance. It renders all the prior Sutras void, rejects all of Buddhism, and greatly clarifies the true meaning of non-abiding Nirvana, the supreme Nirvana of a Tathagata.

Only when you are completely, utterly, absolutely ordinary again and do not differ from other people at all, when there’s nothing spiritual about you, not a shred of mysticism or enlightenment, when none of it is left, then and only then you will understand the Heart Sutra.