MA-KA HAN-NYA-HA-RA-MI-TA SHIN GYO

My brother began the ceremony by shouting and chanting the Heart Sutra. The latter expresses the Mahayana Buddhist philosophy that all "forms," including our thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values and very selves, are "empty," meaning in part that our ordinary attitude toward these things as being fundamentally real is rooted in a delusion -- one that powers all human suffering. Enlightenment is the experience of "going beyond."

The first line is the full title of the Sutra itself: "Great Perfection of Wisdom Heart Sutra."

I have annotated the photos that follow with some (not all!) additional lines from this text.

SHIKI FU I KU KU FU I SHIKI

"Form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form."

At the beginning of the sutra, one of the Buddha's followers listens to another who, meditating deeply, has just arrived at this key realization.

MU GEN NI BI ZE SHIN I

"No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind..."

Part of a long catalog of things that are empty -- including "emptiness" itself.

NAI SHI MU RO SHI YAKU MU RO SHI JIN

"No aging or death, and also no end of aging or death."

The idea of these things coming to an end is just as delusory as the idea of them having any abiding reality to begin.

MU KU SHU METSU DO

"No suffering, origin, creation or path..."

Even the "noble truths" of Buddhism are empty.

KO SHIN MU KEI GE

"And at the heart there are no hindrances."

But this knowledge is profoundly liberating,

KO CHI HAN-NYA-HA-RA-MI-TA

"Therefore come to know this perfect wisdom."

In Zen Buddhism in particular, "know" means to experience.

NO JO I SAI KU

"It will remove all suffering."

SHIN JITSU FU KO

"It is true and real, not false."

GYA-TEI GYA-TEI HA-RA-GYA-TEI HA-RA-SO-GYA-TEI BO-JI SO-WA-KA

The sutra ends with a sacred mantra that sums its meaning, a chant within a chant: "Go, go, go beyond, go far beyond! - Awaken! - (Shout!)."

The Heart Sutra itself distills the essence of a much longer work, the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, so this final line is supposed to be charged with extraordinary significance.

After the Heart Sutra, my brother chanted a few other core texts, and conferred blessings upon the newlyweds.

Incense was a big part of the ceremony.

Beginning of Vows

Exchange of Rings