I have used Conze’s translation. Where I have changed it, it has been italicized.
Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, He beheld but five skandhas, and he saw that they were empty of inherent existence.
Here, O Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.
Now I will explain this. The five skandhas are only appearances. They can be likened to images in a mirror. We see them clearly and vividly in the mirror. Still, we understand that they are not real. Though they appear, still they are inherently empty. This is the nature of all conditioned reality which is nothing in itself. This reality certainly appears, but all these appearances are never other than inherently empty.
In addition, conditioned things have no true inherent nature or svabhāva because this nature is always unconditioned. Being unconditioned, it never appears just like my life force never appears although it can wiggle my fingers and use my body’s vocal cords.
In this respect, our world is very much like a dream that we may have had last night. But in our dream, no matter how beautiful or frightening it was, it lacked true inherent existence.
Our five skandhas are only an illusion, you could say, including the world that appears through them. And as with any such illusion there is nothing really there. Yes, there is a true reality behind all this just like the basis of the mirror’s reflections is the reflective coating on the back of the mirror. But we cannot see it. We see only vivid appearances on the mirror’s surface.
Here is another interesting passage from the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra on the five aggregates/skandhas.
“Manjusri said, "The five aggregates constitute what we call the mundane world. Of these, the aggregate of form has the nature of accumulated foam, the aggregate of feeling has the nature of a bubble, the aggregate of conceptions has the nature of a mirage, the aggregate of impulse has the nature of a hollow plantain, and the aggregate of consciousness has the nature of an illusion. . . .If he is so liberated, he is not attached to mundane things. If he is not attached to mundane things, he transcends the mundane world”.
These aggregates or skandhas are not more than a very vivid illusory phenomena devoid of an inherent nature. By transcending the mundane world of appearance one sees and resides in their true inherent nature which they have actually always have been. The spellbinding power of the the illusion has been overcome.
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