Korean Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

This study redefines the Heart Sūtra not as a summary of doctrinal knowledge but as a “performative event” in which practice and enlightenment occur without interruption. It argues that the opening term “mahā” (大) is not a mere adjective but a declaration of absolute śūnyatā in which all relative discrimination is extinguished, so that the practitioner confronts an ontological turn from the very moment of encountering the text. The subsequent analysis of “practicing deeply” (行深) and “at that time” (時) reads these not as markers of linear cultivation but as the existential locus of kairos—the moment at which the practitioner's energy reaches a critical threshold and discursive thought halts.
The core argument concerns the ontological identity conveyed by 卽 in “thereupon proclaims the mantra, saying” (卽說呪曰), and the grammatical perfective aspect of “gate”, the pivotal term of the mantra. Sanskrit grammatical analysis shows that “gate” is not an imperative directed toward future attainment but a past passive participle denoting an action already completed. This grammatical fact does not by itself compel a doctrinal conclusion; connecting it to the doctrine of “inherent buddhahood” (本來成佛) is identified as a hermeneutic choice rather than a grammatical necessity.
On this reading, the argument for śūnyatā [practice, 行] is transposed directly into the vibration of the mantra [呪], so the mantra becomes the joyous proclamation of “one who has already arrived” (gate). This offers a pathway for rereading the Heart Sūtra—not as a text explaining enlightenment, but as a practice manifesting, in sound, an enlightenment already completed. The reading contributes to a contemporary reappraisal of the sudden-enlightenment (頓悟) tradition and offers one interpretive possibility for reconsidering the soteriological significance of sūtra recitation.