Zen Practice/Ordinary Life

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Transcendent Wisdom, Emptiness, Insight

prajnaparamita—the perfection of wisdom, shunyata (emptiness), associated with Tara, Manjusri, the female personification of the perfection of wisdom (to see things as they are instead of to see things as we wish they would be).

Hymn To Prajna Paramita

Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lovely, the Holy.
The Perfection of Wisdom gives light. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain her.
She is a source of light,
And from everyone in the triple world she removes darkness.
Most excellent are her works.
She brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken,
And disperses the gloom and darkness of delusion.
She herself is an organ of vision.
She has a clear knowledge of the own-being of all dharmas,
For she does not stray from it.
The Perfection of Wisdom of the Buddhas
Sets in motion the wheel of the dharma.

Metropolitan Museum, NYC, public domain (9th century, Sumatra)