A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter H

Heart Sutra

World Religion
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A brief but profound Mahayana Buddhist scripture that expounds on the doctrine of emptiness (Sunyata).

Detailed Definition
The Heart Sutra is a condensed masterpiece of Buddhist philosophy, chanting, "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form." It is not just read but recited as a mantra and a tool for meditation. In literature, it represents the pinnacle of paradoxical, non-dual wisdom. Poets influenced by Buddhism often allude to its teachings to convey the insubstantial, interdependent nature of reality. The sutra itself is a poetic text, using stark, concise language to point directly to the nature of ultimate truth.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Buddhist poetry, the Heart Sutra teaches emptiness: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form—wisdom’s song”; In Zen verse, the Heart Sutra is chanted at dawn: “Avalokiteshvara speaks—mountains bow in silence”; In contemporary mindfulness poetry, the Heart Sutra guides presence: “No eyes, no ears—just this breath, this moment”; Poets quote the Heart Sutra to release fear: “Gate gate paragate—gone, gone, beyond gone.”
Additional Notes
The Heart Sutra’s famous line—“form is emptiness, emptiness is form”—condenses Mahayana wisdom into a poetic paradox; chanted across Asia, its brevity belies depth; poets draw on its logic to dissolve dualities (self/other, sacred/profane), using minimalist verse to mirror its radical non-attachment.
Also Known As
Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra
Skip to main content