I often put the wu tang 8 diagrams album on now as i am still diggin the wu tang sound they have, and that track is in memory of odb so i like to pay my respects a lot.
Anyway, i often wondered what teh bit at the end of the life changes song was, it was chinese or japaniese or something. It turns out its mandarin and is from something called The Heart Sutra.
Heres a rough translation thanks to Spinx over on the Wu-Tang official forums.
It’s called The Heart Sutra and translates roughly as:
Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.
The other four aspects of human existence —
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness —
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.
All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.
So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.
There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.
The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and so with no delusions,
they feel no fear,
and have Nirvana here and now.
All the Buddhas,
past, present, and future,
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and live in full enlightenment.
The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra.
It is the clearest mantra,
the highest mantra,
the mantra that removes all suffering.
This is truth that cannot be doubted.
Say it so:
Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!
Which means…
Gone,
gone,
gone over,
gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it!
3 replies on “Wu Tang – Life Changes (Mandarin/Asian Part Translation)”
thanks a lot… just got done listening to this song and had to know what was being said at the end
Haha, no problem dude!
Im the same dude, hence me tracking it down for the blog 🙂
i am half malaysian and have been meaning to learn my native mandarin for a few years now,
this part of life changes has inspired me to push myself to tackle it head on and get it done.
zoopah.
live chong and prosper.