A landmark publication from its first appearance more than forty years ago, Buddhist Wisdom offers Western readers a unique combination of what Buddhists worldwide consider the holiest of holy texts -- The Diamond Sutra and The Heart Sutra, or scriptures, ascribed to the early centuries of the first millennium.

The Diamond Sutra, or the "Perfection of Wisdom which cuts like a thunderbolt", is one of the cornerstone texts of Mahayana Buddhism and provides a summary of the core concepts of the Buddha. The Heart Sutra, perhaps the most important of all Buddhist texts, sets out to formulate the very "heart" or essence of perfect wisdom and is studied with special reverence in Zen monasteries and the Tibetan Buddhist lamaseries.