Zen: Sutras with On-Device AI

"Bodhi is fundamentally no tree." Four classics, one quiet shelf — and the Heart Sutra is free in full, its AI unlimited. Tap a passage; it all runs on device.

One quiet shelf, four classics.

The Heart Sutra — Xuanzang's Chinese, all 260 characters of it, in the seven sections of Fazang's Tang-dynasty outline. This one is free in full — even AI commentary and translation are unlimited in it. The Diamond Sutra — Kumārajīva's classical Chinese, 32 chapters, 129 passages. The Dhammapada — a verse anthology in its third-century Chinese translation, 39 chapters, 758 stanzas by the chapter headings' own count. The Platform Sutra — the recorded teaching of Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, compiled by his disciple Fahai: the one work written in China that Chinese Buddhism honors with the title "sutra."

All four set in a serif face on a quiet, paper-toned page.

READING AND AI TRANSLATION ARE FREE, FOREVER The full text, read-aloud, and AI translation of all four books are free and unlimited, and always will be. Scripture should not live behind a paywall. And the Heart Sutra is free outright — there even the AI commentary is unlimited, with nothing at all to buy.

AI EXPLANATIONS — ON YOUR DEVICE Tap any passage and AI explains it in plain language: what the lines say, what the terms mean, and how a reader today might take them to heart. The four books speak in four different voices — the Buddha teaching Subhūti, Avalokiteśvara addressing Śāriputra, an anthology of standalone verses, a Chan master answering his students — and the AI keeps them straight. Explanations are generated on-device by Apple Intelligence: the text never leaves your device, and it works offline. AI explanations and translations require iOS 26 or later on a device that supports Apple Intelligence; reading and listening work on any device. Where the tradition reads a line in more than one way, it says so rather than settling doctrine for you.

AI TRANSLATION — FREE AND UNLIMITED Translate any passage into English, Japanese, German, French, or Spanish, free and without limits. Terms follow each book's own source — Sanskrit for the Diamond Sutra, Pali for the Dhammapada; the Platform Sutra's Chan vocabulary is rendered by sense, never by invented transliteration.

EVERY EDITION, FULLY DOCUMENTED The Diamond Sutra's main text follows the Ming–Qing received edition, with all 58 variants against Jiang Weinong's collated edition marked passage by passage — editorial fact, not AI. The Dhammapada and the Platform Sutra are built from public-domain texts, proofread character by character. The Heart Sutra takes only the public-domain stream of characters — the punctuation and division are our own — and is checked against the full quotation in chapter 19 of Journey to the West: 260 characters each, differing in exactly one. Every source and every editorial judgment is laid out under About This Edition in each book.

READ ALOUD Read one passage, or play a whole chapter or a whole book straight through; stop midway and it picks up where you left off. Uses the iOS system voices — pick yours under Reading Voice in the app's settings. No AI needed; older devices welcome.

DESIGNED WITH RESTRAINT · No ads, no account, no data collection · For iPhone and iPad · AI content is always labeled, with a standing note to rely on the scriptures and a teacher for serious study

BOOK BY BOOK The Heart Sutra is free in full, with nothing to buy. Each of the others is subscribed to or bought outright on its own — mix freely; canceling one never affects another. Unlocking a book buys unlimited AI commentary; reading, listening, and AI translation are free regardless. AI commentary is free to try for seven days from the first time you open each book. Subscriptions are billed to your Apple Account, renew 24 hours before each period ends, and can be canceled anytime in Settings › Apple Account › Subscriptions.

Terms of Use (standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy policy: https://sayhow.app/diamond

May each reading be a moment of turning inward.