excerpt from the translation

The noble enlightened Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara,
the lord whose compassionate gaze
reaches even the depths of our world—

Avalokiteshvara, who deferred Nirvana
in order to stay and help all we who suffer
in the round of births and deaths—

Avalokiteshvara travels in spirit
through the depths of Prajnaparamita,
the perfect wisdom by which one truly sees

that agents, objects and actions
are in themselves
not absolutely and individually real,
but are merely aspects
of the total flux of reality.

While he journeys among such profundities,
he looks down deep
into the truth of the human condition.
He sees that those five
primary means (skandhas)
by which humans engage
with their existence,

that is, by having a physical form (rupa),
by experiencing physical sensations (vedana),
by recognizing what objects
those sensations refer to (samjina),
by responding purposefully
to the world so perceived (samskara),
and by self-awareness (vijnana)

—he sees clearly that these five means
of contact with the world,
do not indicate the existence
of a real permanent self.
They’re evanescent,
ever-changing phenomena,
which exist in so temporary,
dependent and secondary a way
that one could fairly say they are empty
of any lasting and meaningful reality.

excerpt from the commentary

Shunyata: Emptiness

Buddhism viewed reality as simultaneously physical and mental, as a flux of ever-changing elements, none of which had enduring existence or stable identity.

The reality which ordinarily appears to us, Buddhism also views as real—up to a point. It coexists with or, if you like, is the visible face of, an ever-changing totality in which forms appear and into which they once again dissolve, a totality which later, Mahayana Buddhism denominated Emptiness (shunyata), which is shorthand for “that which is empty of its own independent and lasting existence.”

The elements of reality, the dharmas, existent only in relation to one another, each propping up, as it were, the others’ existence, none of them ultimately supported by anything that stands on its own. At times, Mahayana sutras declare that even Nirvana is empty, just like ordinary physical existence.

Such statements are not to be taken at face value. The doctrinal certainties of earlier, Theravada, Buddhism are not actually being called into question. The aim is only to deter attachment to even the most revered spiritual concepts lest they stand between us and the immediate experience of spiritual realities. Once one has learned to think deeply but without attachment to one’s profound ideas, (achitta-varanaha, “without mental obstructions”), one attains the real Nirvana (nishta nirvana, “solidly grounded nirvana”).