This film has two major points of focus: the Buddhist text, the Heart Sutra, which is part of the Ultimate Wisdom Text of Buddhism, and the travel diary of the 7th Chinese monk Xuanzang, who undertook a 10,000-mile and 16-year-long journey to India to Vulture's Peak, where the Heart Sutra is supposed to have been delivered. The Heart Sutra is a dialog between two prominent figures in Buddhism: Arya Avalokiteshvara and Arya Shariputra. This dialog is supposed to have happened in the presence of the Lord Buddha at the top of a hill called Griddhra Kut, or Vulture's Peak, in Rajgir, Bihar, India. The place still exists today. This film has interviews with the following scholars and thinkers: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, B. Alan Wallace, Barbara Du Bois, Beate Stolte-Overtheil, Bernie Glassman, Dean Brian Baker, Geshe Dorji Damdul, Geshe Ngawang Samten, Joan Halifax, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Matthieu Ricard, Natalie Goldberg, Paul Ekman, Ravindra Panth, Robert Thurman, Tanahashi Kaz, Thupten Jinpa, and Tsultrim Allione. This film has been shot at the following locations in India and Nepal: Ayodhya, Mathura, Lumbini, Kapilvastu, Kushinagara, Vaishali, Vikramshila, Bodhgaya, Nalanda, Patna, and Katihar.