New Dharma Talks
Mantras
Updated 06 Jun 2003
3.
Mantras
Many people ask me about the meanings of the mantras that we chant in our practice. We don’t really chant mantras for their meaning, but rather for their vibrational aspect, but the Sanskrit words in these traditional Tibetan-Sanskrit mantras we use daily do have a meaning.
The shortest mantra we use is the easy-to memorize, user-friendly Dzogchen mantra “AH”. AH is hard to translate. It’s like OM, which is the cosmic sound of the universe, but it’s, AH. You can’t just think about what AH means. You have to try it; so go ahead, use a complete exhalation to say, “AH” and pay attention to what it does, and you’ll know its meaning. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. See, it’s the great releasing, letting go, letting it all hang out. We could say that the Buddha is the doctor, who gives you the medicine that heals you of all disease, all unease, all suffering. Just think that he telling you to open your mouth and say, “Ah”, like at a checkup.
Except for OM, the most widely known mantra is the mantra of Great Compassion of Avalokiteshvara: “Om Mani Padmé Hung.” Om Mani Padme Hung is the national mantra of Tibet, the Dalai Lama’s mantra. The first syllable, OM is the universal sound. Mani means jewel. Padmé, or pema, means lotus. So the mantra means. “The jewel is in the lotus.” Then there’s Hung, but that’s not there for the meaning; it’s there for the completeness of the vibrational tone. Hung is the consort of Om. It is the seed syllable of the five wisdoms. But the meaning is that the jewel is in the lotus, or wisdom and compassion are within us all, like pure seeds blossoming and unfolding within our own tender hearts.
The Vajra Guru mantra is, “Om Ah Hung Benzar Guru Padmé Siddhi Hung.” It is the mantra of Padma Sambhava, the Lotus-born Guru, the Indian master who brought Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century. Tibetans call Padma Sambhava the Second Buddha, the Buddha of Tibet. So the mantra starts with, “Om Ah Hung; then it says Benzar, or Vajra, Guru Padmé. That’s like saying, “Homage to the diamond master, born in the lotus.” Padmé is lotus. Siddhis mean spiritual powers, like love, wisdom, compassion, forgiveness, enlightenment. So the meaning is, “Homage to the enlightened powers of the Lotus-born Guru.” It’s a way of affirming that the lotus grows and flourishes out of the mud of one’s own nature. Those enlightened powers grow in the mud of our own base nature. Human nature is like the tip of the vast iceberg of Buddha-nature.
The Tara mantra is “Om Taré Tutarré Turiyé Soha.” That’s the mantra of the female Buddha, Tara. Again, we start with the cosmic sound, Om. Taré is her name. It’s an invocation that Tara is present and guarding and awakening us. Tutarré is her name again. So is Turiyé. Soha or swaha is like amen, or so be it. So it’s her name mantra. Chanting it attracts her (our) attention, exhorts her swiftly enlightening activity, and brings down and brings out her bountiful blessings.
Again, we don’t really chant these mantras while thinking of their meaning. When we chant a mantra, we can feel the vibration on an energy level. Something happens, much more than just thinking or saying that the mantra means the jewel in the lotus. You can begin with the meaning, but then you go quickly deeper into it and experience it from the inside out by chanting and meditating on it. It works in your chakras and in your psychic energy channels, and so on, vibrating in different sacred dimensions. There are different kinds of mantras: softening mantras; energetic, generating mantras; peaceful and wrathful mantras; healing mantras; purification mantras; and so on.
These mantras are made up of seed syllables. Each of these syllables is called a seed, a bija in Sanskrit. OM is such a seed syllable. A mantra is a string of them, like a rosary. The string linking the beads is the breath and the attention. Each seed syllable germinates in a slightly different way. Like P’ET! That’s very sharp and cutting, so we call that a cutting syllable. Then there’s AH! A very softening, opening, spacious, relaxing, dissolving seed syllable. So we try to harmoniously balance different aspects. We balance the sharpness, the one-pointedness of the P’ET with the spacious, expansive softness of the AH. You can feel the different quality of the sounds. Mantric sounds have a lot of vibrations, and different levels that they vibrate on. These mantras are kind of a technology for awakening different energies and actualizing different qualities. It’s not really like asking an external deity named Tara to do something. It’s more like actualizing within ourselves that sacred feminine energy which Tara embodies.
With a mantra like Om Mani Padmé Hung, some lamas make a vow to do huge numbers of recitation practice, like 100 million times, which they count with their beads. They are always saying it. They try to say 20 or 30 or 50,000 mantras every day. They are always concentrating on compassion and loving-kindness, radiating and warming up and softening, seeing everybody as the Buddha and every place as a Buddhafield. They radiate blessings and light rays to all the different kinds of beings with Om Mani Padmé Hung. My Tibetan master Kalu Rinpoche was such a beacon of compassion. When he was teaching in the US in the winter of 1976, we took him to the aquarium in Boston. There were some huge glass walls thick with little fish there -- thousands of fish in huge tanks. Rinpoche would go up to the glass and, holding his bodhi-seed mala beads in hand, say Om Mani Padmé Hum again and again. He went up to each fish individually, touched a finger gently to the window near its little face to get its attention, to make a connection, and said, Om Mani Padmé Hung. We didn’t even walk around the aquarium, because he was busy, blessing and teaching the fish. He seemed to connect personally with each one. Nor was he the least bit self-conscious about it. It was marvelous and a real display of how one person becomes completely imbued with compassion and radiates it at all times, in all ways.
If you do this kind of loving practice, it comes out naturally in many ways. Kalu Rinpoche also used to say, Om Mani Padmé Hung over bowls of rice or sand every morning. Then he’d throw them out the window or spread it as he walked, so all the ants and dogs and snakes would eat the rice grains or touch the sand and make a spiritual connection, be blessed and benefited. He did that every day of his life. He even suggested to us, his students, that we take up this practice. I admit to not living up to his standard.
Mantras have power. Mudras, hand gestures, have power. Yantra, or visualizations, mandalas, have power. Of course, it is the power of mind that invests in them such resonance. Buddha said, “Mind comes first. Before deed and words comes thought or intention. So guard carefully your own mind.”
Many of the mantras I use for daily practice are chanted along with their tunes on my chant CD, “Chants to Awaken the Buddhist Heart”, recorded with Steven Halpern and now in stores as well as available on our websites. You, too, can join in the cosmic chorus of chanting. I assure you that it will be for the benefit of one and all.