Manis and manis and...

 This is the approximate script, with errors and variations, of the Double Dorje episode at

https://www.podbean.com/eas/pb-h4ymr-162c0b7

Hello friends and others! You are very welcome to the Double Dorje podcast.

You won’t have got this far without noticing the music, if that’s the word, used for this Double Dorje intro and outro. Thousands upon thousands of mantras are used and recited in vajrayana Buddhism, but there is a handful such as the mantra of Guru Rinpoche and the Tara mantra that are particularly well known, and this one, commonly known simply as “the mani”, or as “the six syllable mantra”, is without question the best known of all. Later in this episode will take a look at a couple of tunes used for it, but first let’s take a moment to have a brief look at what it is.

Put simply it’s the mantra of Chenrezi, also known under the Sanskrit name of Avalokiteshvara. (A quick reminder that I’ll put some of the words that might be unfamiliar into the description, so you can search for them if you like.) It is often hard to tell why in the Anglophone world some of these names and concepts are known widely under a version, probably at mispronunciation, of the Sanskrit term, while others, even more probably mispronounced, under a version of the Tibetan term. Why is Mahamudra the usual term for that system rather than the Tibetan “chagchen”, while the somewhat parallel Dzogchen system is known by that Tibetan name? Why is Tara usually called Tara rather than the Tibetan Dölma, even though the latter is a very common personal name amongst Tibetans? Be that as it may, the Tibetan-based Chenrezi is the usual name here.

And who is Chenrezi? The embodiment of the compassion of all the Buddhas! Simple, really! In the Heart Sutra that is chanted throughout the Mahayana world, it was Chenrezi who asked the Buddha to say something about emptiness. He takes many forms, and indeed has many mantras. The best-known form is white and has four arms – this is the form associated with the Mani.

RING

Now what about the syllables and their meaning? There are, of course, six of them, so to cut to the chase we have OM MA NI PE ME HUM. To come slightly closer to the spelling, the fourth syllable is often presented as PAD.

And the meaning? Generally speaking mantras cannot be translated, as they consist at least in part of syllables whose function is more that of a carrier for symbols than parts of words in human speech. They do, it must be said, often contain words that could be translated, in which case it is extremely helpful to know what their meanings are, but that is not the same as “translating the mantra”.

A particularly uncomfortable but well-known example is a translation of the Mani as “Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus”. First of all, OM does not mean either “Hail” or “praise”. It is a perfect example of a purely mantric syllable, loaded with symbolism and deep meanings, but impossible to reduce to a single word or phrase. On its own, it’s popular in the Hindu world, including the new-age quasi-yoga world, where you will stumble across people sitting on the floor intoning deeply: “Om Om Om…”

It is rarely, if ever, used as a stand-alone single-syllable mantra in the Buddhist context. A such syllables do exist, A and Hung, for example, but they tend to have rather specialised purposes, and Om is not amongst them. It does, however, stand at the beginning of the great majority of Buddhist mantras, and announces the start of what we might call sacred speech. So in an explanation of the six syllable mantra, it should undoubtedly stay as Om.

The next four syllables are the “body” of the mantra. I am not a Sanskrit scholar, so I cannot confirm this, but I have heard that if we do attempt to analyse it, it is in the “vocative” case, i.e. the case used to address somebody. This case does not really exist in English, but it did in Latin, and an attempt to render it into English was often done by means of “Oh”, as in “Oh Lord”.

This makes complete sense, since although the four syllables do make two words, they are in the first place simply a name, and if you haven’t fallen asleep yet you will realise that the name is one of Chenrezi’s names, namely the name of the four-armed form I spoke about a few minutes ago.

Looking more closely, Mani can be translated as “jewel”. If you look at a picture or statue of this form of Chenrezi, you will see that his front two arms hold a jewel. In particular, it is what is known as the “wish-fulfilling jewel” or “cintamani” known from a number of myths and stories.

The next two syllables refer to a lotus, as is also held by Chenrezi. A word about pronunciation is called for here. You will often see these names written as p.a.d.m.a (or p.a.d.m.e) in the case of this mantra, and there is no doubt that the “d” was pronounced in Sanskrit. In Tibetan pronunciation rules, however, it merely modifies the sound of the “a”. So if you hear somebody pronouncing the mantra as “om mani padme hum” it is unlikely that they have learnt it from an actual Tibetan source, although I have heard that the pronunciation in Ladakh preserves a relatively solid version of the consonants that have almost vanished from regular Tibetan pronunciation. So mostly I will stick with Om Mani Peme Hum!

The final HUM is sometimes written in latin script as HUM with a dot above the M, or as HUNG to represent the nasalisation at the end of the syllable. Sometimes a bar is shown above the letter U to show that it is lengthened. This is an entirely mantric syllable, and any attempt to translate it would be foolish. It is also very much a trademark or stamp of a Buddhist mantra, the great majority of which end with this syllable. Attempts have been made to find equivalent phrases, such as “so it is”, but none that I have seen capture the sense of wisdom penetrating to the core, or of awakening, that it carries in Buddhist practice.

Many mantras – and the Mani is a case in point – have a certain parallel with the three syllables OM ĀH HUM. As symbols representing the body, speech and mind of the Buddha, the ĀH naturally has a resonance with or correspondence to the name of the deity. The syllables are written in red ink on the back of a properly consecrated painting of a deity, the OM behind the deity’s head, the ĀH behind the throat and the HUM behind the heart. They occur often in liturgy, in particular when an offering of, perhaps, food or drink, is transformed into limitless clouds of pleasurable offerings suitable for being given to Buddhas – in other words for blessing the offering.

This interweaving of symbolic meanings depending on context is entirely typical of tantric liturgy, and is one of the reasons way it can take some time to feel at home with this material.

When it is recited with the proper preparation and in the proper frame of mind, saying “Om Mani Peme Hum” is a form of sacred speech, meaning that it actually is Chenrezi, but in the form of sound.

In some ways this is magical, but not in a simple, mechanistic way. This can be seen from the way that the pronunciation of a mantra, while it does matter, is not exactly central.

There is a story of an Indian yogi who had a need to create magical fire. It sounds to me as if that might have been for nefarious purposes, but I don’t know the rest of the story, so we’ll not try to dig any more deeply into that side of it. He was required to spend his time in a pit reciting the mantric syllable RAM many thousands of times a day for a period of about six months. This, by the way, is RAM as the essence of fire, just as it is in Buddhist systems, not to be confused with the name of the Indian god Rama. The interesting aspect was that he could expect success after this massive amount of magical effort if - and only if - his pronunciation of RAM was exactly correct. We are dealing here with a worldview in which the connection between a seed syllable and its element is fixed, external and eternal. This is not the Buddhist view.

To illustrate this, when I was first preparing to do the purification part of the Kagyu preliminaries, it was clear to anybody that the pronunciation of the long, hundred-syllable mantra had been Tibetanized well away from its original Sanskrit sound. I asked my teacher whether it would be better to try to imitate the Sanskrit than to try to imitate the Tibetan. His view was that the first might be okay, but the second would be better because it would create more of a resonance with his own practice in retreat and that of his teachers and lineage.

Other views are possible. My present teacher is trying to encourage his students and others to say something more like “vajra” than the pronunciation something like “benza” that is widespread in Tibetan circles. Whichever view is taken, however, I think there is unanimous agreement that it is the motivation, understanding, focus and devotion that is crucial, and the pronunciation comes later.

RING

Is it time for a song? The tune used in the logo of this podcast is a version of the tune I have heard most. I have heard it in Buddhist centres in England, Ireland, and Germany. If you circumambulate great stupa at Boudha, as of course you absolutely should if you ever get the chance, you will hear it coming out of the music shops. You will have heard it with a lot of dressing at the beginning of this episode, but for completeness and clarity I will do my best to sing it now a couple of times. I’m sure you won’t find it hard to learn.

SING

It’s pretty obvious that that tune includes the mantra four times, so that a nice 27 times through gives you 108 mantras, perfect for counting!

There is a second tune, also widespread, somewhat slower, perhaps more elegant, and only involving the mantra twice. I had heard it in European centres, and it was a bit of a thrill to recognise it being sung by children at a temple at Mani Nama in Kham. That’s a bit of a traveller’s tale, so I may cover it in an episode sometime in the future.

You will notice that after the first time the mantra is sung, there is an extra syllable, spelt in Latin transliteration as h.r.i.h. This is what is known as the “seed syllable” of Chenrezi, the first thing you picture to yourself when you are doing a step-by-step generation of a visualisation. Some Chenrezi practices therefore use a seven-syllable version of the mantra, Om Mani Peme Hung Hri, some use the more common six syllable version, and some use both. Ato Rinpoche sung the mantra to this tune when he blessed a practice centre with which I was involved in Hamburg. The room was very quiet, there were only perhaps a dozen of us there, and I was sat right next to him, so I was surprised to hear that he also included the Hrih after the second half of the tune, but in such a quiet way that under many circumstances you would not hear it. A tiny detail, yes, but Dharma-nerds like that kind of thing. Here it is:

SING

And finally, a treat. My own teacher, Karma Lhundup Rinpoche, singing this mantra to a tune deriving from the famous chöd practitioner and yogini Shukseb Chönyid Zangmo (or Chöying Zangmo). I’m not quite sure exactly where he heard it, as she had died a few years before he himself was born. The sound quality leaves a bit to be desired, but it’s the real thing!

PLAY

So there you have it! For those who want to be cautious, know that this is one of the small number of mantras that can be recited or sung without having received an empowerment for the practice. Using the tune makes it a great thing for a group of people to do. Communal singing of this mantra is said to have been introduced by the second Karmapa, Karma Pakshi, around 800 years ago. Hey, we could sometime all get together and see just how many people we could have singing, how many times. A Manithon!

Well, maybe that would be going a bit far – or maybe not. In any event, don’t forget to like, subscribe, share, tell your friends, whatever – and keep saying the good mantras!