The Benefits of Chanting om mani
padme hum
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Excerpted from Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s
invitation to join the Chenrezig Institute mani retreat, composed by
Rinpoche during a stay at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Madison,
Wisconsin, USA in July 2000, scribed and edited by Ven. Lhundup
Damchö; excerpt edited by Dr. Nick Ribush. Rinpoche’s entire
teachings at the retreat have been edited by Ven. Ailsa Cameron
The benefits of reciting the Compassion Buddha
mantra are infinite, like the limitless sky.
Even if you don’t have much intellectual
understanding of Dharma, even if the only thing you know is om mani
padme hum, still the happiest life is one lived with an attitude
free of the eight worldly concerns. If you live your life with the
pure attitude free of attachment clinging to this life and simply
spend your life chanting om mani padme hum—this six-syllable mantra
that is the essence of all Dharma—that’s the purest Dharma.
It looks very simple, very easy to recite. But if
you think of the benefits, it’s not at all simple. Here, I’d to
mention just the essence of its infinite benefits.
Reciting the Compassion Buddha mantra just once
completely purifies the four defeats of breaking the four root vows
of self-liberation and the five uninterrupted negative karmas1.
It is also mentioned in the tantras that by
reciting this mantra you achieve the four qualities of being born in
the Amitabha Buddha pure land and other pure lands; at the time of
death, seeing Buddha and lights appearing in the sky; the devas
making you offerings; and never being reborn in the hell, hungry
ghost or animals realms. You will be reborn in the pure land of
Buddha or as a happy transmigratory being.
When one who recites ten malas a day goes
swimming, whether in a river, an ocean or some other body of water,
the water that touches that person’s body gets blessed.
It is said that up to seven generations of that
person’s descendents won’t get reborn in the lower realms. The
reason for this is that due to the power of mantra, the body is
blessed by the person reciting the mantra and visualizing their body
in form of the holy body of Chenrezig. Therefore, the body becomes
so powerful, so blessed that this affects the consciousness up to
seven generations and has the effect that if one dies with a
non-virtuous thought, one is not reborn in a lower realm.
Thus, when a person who has recited ten malas of
om mani padme hum a day goes into a river or an ocean, the water
that touches the person’s body gets blessed, and this blessed water
then purifies all the billions and billions of sentient beings in
the water. So it’s unbelievably beneficial; this person saves the
animals in that water from the most unbelievable suffering of the
lower realms.
When such a person walks down a road and the wind
touches his or her body and then goes on to touch insects, their
negative karma gets purified and causes them to have a good rebirth.
Similarly, when such a person does massage or otherwise touches
others’ bodies, those people’s negative karma also gets purified.
Such a person becomes meaningful to behold; being
seen and touched becomes a means of liberating other sentient
beings. This means that even the person’s breath touching the bodies
of other sentient beings purifies their negative karma. Anybody who
drinks the water in which such a person has swum gets purified.
We are unbelievably fortunate to have met the
Dharma and to have the opportunity to do recitation and meditation
on the Compassion Buddha. It is an easy way of purifying whatever
negative karma we have collected, in not only this life but in many
previous lives as well.
Because we have met the Buddhadharma, and
especially this method--the practice of Compassion Buddha and
recitation of his mantra--it is easy to purify negative karma and
collect extensive merit and thus to achieve enlightenment. We are
unbelievably fortunate.
Therefore, there is nothing more foolish than not
taking advantage of this great opportunity. Normally, we get
continuously distracted and waste our lives. Not only that, but all
the actions done with ego and with the three poisonous minds of
anger, attachment and ignorance create negative karma, the cause of
suffering. In all existence, there is nothing more foolish than
using this perfect human body to create only suffering.
In places such as Tibet, Nepal, India and Ladakh,
there’s a well-established tradition of doing the Compassion Buddha
retreat and reciting 100 million om mani padme hum mantras. The one
held at Chenrezig Institute was the first such retreat held in the
West and the first in the FPMT organization. This is to happen there
once each year—only once each year!
If you’re feeling guilt in your life, you can
overcome this through the purification of attending this retreat.
The retreat is not just chanting mantras with
sadhanas, but also includes taking the Eight Mahayana Precepts, if
not every day, at least frequently. Whatever merit you collect that
day increases 100,000 times. This becomes such an easy and quick way
to purify, collect extensive merit, achieve enlightenment and
liberate sentient beings from unimaginable suffering and bring them
to enlightenment quickly.
Whoever attends a mani retreat is unbelievably
fortunate. Even if you can’t attend the whole retreat, you can
participate for two months, one month or at least a few weeks. You
can do even just one week. I especially hope this retreat will also
be established in Mongolia, since their main food is meat and so
many animals are killed there every day. This practice helps purify
that. After our temple in Mongolia has been built, I hope that
thousands of people will attend mani retreats there. Gradually too,
I would like this retreat to be established in other parts of the
West.
This retreat also blesses the country where it is
held and brings so much peace, happiness and prosperity.
Even if you know the teachings on how to meditate
on bodhicitta, you still need to receive the special blessings of
the deity, Compassion Buddha. You receive these by doing the
meditation and recitation we practice in the mani retreat.
Therefore, recitation of om mani padme hum is one way to actualize
bodhicitta--to transform your mind into bodhicitta and make your
meditation on bodhicitta effective.
Generally, according to my experience, in my home
of Solu Khumbu in the Himalayas of Nepal, there are people who live
their lives chanting om mani padme hum but have no idea of the three
principal aspects of the path--renunciation, bodhicitta and the
right view of emptiness--not even the words. Even though they can’t
read and don’t even know the alphabet, they have great devotion to
compassion and bodhicitta and live their lives reciting om mani
padme hum. Such people are warm-hearted, very kind, very
compassionate. This is proof from my experience that it has the
effect of transforming the mind into a good heart and compassion.
Without bodhicitta, you cannot cause all the
happiness for all sentient beings. You cannot do perfect work for
all sentient beings, and you cannot achieve the complete qualities
of the realizations and cessation, even for yourself.
Thus, everyone is most welcome to join the 100
million om mani padme hum mantra retreat.
Footnotes
1. These are karmas so heavy that they ripen immediately as a
rebirth in the hell realm upon the exhaustion of the karma of this
life. The five are: killing one’s mother, killing one’s father,
drawing the blood of a Buddha, killing an arhat and causing disunity
among the Sangha.
by Lama
Zopa Rinpoche
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"We
hear religious people talk a lot about morality.
What is morality? Morality is the wisdom that
understands the nature of the mind. The mind that
understands its own nature automatically becomes
moral, or positive; and the actions motivated by
such a mind also become positive. That’s what we
call morality. The basic nature of the narrow mind
is ignorance; therefore the narrow mind is
negative."
Lama Zopa Rinpoche
The above quote changes daily
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Lama Zopa
Rinpoche was born in 1946 in Thami, in the Mount
Everest region of Nepal, not far from the Lawudo
cave where his predecessor had meditated for the
last 20 years of his life. Lama Zopa Rinpoche is
now the Spiritual Director of the Foundation and
oversees all of its activities.
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