Mantra magic

Chanting, flute or drum playing, and dancing in demilitarized patterns are ideally natural forms of yoga-meditation, because they silence the hypnotic chattering of thought and give one a direct feeling of shabda—the basic energy or vibration of the universe. This is why Gregorian chant, for example, gives the sense of eternity so absent from meter

In this case, the mantra does not give rise to Prajnaparamita but becomes her womb and thus the source of the greatest of all magic, the appearance of a buddha.

In the Chungnan Mountains south of Sian, I once met a Buddhist master who had founded four Buddhist colleges before finally retiring to spend her last years in a mountain hut. She told me in all seriousness that mantras were taught to humans by beings from another world. No doubt their authors were from another world. At the very least, it was a wo

But the Heart Sutra mantra, being also a dharani, is not subject to such restrictions. It is not secret but accessible to all who have the good fortune to encounter it. The word dharani means “to call to mind.” Like a memento, it reminds us of the teaching we have resolved to practice. But it is much more than that. It is also our guide. Thus, a ma

David Kinsley says, “It is not that the mantra belongs to the goddess, which is the way one is often tempted to understand the relationship between the deity and the mantra; the situation, rather, is that the mantra is the goddess” (Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine, p. 58). In this case I would say that the mantra is

It is also said that the mind rides on the subtle energy of the breath, the prana, which moves through and purifies the subtle channels of the body. So when you chant a mantra, you are charging your breath and energy with the energy of the mantra, and so working directly on your mind and subtle body.

A mantra is like a magic lamp, which itself is often cast in the shape of a womb. But instead of bringing forth a genie, as other mantras are intended to do, this mantra draws us inside, where we become the genie. Chanting this mantra thus creates the womb from which we are reborn as buddhas.

The word mantra means “protector of thought.” Thus, a mantra is like an amulet or talisman, but one that protects its user’s mind rather than their body.

The power of something so apparently simple—and so seemingly absurd—as mantra-and OM -chanting is that it fosters a relaxed concentration on pure sound, as distinct from words, ideas, and abstractions, and thus brings attention to bear on reality itself.