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Buddhist Mantra

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The Significance of the Buddhist Mantra

In Dharamsala, India, in an open square, a Tibetan refugee sits exposed to the full force of the sun. His skin is baked brown and wrinkled from many afternoons such as this one. He is thin as a rail, and his legs fold beneath him in a way that looks painful to the westerners who pass him. He wears tattered rags and looks unwashed, but sports a long white beard—a prized rarity among Tibetans. His eyes, blind and white as his beard, stare placidly into the distance, then flutter as he lifts his head and begins to chant. "Om mani peme hung," he calls. "Om mani peme hung."

Two Americans, a couple from New Jersey, witness this spectacle and are entranced. The man, after much prodding from his …show more content…

He returns to his room and waits for his wife to return from her day’s adventures. But later that night he ponders what he really learned: that om has three letters, that mani is a jewel and padme (as the word the Tibetans pronounce "peme" is written) a lotus, and that hum (the Tibetan’s "hung") is an inherent contradiction. The next morning, when he boards his plane to Newark, he has passed his final judgment on the blind man: though he may be a great practitioner of Buddhism, he is a silly, superstitious man, and has grown far too fond of pretty words.

What are we to make of the fable above? Is it the story of a Westerner hastily passing judgment on a tradition he does not understand? Certainly it is. The study of Tibetan Buddhism is the effort of a lifetime—perhaps several—and a non-practicing Christian interloper from Hoboken is hardly qualified to pontificate on the matter. (For the moment we will say nothing of an American college student who has merely read a few books on the subject).

Yet is it not also possible that there is some truth to the ignorant man’s claims? That what lies behind the sacred institution of mantra is less profound esoterica than it is the pure, childish delight taken in the sounds of language? This paper will seek to explore this possibility, both in the abstract and through the particulars of the mantra of Avalokitesvara,

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