This is the 11th installment of the 12-part series sharing my understanding of the practice Liberation from Sorrow.
Mantra recitation
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SÖHA (21x, 100x, etc.)
The meaning of this mantra is: with ‘OM’ we are calling Arya Tara, ‘TARE’ means permanent liberation from the suffering of lower rebirth, ‘TUTTARE’ means permanent liberation from samsaric rebirth, ‘TURE’ means the great liberation of full enlightenment, and ‘SÖHA’ means please bestow. Together the meaning is: ‘O Arya Tara, please bestow upon us permanent liberation from the suffering of lower rebirth, permanent liberation from the suffering of samsaric rebirth, and the great liberation of full enlightenment.
The power of our mantra recitation depends upon four key factors: the degree of our faith, the purity of our motivation, the single-pointedness of our concentration, the depth of our wisdom. The stronger we make these four factors, the more powerful will be our mantra recitation. This is true for all mantra recitation. These will now be explained in turn.
The degree of our faith: Faith is to Dharma practice like electricity is to our electronic devices. Without power we say our devices “are dead.” The same is true for our spiritual practices. But it is not like an on/off switch, but rather more like a volume knob, where the more we turn it up, the more powerfully the Dharma will resonate in our mind. As discussed at the beginning of the 21 homages, there are three types of faith: believing faith, admiring faith, and wishing faith. Believing faith believes in the good qualities, admiring faith develops a sense of wonder understanding their meaning, and wishing faith wishes to acquire these good qualities for ourselves. When we recite the 21 homages, we are building up the strength of our faith. We should carry it with us into our mantra recitation. The mantra is the condensation of the 21 homages. By reciting the mantra with faith, we accomplish the same function as reciting the 21 homages. We should believe in Tara’s amazing good qualities, develop a feeling of wonder and amazement that she is in our presence, and then wish to acquire all of her good qualities ourselves.
To increase our faith in the mantra of Tara, we need to consider its primary function. As Geshe-la explains in the sadhana, the primary function of Tara’s mantra is to protect us from lower rebirth, rebirth in samsara, and to bestow full enlightenment. In other words, her mantra functions to bestow upon us the realizations of Lamrim. This is why she is called the Lamrim Buddha. For this function to move our mind, we must first understand our samsaric situation: we are barreling towards lower rebirth, where we will become trapped experiencing unimaginable suffering for countless aeons. This is our present destiny, our inevitable fate if we do not change course. It is not enough for us to just avoid lower rebirth, because even if we attain upper rebirth, we risk falling back down into the lower realms; and even while born in the upper realms, we continue to experience problems like waves of the ocean. And it is not enough for just ourselves to escape from samsara, but all our kind mothers are likewise drowning in its fearful ocean, and if we do not rescue them, they will continue to suffer without end. As it says in the Lord of all Lineages Prayer, “if we give no thought to their pitiful suffering, we are like a mean and heartless child.”
The purity of our motivation: Our motivation for mantra recitation determines the final karmic effect of our recitation. According to the Lamrim, living beings can be divided according to the scope of our motivation. Specifically, it explains there are three types of being: beings of initial scope, beings of intermediate scope, and beings of great scope. Being of initial scope are of two types – those who wish only for happiness in this present life and those who wish to avoid lower rebirth in their future lives. Beings of intermediate scope wish to not only avoid all lower rebirth, but to permanently free themselves from any type of samsaric rebirth. Samsaric rebirth occurs when we uncontrolledly impute our I onto the contaminated bodies and minds of the six realms of samsara – hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demi-gods, or gods. Beings of great scope are not satisfied to merely attain their own liberation from samsara, but they wish to gain the ability to gradually lead each and every living being to the ultimate state of full enlightenment. Any virtuous action can be performed with any of these motivations. Generally speaking, we say that our motivation becomes “pure” if we engage in the action for the sake of our own or others future lives. Somebody whose primary motivation is to attain happiness in this life is considered a “worldly” being, and those who are looking to attain happiness in their own or others future lives are considered “spiritual” beings. This does not mean spiritual beings do not also wish to be happy in this life, rather they wish for happiness in this life AND all of their future lives. In this way, as we expand the scope of our motivation, we subsume the lower levels of motivation with our higher level of motivation. There is no contradiction between being entirely dedicated to the enlightenment of all and being happy in this life.
The teachings on karma explain it is primarily the scope of our motivation that determines the type of karma we create. If we recite the mantra with a motivation of initial scope, the karmic effect of our recitation will be to avoid lower rebirth in our future lives; if we recite the mantra with a motivation of intermediate scope (otherwise known as renunciation), the karmic effect of our recitation will be to escape from samsara; and if we recite the mantra with a great scope motivation (otherwise known as bodhichitta), the karmic effect of our recitation will be not only our own full enlightenment, but the full enlightenment of all. This does not mean with one recitation, we will attain enlightenment. Rather, it means the karma we create will continue to function until the final goal is attained. It is like a locomotive gradually building up momentum – the more power we add, the more momentum is built up moving it down the tracks. Great scope karma keeps powering us along the path until its final goal is realized. As we recite the mantra, we can request blessings that Tara expand the scope of our motivation for reciting her mantra, thus greatly increasing the power of our recitations.
The single-pointedness of our concentration: The definition of meditation is the mixing of our mind with virtue. The more we mix our mind with virtue, the more we create the causes for future inner peace. Inner peace is the inner cause of happiness – when our mind is peaceful, we are happy, regardless of our external circumstance. The more thoroughly we mix our mind with virtue, the more peaceful our mind will become. There are three levels at which we can mix our mind with virtue: listening, contemplating, and meditating. Venerable Tharchin explains when we listen to or read the Dharma, we come to understand a spiritual perspective; when we contemplate the Dharma, we transform our own perspective into a spiritual perspective; and when we meditate on the Dharma, we become ourselves a spiritual being. In other words, whatever we mix our mind with, we become. Applied to the practice of mantra recitation, when we read about Tara’s mantra, we can come to understand that it functions to bestow upon us Lamrim meditation. When we recite the mantra understanding its meaning, strongly believing we are requesting her to bestow these realizations on our mind, we are reciting while contemplating. When we understand by mixing our mind with the mantra we are mixing our mind directly with Tara’s Lamrim realizations so that her realizations become our own, we are reciting while meditating.
It is important that we try recite the mantra with single-pointed concentration. Geshe-la explains in Joyful Path that according to Sutra there are three types of faults to our concentration: mental wandering, mental excitement, and mental sinking. Mental wandering is when our mind wanders to some object of Dharma other than the mantra. While still virtuous, this other object is not our object of meditation. Mental excitement is when our mind moves towards some object of attachment – typically any object that is not our mantra and not some other object of Dharma. Mental sinking is when our mind sinks into a degree of non-awareness of anything, an extreme form of which is falling asleep. Concentration free for mental wandering, excitement, and sinking is calm, collected, relaxed, and absorbed into our object of meditation – in this case the mantra.
In Sutra, we concentrate with our gross mind, in Tantra we learn how to concentrate with our subtle and very subtle minds. The key to understanding how is to understand the relationship between our mind and our inner energy winds. Our inner energy winds are like the deep currents of our mind that flow through our inner channels. The channels of our subtle body are like the scaffolding of our mind – the structure which holds it all up and together. Our channels and winds are not physical phenomena that can be detected with x-rays or microscopes, but are rather mental phenomena that are experienced energetically primarily in the aggregate of feeling. Wherever we direct our mind, our winds follow. Since our mind is scattered around countless object of samsara, our winds scatter everywhere outside of our central channel. If the object of our mind is contaminated, the wind it is mounted on also becomes contaminated. Conversely, if our winds are pure, the minds mounted upon them also become pure. There are two ways to purify our winds. The first is to bring them within our central channel. Our central channel is like a purifying bath for our winds. As our contaminated winds cease, our contaminated minds – including all of our delusions – cease as well. The second way is to mix our mind with pure objects. If the object of our mind is pure, then it functions to purify the wind that is its mount. Pure objects are those that exist outside of samsara – such as Buddhas and motivations that wish to get ourself or others outside of samsara.
Mantras are, by nature, the purified wind of the Buddha. When we recite Tara’s mantra, we mix our mind with her pure winds. A Buddha’s mantra is like a subtle emanation of the Buddha. Their pure winds appear in the aspect of their mantra. When we recite the mantra, we mix their pure winds with our own, like water mixing with water. In effect, their pure winds become our own. The minds mounted on Tara’s pure winds are the Lamrim realizations of the initial, intermediate, and great scope. By bringing her pure winds into our mind, mixing them with our own, the realizations of Lamrim will naturally arise in our mind. Gathering mantra into our winds and our winds into mantra is how we concentrate on mantra recitation according to highest yoga tantra. The highest form of mantra recitation is called “vajra recitation.” Geshe-la explains in Tantric Grounds and Paths and Clear Light of Bliss that with vajra recitation we don’t “recite” the mantra with our gross mind, rather we “hear” it emerge within our mind, recognizing it as Tara infusing her pure winds into our very subtle mind.
The depth of our wisdom: The goal of mantra recitation is to mix our winds with Tara’s pure winds. The primary obstacle to being able to do so is grasping at the inherent existence of her, her mantra, our winds, and ourself. We grasp at these things as being four distinct things, completely separate from one another, like there is some chasm between them and they cannot interact. This grasping prevents us from seeing Tara as inseparable from her mantra, her mantra as mixed with our winds, and all of this as our own. When we let go of this grasping, we experience her mantra as her pure winds mixed inseparably from our own, arising within our mind. The duality between her mantra and our pure winds dissolve completely, and her vajra speech becomes our own. Single pointed concentration explained above brings our mind to the mantra recitation, realizing the emptiness of Tara, her mantra, our winds, and ourself is how we mix completely with her mantra. When our absorption into mantra recitation is complete, it will feel as if we are her mantra being recited, accomplishing the function of bestowing Lamrim realizations. It is like the whole world is absorbed into or, more deeply, appears as her mantra.
These four key factors for powerful mantra recitation are equally true for all mantras – Vajrayogini, Heruka, Dorje Shugden, and so forth. When we engage in close retreats, while our primary practice is engaging in mantra recitation, most of our inner work is building up the strength of these four factors.
Kadampa Working Dad 