A Commentary on “Blessing the Speech According to the Instructions of Great Yogi Khyungpo”
A Commentary on “Blessing the Speech According to the Instructions of Great Yogi Khyungpo”
Reciting the Mantras
Mantras for Blessing the Speech
Concentrate on the visualization and recite the mantras beginning from the inner circle.
Recite the mantras one by one, three times each, beginning with the vowels, the inner circle; then the consonants; and then the Heart Mantra of Dependent Relation, the outer circle.
When you recite mantras, you have to recite them very clearly and slowly. For example, when you recite the vowels, say OṂ A Ā (pause), I Ī (pause), U Ū (pause), ṚI Ṝi (pause), and so forth. When Kyabje Choden Rinpoche gave a commentary on Secret Vajrapani at Vajrapani Institute, Rinpoche talked about how important it is to recite mantras correctly. Rinpoche used this example of the Sanskrit vowels to show how they should be recited very clearly and very precisely, with the sounds of all the syllables pronounced correctly.
There are different techniques for reciting these mantras but according to the great yogi Drubchen Khyungpo, all three mantras—the vowels, consonants, and Heart Mantra of Dependent Relation—have OṂ at the beginning and SWĀHĀ at the end.
Sanskrit Vowels (Ali)
* As you recite the vowels, white nectar beams flow down from the mantra and fill your whole body. All negative karmas collected with your body from beginningless rebirths are completely purified.
ༀ་ཨ་ཨཱ་ཨི་ཨཱི་ཨུ་ཨཱུ་རྀ་རཱྀ་ལྀ་ལཱྀ་ཨེ་ཨཱེ་ཨོ་ཨཽ་ཨཾ་ཨཿསྭཱཧཱ།
OṂ A Ā I Ī U Ū ṚI ṜI ḶI ḸI E Ē O Ō ANG AH SWĀHĀ (3x)
Sanskrit Consonants (Kali)
* As you recite the consonants, red nectar beams flow down from the mantra and fill your whole body. All negative karmas collected with your speech from beginningless rebirths are completely purified.
ༀ་ཀ་ཁ་ག་གྷ་ང་། ཙ་ཚ་ཛ་ཛྙ་ཉ། ཊ་ཋ་ཌ་ཌྷ་ཎ། ཏ་ཐ་ད་དྷ་ན། པ་ཕ་བ་བྷ་མ། ཡ་ར་ལ་ཝ། ཤ་ཥ་ས་ཧ་ཀྵ་སྭཱཧཱ།
OṂ KA KHA GA GHA ṄGA / TSA TSHA DZA GYA ÑA / ṬA ṬHA ḌA ḌHA ṆA / TA THA DA DHA NA / PA PHA BA BHA MA / YA RA LA WA / ŚHA KA SA HA KYA SWĀHĀ (3x)
The second set of consonants should be pronounced TSA TSHA DZA GYA ÑA, not CHA CHHA JA GYA ÑA,[1] as that is how the ancient pandits wrote them in Tibetan. If you pronounce these letters as CHA CHHA JA GYA ÑA, it means that they made a mistake. Since those pandits had a purpose in writing them like this in Tibetan, I think it is better to recite them the Tibetan way.
Without the diacritic marks these two sets of Sanskrit letters-—ṬA ṬHA ḌA ḌHA ṆA and TA THA DA DHA NA-—look exactly the same, which would mean that you would say the same thing twice. But in Sanskrit and Tibetan they are totally different letters because the letters in the first set are reversed.
Then, there is ŚHA ṢHA SA HA KṢHA, but Tibetans normally say ŚHA KA SA HA KYA. I checked the pronunciation of these letters with a Sanskrit expert in the past but now I’ve forgotten what he said.
Heart Mantra of Dependent Relation
* As you recite the mantra, blue nectar beams flow down from the mantra and fill your whole body. All negative karmas collected with your mind from beginningless rebirths are completely purified.
ༀ་ཡེ་དྷརྨཱ་ཧེ་ཏུ་པྲ་བྷ་ཝཱ་ཧེ་ཏུནྟེ་ཥནྟ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏོ་ཧྱ་ཝ་དཏ། ཏེ་ཥཱཉྩ་ཡོ་ནི་རོ་དྷ་ཨེ་ཝཾ་བཱ་དཱི་མཧཱ་ཤྲ་མ་ཎ་ཡེ་སྭཱཧཱ།
OṂ YE DHARMĀ HETU PRABHAWĀ HETUN TEKÄN TATHĀGATO HYAVADÄ / TEKÄÑ TSA YO NIRODHA EWAM VĀDĪ MAHĀ ŚHRAMAṆAYE SWĀHĀ (3x)
Although there is no break in the Tibetan writing, you have to pause between YO and NI. This is because if you recite YO and NI together as YONI, the mantra would have the very strange meaning of “May the female sex organ be destroyed.” But if you pause after YO and then recite NIRODHA EWAM VĀDĪ MAHĀ ŚHRAMAṆAYE SWĀHĀ, it doesn’t mean that. This way of reciting the mantra is explained and emphasized in the texts.
Reciting this mantra stops all inauspicious things, gathers all good things, and fulfills all wishes.