A Commentary on “Mantras for Specific Occasions”
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| Curso: | Transforming a Suffering Life into Happiness |
| Libro: | A Commentary on “Mantras for Specific Occasions” |
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| Fecha: | jueves, 27 de agosto de 2026, 16:11 |
A Commentary on "Mantras for Specific Occasions"
Mantra to Increase the Power of Recitation
* Recite this mantra before reading and reciting prayers, sutras, and so forth.
ཏདྱཐཱ། ༀ་དྷ་རེ་དྷ་རེ་བྷནྡྷ་རེ་སྭཱཧཱ།
TAYATHĀ / OṂ DHARE DHARE BHENDHARE SWĀHĀ (7x)
I received the oral transmission of this mantra from my guru Geshe Sengge, who was a disciple of Gonsar Rinpoche’s previous incarnation in Mongolia. If you recite it seven times before you read a Dharma text, such as Diamond Cutter Sutra, Golden Light Sutra, and so forth, it is as if you read the text millions of times. When you read the text, you should think that you are teaching it to the six-realm sentient beings, who all hear it in their own language.
A Commentary on "Mantras for Specific Occasions"
Mantra to Bless the Feet
Recite the mantra seven times and then spit on the soles of your feet. It is taught that any insects that die under your feet will be reborn as devas in the Realm of the Thirty-Three.
ༀ་ཁྲེ་ཙ་ར་གྷ་ན་ཧཱུཾ་ཧྲཱི་སྭཱཧཱ།
OṂ KHRETSA RAGHANA HŪṂ HRĪ SWĀHĀ (7x)
* This mantra can also be used to bless the wheels of vehicles and other things that can crush and kill sentient beings. It should be recited when the specific need arises such as having to walk on ground where there are many insects or other small creatures and when driving a car, riding a bicycle, and so forth.
Here in my Tibetan prayer book it doesn’t mention from which text this mantra comes. However, I found it in the Manjushri Root Tantra.
Some texts say to recite this mantra seven times, but here it says to recite it three times.[1] After reciting it, don’t only blow on the soles of your feet, spit on them. Then, any insects that die under your feet that day will be reborn in the deva realm Thirty-Three. Although the text says to spit on your feet, since you usually wear shoes, after reciting it seven or three times you should spit on the soles of your shoes because they are what actually kill the insects. If you generate faith and do this practice, it will be of great benefit to sentient beings.
It is especially good to recite this mantra and then spit a few times on your feet or shoes when you are going to walk on a beach where there are tiny crabs that you can’t see at the edge of the water, or when you are going to walk on grass, across a field, or in a forest where there are many tiny insects that you can’t see. Although the insects try to escape by flying or jumping away, because you can’t see them many of them will get killed, but at least they won’t be reborn in the lower realms. But I’m not saying that if you see earthworms that have come out in the rain, crickets, spiders, mice, and so forth, you should recite the mantra on some heavy shoes and then jump on them! I’m not saying that! It depends on where you are walking—if there are a lot of small creatures, you should recite this mantra.
I also suggest that when you need to drive somewhere that you chant this mantra and then spit on the wheels of the car, which are what touch the ground. Or you can chant the mantra over some water, blow on it, and then sprinkle it on the wheels. Since there are definitely many insects on the roads, they will get killed when you drive a car, but if you do this at least they will get a higher rebirth. If you are working in a garden or building something, you can also recite this mantra and spit on the tools you are using. Don’t only think to bless your feet or shoes—you can bless anything that could kill sentient beings.
In short, any time you find yourself in a place or situation where there is the danger of crushing and killing sentient beings, it is good to recite this mantra. Therefore, you should write it in a notebook and carry it with you all the time in case you need to recite it but won’t remember it. Reciting it makes your life very fruitful and beneficial for other sentient beings. You should think from your heart that this mantra for blessing the feet and other things is important. It is one way to make your life meaningful. I want to emphasize this because otherwise, although this mantra is in your prayer book, you might never use it. Don’t do that! You must take advantage of this practice since it is Buddha’s way of helping you by making it very easy for you to purify negative karmas, collect merits, gain realizations, and achieve enlightenment quickly. You must think about that and you must take each opportunity to use it. Don’t just leave this mantra in your prayer book and then die without ever having taken advantage of it while you were alive!
[1] In the Lamai Naljor published by Sherig Pharkhang, it says to recite this mantra three times.
A Commentary on "Mantras for Specific Occasions"
The Power of Mantras Comes from Faith
The great translator Lotsawa Paltseg wrote a short book about how to read Sanskrit. Many Tibetan lamas follow it and pronounce mantras according to it. This book says that Sanskrit mantras should be recited very correctly, as otherwise one creates much negative karma. However, the benefits of reciting mantras are not dependent on correct pronunciation; they come from faith.
His Holiness Zong Rinpoche’s previous incarnation told a story about this during a Dharma Celebration. A monk went to see a lama and asked him for teachings. The lama, who was very busy and didn’t have much time, said to the monk, “Your nose is like rudraksha.” The monk must have had a big, rough nose like the big, rough beads of the rosaries that sadhus wear, which are made from rudraksha seeds. The monk, who didn’t understand what the lama said, thought that he had received a mantra and faithfully recited every day, “Your nose is like rudraksha. Your nose is like rudraksha.” Eventually he became able to heal many people by reciting this “mantra.”
Some years later when the lama had an infection in his throat, his attendant told him that there was a famous healer in the area, one who had helped many people, and the lama agreed to see him. When the monk came to see the lama, he recited, “Your nose is like rudraksha.” Remembering what he had said in the past, the lama laughed so much that the infection burst and the pus came out, due to which he got better.
That the monk became a famous healer by reciting, “Your nose is like rudraksha,” shows that his power to heal people mainly depended on his faith. It came from believing he had received a mantra from the lama, even though the lama had just said that to him as a joke.
There is a similar story about a woman who used to recite OṂ BALE BULE BUNDE SOHA to cook and eat stones. One day her son, a novice monk with thirty-six vows, overheard his mother reciting the mantra and told her that the correct way to pronounce it was OṂ TSALE TSULE TSUNDE SVĀHĀ. However, when his mother recited the mantra correctly she could no longer cook stones, but she could do that when she again recited OṂ BALE BULE BUNDE SOHA. This story also shows that the power of mantra recitation mainly depends on faith, not on the mantra being recited correctly.
Of course, if you don’t study how to recite mantras in Sanskrit, you won’t know how to pronounce them correctly. Instead many words will come out deformed, like someone without a nose, arms, legs, or head. There are many details that need to be learned in order for the pronunciation to be correct. Because it wasn’t very common in Tibet to learn Sanskrit, most Tibetans read mantras in the same way that they would read normal Tibetan letters. However, as I already mentioned, the benefits of reciting mantras don’t depend on reciting them correctly; they depend on faith. If there is no faith, there won’t be much result, although, of course, reciting mantras leaves a positive imprint on the mind that will in the future cause one to learn Dharma, actualize the path, cease the gross and subtle defilements, and achieve full enlightenment. This is because all mantras have the long-term effect of bringing one to enlightenment.