A Commentary on "Daily Mantras"
Exalted Stainless Beam Totally Pure Light Mantra
ན་མཿན་བ་ན་བ་ཏཱི་ནཱཾ། ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་གཾ་གཱ་ནཾ་དཱི་བཱ་ལུ་ཀཱ་ནཾ། ཀོ་ཊི་ནི་ཡུ་ཏ་ཤ་ཏ་ས་ཧ་སྲཱ་ཎཱཾ། ༀ་བོ་བོ་རི། ཙ་རི་ཎི་ཙ་རི། མོ་རི་གོ་རི་ཙ་ལ་བཱ་རི་སྭཱཧཱ།
NAMAḤ NAWA NAWA TĪNÄN / TATHĀGATA GANG GĀNAṂ DĪWĀ LUKĀ NÄN / KOṬI NIYUTA ŚHATA SAHASRĀṆÄN / OṂ BO BO RI / TSARI ṆI TSARI / MORI GOrI TSALA WĀRI SWĀHĀ (21, 10, or a few times)
* Talking to a person who has recited this mantra purifies even the five heavy negative karmas without break. Just hearing the voice of a person who has recited this mantra, being touched by their shadow, or touching their body purifies negative karmas collected in this and past lives. If you recite this mantra, you won’t be harmed by poison, spirits, lightning, and so forth. All the buddhas will protect you, Chenrezig will look after you, and all the devas and those who are living in samaya will support you. You won’t be harmed by black magic mantras, rituals, and substances. If this mantra is put inside a stupa, the negative karmas of anyone who sees the stupa, hears of it, touches it, or is touched by earth, dust, or wind that has touched it get purified. They won’t be reborn in the lower realms and instead will be born as happy transmigratory beings.
This mantra, one of the dharmakaya relic mantras, is from the Kangyur, Buddha’s teachings. I received the oral transmission of all four mantras and their benefits from Kyabje Kyongla Rato Rinpoche in San Jose, California. It is good to recite the Exalted Stainless Beam Totally Pure Light Mantra after blessing your speech in the morning, before you begin to talk and engage in impure speech. You can recite it twenty-one times, ten times, or even just three, four, or five times.
When you recite it you should say NAMAḤ NAWA NAWA TĪNÄN, not TĪNĀṂ, because the NĀ with a circle on top of it (the Tibetan form of Ṃ) comes at the end of a set of syllables, where there is a line in the Tibetan.[1] If it were to come in the middle of a set of syllables, then it would be NĀṂ. For example, it is TATHĀGATA GANG GĀNAṂ, not GĀNÄN, because NAṂ is in the middle, without a break after it.
Generally, it is mentioned that the circle on top of a syllable is sometimes pronounced NGA, sometimes NA, and sometimes MA. The first row of the Sanskrit alphabet is KA KHA GA GHA NGA. If KA, KHA, GA, or GHA were to have a circle on top of it and the syllable were to come at the end, it would be pronounced KANG, KHANG, GANG, or GHANG. If NGA had a circle on top, I’m not sure what it would be, but I haven’t seen that yet. The vowels with a small A, འ, on the bottom are supposed to be pronounced with a longer sound.[2]
The Ritual for Blessing Stupas: Exalted Stainless Beam Totally Pure Light Mantra says that if someone recites this mantra after blessing their speech in the morning, the five heavy negative karmas without break of anyone who talks to them get purified. What does “without break” mean? Without the break of another life. Because these negative karmas are very powerful, the results of other negative karmas are delayed and right after you die you are reborn in the lowest hell, Inexhaustible, where the suffering is the heaviest in samsara and experienced for the longest time—one intermediate eon. And if your karma to be there is not finished when this world ends, you will be reborn in that hell in another universe. The five heavy negative karmas without break are killing your father, killing your mother, killing an arhat, causing a buddha to bleed, and creating disunity in the sangha. Whether someone has committed these negative karmas in this life or in their past lives, these karmas get purified by talking to someone who has recited this mantra. Therefore, if you recite this mantra in the morning, because the heavy negative karmas without break of all the people who talk to you that day get purified, they won’t have to experience their suffering results. Can you imagine the benefit? It is incredible. Although it is not exactly liberation, they are freed from having to experience very heavy suffering for a very long time. You can give this freedom to anyone who talks to you
Also, after you have recited this mantra, there is unbelievable benefit for anyone who hears your voice, on whom the shadow of your body falls, and who touches your body (for example, a person who shakes your hand or an insect, such as a fly or mosquito, that lands on your body). Not only are their negative karmas of this life purified, but also their negative karmas of past lives. Because even their very heavy negative karmas without break are purified, there is no doubt that their ten nonvirtuous actions are also purified. Therefore, whether you are doing counseling, teaching in a school, or just engaging in conversation, reciting this mantra becomes beneficial for others when they hear your voice. Even if someone is blind and cannot see you, you can speak to them so that they hear your voice and you can touch their body, hands, or face and bring them unimaginable benefit. You should remember this when you are talking to and touching others.
Also, due to reciting this mantra you won’t be harmed by poison, such as the bites of poisonous animals. You won’t be harmed by spirits. You won’t experience danger to your life from lightning and so forth. You will be protected by all the buddhas. You will be supported and helped by Chenrezig. All the devas and all those living in samaya will be happy with you. You won’t be harmed by others’ black magic mantras, rituals, and substances.
If this mantra is put inside a stupa, the negative karmas are purified of anyone who sees the stupa, hears about it, touches it (including the insects that land on it), or is touched by earth, dust, or wind that has touched the stupa, and they won’t be reborn in the lower realms. Instead they will be reborn as happy transmigratory beings, as devas or human beings. In short, it will be impossible for those who are in the lower realms to be born back there again.
Guru Shakyamuni Buddha explained to Bodhisattva Great Sattva Eliminating All Obscurations, Lord of Secrets (Vajrapani), the Four Great Kings, and the gods, including Brahma, who is the lord of this unbearable suffering world, the devas of Brahma Type, and Maheshvara, “Holy beings, I am handing you the essence of the king of secret mantras. You should always respect and offer service to it. Keep it and put it inside a jewel container. Then announce it in all places and unceasingly show it to sentient beings. If you make them see and hear it, their five negative karmas without break will be purified.”[3]
Because it is so good to put this mantra inside statues and stupas, I had it printed on separate sheets. I also had it printed on microfiche to put in tsatsas. Usually big statues and stupas have a life-tree inside them on which the four dharmakaya relic mantras are written in gold, but this mantra can be put in small statues and stupas instead of it. Even if there is just one Exalted Stainless Beam Totally Pure Light Mantra in a statue or stupa, there is unbelievable benefit—the negative karmas and obscurations of anyone who sees it get purified.