A Commentary on "Daily Mantras"
Mantra of Great Wisdom Bimala Ushnisha
ༀ་ཧྲི་ཡ་དྷེ་སརྦ་ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་ཧྲི་ད་ཡ་གརྦྷེ། ཛྭ་ལ་དྷརྨ་དྷ་ཏུ་གརྦྷེ། སཾ་ཧ་ར་ཎ་ཨཱ་ཡུཿསཾ་ཤོ་དྷ་ཡ། པཱ་པཾ་སརྦ་ཏ་ཐཱ་ག་ཏ་ས་མནྡྲ་ཨུཥྞཱི་ཥ་བི་མ་ལེ་བྷི་ཤུདྡྷེ་སྭཱཧཱ།
OṂ HRIYADHE SARWA TATHĀGATA HRIDAYA GARBHE / DZOLA DHARMADHATU GARBHE / SANG HARANA ĀYUḤ SANGŚHODHAYA / PĀPAṂ SARWA TATHĀGATA SAMENDRA UṢHṆĪKHA BIMALE BIŚHUDDHE SWĀHĀ (a few times)
* This mantra has two major benefits. The first is that it purifies the five heavy negative karmas without break of anyone who hears it. The second is that because it is the most powerful mantra for consecration, it can be used to consecrate holy objects as well as rocks, trees, mountains, and so forth.
There are two versions of the Mantra of Great Wisdom Bimala Ushnisha.[1] One version begins with OṂ HRIYADHE and the other with OṂ TRAIYADHVE. The rest of the mantra is the same. I found the first version in a book written by a very great and learned lama in Tibet to educate young incarnate lamas. It explains to them how to do prayers and practices in order to help people, for example, how to do powa, transference of consciousness, for the dying, what prayers to do for the sick, and so forth. There must be a valid source for this version of the mantra but so far I haven’t been able to find it in the Kangyur. I want to check with the organization in Tibet that published the book in which this mantra comes. The mantra that begins with OṂ TRAIYADHVE is found in the Kangyur.
The benefits of reciting this mantra are mentioned in the book from Tibet. There it says:
After you recite this mantra, if you make one stupa tsatsa, it becomes the same as having made ten million stupa tsatsas. Also after you have recited this mantra, if any of the four elements touches you, it becomes twice as powerful as a stupa, and anyone who sees or touches the element will be liberated, their five heavy negative karmas without break will be purified, they will be reborn in a high caste, have a long life and wealth, remember their past lives, be protected from all harm, and achieve enlightenment. This is taught by Drodren Gyalwa Cho.[2]
If you recite this mantra and make a huge stupa, such as a billion-story stupa, or a small tsatsa stupa the size of a fingernail, you receive the same benefit, or the same amount of merit, as having made ten million huge or small stupas. Tibetans make a lot of tsatsa stupas, in which one tsatsa contains many small stupas, for people who have died and also for the preliminary practice of a hundred thousand tsatsas.
The merits you receive from making one stupa, which are inconceivable, are multiplied by ten million by reciting this mantra. Because it has this unbelievable benefit, it is important to recite this mantra before you begin the work of building a stupa, but you should also recite it every day during its construction. You can use it to bless the bricks, cement, and any other material that you are going to use. If you were to actually make ten million stupas, even small ones, can you imagine how many years it would take? If you were to build ten million big stupas the size of Lama Yeshe’s stupa at Chenrezig Institute, can you imagine how many lifetimes it would take? But if you recite this mantra when you start to build a stupa, you get the same benefit as having built ten million stupas without needing to undergo all the hardship. For this reason you should also recite this mantra when making statues and tsatsas. The whole point is that the more merit you are able to collect, the more easily and quickly you will be able to achieve enlightenment, which means that you will be able to liberate sentient beings from the sufferings of samsara and bring them to enlightenment more quickly. That is the whole point of doing these practices.
By reciting this mantra, if any element—earth, water, fire, or wind—touches your body, it gets blessed. It gains the power to liberate other sentient beings by purifying their negative karmas. For example, if you recite this mantra and then swim in water, the water becomes blessed and when it touches the numberless creatures living in it—from the largest whale down to the tiniest microscopic insect—and when it touches the human beings who are diving and playing in it, they are liberated from their negative karmas and the lower realms. It’s the same for the rest of the elements; by your reciting this mantra and touching them, the elements gain the power, double that of a stupa, to purify other sentient beings.
I think that if you recite this mantra, your body also becomes meaningful to behold and touch. Anyone who sees or touches you is liberated from the lower realms and their five heavy negative karmas without break are purified. Therefore, there is no doubt that their ten nonvirtuous actions are also purified. This means that after you have recited this mantra, if you go to places where there are a lot of people, such as a department store or train station, or you just walk along a busy street, even if you have no particular purpose for being there, other sentient beings’ minds will get purified by seeing you. You could even do something strange, such as make a loud noise, so that everyone looks at you, since just by seeing you they will be purified! Also if, having recited this mantra, you give other people a massage, it becomes very beneficial to them because their negative karmas get purified when you touch their bodies.
If you recite this mantra, anyone who sees or touches you or an element that you have touched will be reborn in a high caste, will have a long life and wealth, will remember their past lives, will be protected from all harm, and will achieve enlightenment. All these benefits are similar to those of the Exalted Stainless Beam Totally Pure Light Mantra.
This advice was taught by Drodren Gyalwa Cho, which might be the name of one of Buddha’s past lives. However, the term drodren is confusing. Dro means “transmigratory being” and dren means “guide.” I’m not sure whether Drodren Gyalwa Cho is the name of a buddha or it is simply talking about the function of a buddha, which is to guide transmigratory beings to enlightenment.
This mantra can be recited a few times at the beginning of each day along with other morning prayers and mantras, as well as before making statues, stupas, or tsatsas. The people who, in particular, can use this mantra to benefit others are those who are seen by and touch many people or animals, such as performers, models, public speakers, teachers, nurses, doctors, veterinarians, and so forth, as well as those who touch objects or elements that other sentient beings see or touch, such as cooks, bakers, potters, artists, painters, factory workers, dry cleaners, swimmers, and so forth.
There are also two major benefits of this mantra. The first is that reciting it purifies the five heavy negative karmas without break of anyone who hears it, whether they created these negative karmas in this life or in past lives. As I mentioned before, if someone does any of these five, as soon as they die they will be reborn in Inexhaustible Hell Realm where their body is completely oneness with fire. Only by the sound of their screaming can you tell that there is a sentient being there. Because this mantra purifies other sentient beings’ heavy negative karmas, I try to chant it, along with Maitreya Buddha’s mantra, whenever I recite mantras for people and animals. Hearing Maitreya Buddha’s mantra makes it impossible for that sentient being to be reborn in the lower realms. Also, if they do not become enlightened during Buddha Shakyamuni’s time, when Maitreya Buddha descends they will be among his first disciples and will receive teachings from him and a prediction regarding their enlightenment.
The second benefit of this mantra is that it can be used for consecration. In the Kangyur, Buddha said that among the many different prayers for consecration this mantra is the most powerful. If you chant this mantra on a holy object, all the buddhas’ wisdom absorbs into it. But even if you chant this mantra on a tree, rock, mountain, and so forth, all the buddhas’ wisdom absorbs into it and then you and other sentient beings can circumambulate it. Because of this benefit, I often add this mantra to the usual short consecration ritual. Since this mantra is not common and most people don’t know it, when I do consecration with others I usually end up being the only one saying the mantra!
Because all the buddhas’ wisdom abides in any object on which this mantra is recited, I only recite it on holy objects since they will be treated with respect. I don’t recite it on rosaries that people give me to bless because people treat them as ornaments and put them everywhere. I just recite OṂ PADMO UṢHṆĪṢHA VIMALE HŪṂ PHAṬ a few times and then blow on the rosary. If that mantra is recited on a rosary, when the person touches and uses it, all their negative karmas, and especially their five heavy negative karmas without break, get purified.[3]
In short, because this is a very powerful mantra for consecration, you can use it even if you don’t know any other prayers for consecration. Also, when you don’t have much time, you can do a short consecration by reciting the mantra of Bimala Ushnisha three times. Then, do the two prayers: “Please, Bhagavan, the destroyer qualified gone beyond one, abide until this world ends,” and “Please grant all sentient beings the common and sublime realizations.” When there is time you can do a longer version. The most elaborate consecration ritual involves doing sessions for seven days with a lot of offerings and a fire puja at the end. There is another ritual that involves reciting the Yamantaka sadhana, which takes about two hours to do. Then there is a very short consecration that has seven outlines and includes offering a torma to the interferers and a bath offering. However, the mantra of Bimala Ushnisha is the most important one. It is mentioned in the Kangyur that if you chant this mantra, other mantras are not so important. There are mantras that are a little bit different from this that can be used to consecrate the ocean and the sky.