How do mantras work?

[prsvrnc]

How do mantras work? For instance, mantras of increase, or dharani mantra to make limitless. The only thing I can think of is that... reality is relative, and... pores and things can increase/decrease in size respectively... So, through the mantra recitation and faith in that, one's mental power helps it expand and not. But it comes from faith (at least for now). Is this maybe a decent interpretation?
Thanks for any thoughts.


Additionally, as I posted elsewhere:
Sorry if my question(s) come off disrespectful. In my heart of hearts, I have great respect for all aspects of this tradition. It has produced and continues to produce amazing amazing people that demonstrate the truth of these teachings. Very very precious. This goes for all my posts on the forum. I DO have a lot of questions, skeptical questions, but by thoroughly examining, in the end I develop more faith and respect. I am sorry if my question comes off as offensive!!!
--Your friend in the dharma.

[ngodrup]

There are several bases upon which mantras work.

One is scriptural.
Another has to do with pranayama.
Yet another has to do with channels and chakras.

Mantras typically have literal meanings, so in the case
of activity mantras they often say such things as "increase,"
"magnetize," "destroy"....

[prsvrnc]

Thank you, Ngodrup
Things for me to consider further... oh, what a miny little being i am! how much i can validly say "I KNOW" is like a slice of a pie... so small!

[prsvrnc]

How does someone relate to or work with mantra practice (such as with commitments) when one doesn't have the abilities mentioned above??? How does it become more meaningful than just jabber when one lacks the deeper connection, at least first-hand? Faith..??

[Ayu]

When I recite mantras I observe different phases. There are phases of no concentration and no understanding for sure. This is like feeling one foot to be numb while walking. A good remedy is to walk on.
A connection and understanding is built up by doing - for me it works like this. Other people might be different.

[ClearblueSky]

How does someone relate to or work with mantra practice (such as with commitments) when one doesn't have the abilities mentioned above??? How does it become more meaningful than just jabber when one lacks the deeper connection, at least first-hand? Faith..??

To a degree yes, faith is important in all practices, especially until you develop them further. As you practice something more and more the "relying on faith alone" stage gradually gets replaced by the "feeling/seeing/experiencing the results" stage, but in the beginning it's largely faith. This applies even to something simple and "scientifically proven", like basic mindfulness meditation. At first you might try it because some study or teacher said it can be helpful, then after a few weeks or months, you can deeply feel the benefit.
Saying a small amount of mantras with faith is better than a large amount with lots of doubt. That's why we don't jump into commitments about mantras or practices- then you just feel forced to do them, without faith, and they become empty, instead of something that resonates with you.

[ngodrup]

How do you do it "for real?"
You do it, a lot. That's why
it's called practice. If you could
do tantra perfectly, you'd be
enlightened already.

Before that, you practice.
You get better, more skilled.

But don't expect to see much
until your accumulations near
the million mark. You might, but...

[prsvrnc]

Saying a small amount of mantras with faith is better than a large amount with lots of doubt. That's why we don't jump into commitments about mantras or practices- then you just feel forced to do them, without faith, and they become empty, instead of something that resonates with you.

This makes sense. What do you have faith in?
One thing that makes sense to me: Faith that everything you hear becomes mantra... (everything is vajra sound, if I can call it that). << This makes sense to me.
Sorry if i am asking too bluntly or if it is too personal of a question. I want to make mantra practice meaningful to me so I can get over doubt and find benefit.
Ideas how or what to generate faith in? I will keep trying in the meantime..

[Wayfarer]

To be honest, my first response to this question was 'if you have to know how they work, then they're of no benefit'. 'Knowing how something works' is an analytical question - how do the parts fit together, how does some cause bring about some effect.

I do some recitations as part of my practice, and have been given mantras in the past. So how they 'work', as far as I am concerned, is simply that they are part of what the practice consists of. I suppose they are in some sense like mind-training, insofar as they plant a positive seed or idea, or orient the mind towards awakening rather than to all the other things that it might wish to pursue. So that's one benefit. They might also be an invocation of presence, in that one is 'calling' the sacred name. But I don't dwell much on how that process works - I guess I just trust the practice, and part of that is 'practice for the sake of practice' - not to get some outcome.

Faith is a fine line - one has to have faith, but not, I think, in the sense of 'clinging to a hope' which is what it often amounts to. Faith can easily segue into wishful thinking of self-delusion. I think a big part of faith in the Buddhist sense is letting go or not knowing. Meditation is 'not-knowing'; that is very much in line with what some Zen schools refer to as the 'don't know mind'. Whereas faith often ends up being almost like a negotiation: 'if I believe this, then I might get some favourable outcome'. I am generally distrustful of that kind of attitude.

They are just some personal reflections on your question.

[prsvrnc]

To be honest, my first response to this question was 'if you have to know how they work, then they're of no benefit'. 'Knowing how something works' is an analytical question - how do the parts fit together, how does some cause bring about some effect.

I do some recitations as part of my practice, and have been given mantras in the past. So how they 'work', as far as I am concerned, is simply that they are part of what the practice consists of. I suppose they are in some sense like mind-training, insofar as they plant a positive seed or idea, or orient the mind towards awakening rather than to all the other things that it might wish to pursue. So that's one benefit. They might also be an invocation of presence, in that one is 'calling' the sacred name. But I don't dwell much on how that process works - I guess I just trust the practice, and part of that is 'practice for the sake of practice' - not to get some outcome.

Faith is a fine line - one has to have faith, but not, I think, in the sense of 'clinging to a hope' which is what it often amounts to. Faith can easily segue into wishful thinking of self-delusion. I think a big part of faith in the Buddhist sense is letting go or not knowing. Meditation is 'not-knowing'; that is very much in line with what some Zen schools refer to as the 'don't know mind'. Whereas faith often ends up being almost like a negotiation: 'if I believe this, then I might get some favourable outcome'. I am generally distrustful of that kind of attitude.

This is all, really good... and on-point. This helps. I could even view my mantra practice as a way of circumventing the idea that my rational (cause-and-effect) mind can encompass all of reality. It can be an opportunity to behave irrationally or "without reason" for a time, learning to relax with what is. Maybe. (Here again I am providing reasons/justifications.. haha.) I will really consider this. Thanks.

[Huseng]

Some serious reading materials on the matter...

The Indian Buddhist Dhāraṇī: An Introduction to its History, Meanings and Functions

https://www.academia.edu/7906583/The_In ... _Functions


The Meanings of the Word Hūṃ by Kūkai

http://www.bdk.or.jp/pdf/bdk/digitaldl/ ... s_2004.pdf

[Urgyen Dorje]

I don't think it's a stretch to say that speech is very powerful. I may not be able to jump across the room and smack someone, but I can say a few words and profoundly impact them. I can use speech to communicate nuanced and complex things with levels of emotional, social, and intellectual tones that would otherwise take me volumes to do so rationally. I can use speech to connect my mind to my heart to my body, and connect all of those to the outside world and its inhabitants. Speech is energy and that energy can resonate wherever that energy is tuned. My late root teacher said the mantra is the self resounding energy of awakening, of the deity, of our innate natures. If we have enough faith to accept that at face value, mantra will spark one awaken the qualities of the deity inside ourselves and outside too.

I agree that it's best not to worry too much how it works. It's like worrying about how an erection happens so as to make love. If the mantra feels right, if one has faith in the guru, if one has bodicitta, it will all just flow and have the result.

[ClearblueSky]

Saying a small amount of mantras with faith is better than a large amount with lots of doubt. That's why we don't jump into commitments about mantras or practices- then you just feel forced to do them, without faith, and they become empty, instead of something that resonates with you.

One thing that makes sense to me: Faith that everything you hear becomes mantra... (everything is vajra sound, if I can call it that). << This makes sense to me.

What you are describing there is more or less the essence of the Generation Stage of all tantric practice. The essence of one part of it at least, the same applies to all your senses.

Sorry if i am asking too bluntly or if it is too personal of a question. I want to make mantra practice meaningful to me so I can get over doubt and find benefit.
Ideas how or what to generate faith in? I will keep trying in the meantime..

I think the easiest thing to have faith in is your intention at first. Even if you're saying gibberish, if you say a sentence of gibberish a million times with strong compassion, by the end of that process, you will be both happier and better at benefitting others. Combine that with the added bonus that others who have done far more than become happier and better at benefitting others have said there's specific words to do that, that many of them have used with the same intention as yourself... well that should at least be something to help you start.

[ClearblueSky]

It's like worrying about how an erection happens so as to make love. If the mantra feels right, if one has faith in the guru, if one has bodicitta, it will all just flow and have the result.

Or if you're Drukpa Kunley, you can make them one in the same and really, really benefit some people.

[Monlam Tharchin]

There's a thread you may find relevant regarding faith.
http://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=19719

I'll repost part of my reply that I hope you'll find helpful.

It's easy for faith and doubt to become synonymous with hope and fear.
That is, pursuing some emotional states over others because they're clothed with religion.
I feel bliss, confidence, peace, practice is easy, therefore I have faith and things should continue this way.
I feel uncertainty, worry, confused, practice is discouraging and empty, therefore I have no faith and something must change.
This has been my experience before, and it's an easy ping-pong game to fall into.

So to me, "having faith" isn't really the same as having pleasant feelings of faith.
Faith is more like a verb... it's what you do, again and again.
Faith is not the absence of doubt, but the release of pleasant and unpleasant feelings/thoughts both into the continuity of practice, or the care of a bodhisattva like Kanzeon.
It's the repeated entrusting of your worries to the Three Jewels, not trying to crush or chase away your suffering.

FWIW I've had a practice of mani and nembutsu recitation for a few years. I can't speak to other mantras, but I imagine this game of faith/doubt is familiar to others.

[Thomas Amundsen]

Some serious reading materials on the matter...

The Indian Buddhist Dhāraṇī: An Introduction to its History, Meanings and Functions

https://www.academia.edu/7906583/The_In ... _Functions


The Meanings of the Word Hūṃ by Kūkai

http://www.bdk.or.jp/pdf/bdk/digitaldl/ ... s_2004.pdf

Over 300 pages on one syllable

Thanks for these excellent resources!

[Huseng]

Over 300 pages on one syllable

Thanks for these excellent resources!

The text on the mantra syllable is only around thirty pages. The other texts are of course worth reading through as well.

The dissertation is probably the first place to start since he outlines the pre-Buddhist use of mantras and later elaborates on what it came to mean for Buddhists.

There's sacred words of power (incantations basically) in other traditions, most notably in Kabbalah.

Ideally when it comes to mantras you're aware of the semantic and phonological features, otherwise you're just uttering random sounds.

[prsvrnc]

At Indrajala -- super excelent!!!!! what i was looking for (one answer). thank you.

And thanks also especially to @Urgyen Dorje, ClearBlueSkype and Monlam Tharchin — very helpful. i guess there is no “thank button” on this forum but it ought to have one!

very helpful

[Huseng]

One thing to bear in mind about language is that it has causal power. Language exists and affects physical reality, just not in a necessarily so predictable manner. The right words can trigger a rapid and measurable heart rate increase in another individual, which is interesting to consider in light of physicalism which often suggests immaterial forces (if these are even recognized as truly existing) cannot directly influence matter. If language is just an epiphenomenon of material processes, then here we have such an epiphenomenon directly affecting primary phenomenon.

There's actually very elaborate theories of how properly pronounced mantras affect the consciousness. To understand this requires much knowledge of Sanskrit phonology and grammar. A scholar of Sanskrit in India explained to me at length many of the details, which I found quite insightful and encouraging. There really is an immense science behind mantras, however most Buddhists nowadays are completely unaware of it, which is understandable given the absence of Sanskrit Buddhism apart from the minority of Newar Buddhists in Nepal. Tibetan script can accurately represent Sanskrit, but people don't necessarily pronounce it correctly. I once had a Ladakhi lama insisting it was om meni pema hung. Chinese texts never accurately represented Sanskrit and historically both Chinese and Japanese scribes were poor at reproducing Siddham (Sanskrit script). I actually have had to struggle with this when attempting to decipher mantras from Chinese texts:

http://huayanzang.blogspot.com/2015/01/ ... anese.html

In modern Japan they pronounce mantras according to their transliteration in katakana, which is reflective of Middle Chinese pronunciations of the Chinese characters used to transliterate Sanskrit which the scribes at the time probably did not really understand. In Chinese Buddhism they generally pronounce everything using modern Mandarin readings of the characters, which sounds absolutely nothing like the original.

Given what I know about mantra theory (especially after talking to a traditional Sanskrit scholar in India), I really wonder at how effective such use of mantras is when you don't have the phonology down, to say nothing of knowing the meanings.

[Thomas Amundsen]

Given what I know about mantra theory (especially after talking to a traditional Sanskrit scholar in India), I really wonder at how effective such use of mantras is when you don't have the phonology down, to say nothing of knowing the meanings.

How useful is it though if you don't have a guru that can transmit the mantra using the appropriate pronunciations? It is my understanding that you need to receive transmission from a person who has actualized the function of the mantra. Like you said, spoken word is very powerful. For someone in a situation like mine, I do not have access to a person that speaks proper Brahmin Sanskrit (let alone actually accomplishing the mantra in such a manner).

Also, do all mantras actually have a Sanskrit origin? It's not clear to me whether the vajra guru mantra ever originally existed in Sanskrit before Tibetan.