Mantric mumbo-jumbo

Closely related to the topic of sadhanas is that of mantras, which are used not only in sadhanas, but in more public rituals. Generally mantras are invariable phrases, in Sanskrit or another language, which are chanted, and the chanting of mantras may be used as a kind of concentration or mindfulness practice, in public or in private.

Of course, mantras have had quite a bad press. “Mantra” is often used in English now to mean a meaningless expression which someone repeats because it is the current “in” thing to say in their group. Far from being meaningless, Buddhists claim to find them especially meaningful. Some words found in mantras (such as “padma” or “vajra”) have other uses as words referring to objects, so they clearly have a “meaning”. Other words (“Ah”,”Hum” and other such seed-syllables) have no meaning of their own beyond that provided by their associations with a mantra, but of course that doesn’t make them meaningless either.

What I can find disturbing about mantras is the way in which they represent the authority of tradition, and the exaggerated claims sometimes made about them. Lama Anagarika Govinda, for example, makes a lot of silly claims about mantras representing the underlying essence of the universe[1]. To be fair, I have rarely heard Buddhists repeating such claims. Nevertheless, they would probably be upset if I were to start introducing other random words in part of the mantra. Why is it better to chant “Om mani padme hum” than “Om mani turnip hum”, or for that matter, “turnip carrot spinach beet”? You could imagine those four vegetables generating lots of concentration if recited in the right way.

If tradition carries all the weight of this, and the only reason for chanting mantras in a particular form is tradition, it would be better to break such tradition, if only to make the point that tradition for its own sake has no value. It is much harder for human beings to develop initiative than to simply follow custom and habit, so the ideal therefore should be for them to change what they chant in every ritual and practice, maintaining the initiative. At the same time, the power of tradition and its metaphysical baggage might mysteriously slacken.