Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Mantraing
lobster
Crusty Veteran
In Vajrayana in particular, mantra is a way to:
- unfold a resonate dharma component
- quiet internal monkey chatter
- generate blessing, focus and perfectly right speech
Powerful practice.
Recently I tried but had forgotten the migtsema. Bad lobster!
http://www.lama-tsongkhapa.com/migtsema/
No worries it will soon be back in what I laughingly call my mind.
https://cundi.weebly.com/yidam.html
Here are my top tips for chanting be glad for your tips/experiences?
- Start aloud, reduce the volume until quieter than a whisper. When ready no sound at all. Internal.
- Mala not essential, timing/numbers not required BUT this can focus your practice initially.
- Try to not mindless sleep chant. Yep still guilty of distractions at times
Migmey tzeway terchen chenray-zi
Drimey kyenpay wangpo jampel-yang
Dupung malu jomdzay sangway-dag
Gangchen kaypay tzug-gyen tzongkapa
Losang dragpay shabla solwa-deb
0
Comments
I remember reading somewhere that repeating mantra's is really a form of self hypnosis? I've never gotten very far with that technique myself but I wonder what other people's comments are on this.
I have sometimes found myself at the end of a Green Tara mantra cycle feeling like I'm coming out of a trance because I settle, unconsciously into a rhythm with the words and the words lose meaning and sense and the pattern of repetition is what lulls me into the meditation. If that makes sense?
Welcome @Nerida
What you describe is the ‘mindless sleep chant’ or hypnotic trance state @Kerome mentions. Chanting can be a way of occupying monkey mind or merely the opposite of attentive mindful focus. So your your experience makes sense but how is it different to drowsing/drifting to calming music?
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA
It's entirely possible that mantra chanting has the hypnotic effect on only part of the mind and that the rest stays alert and awake, I would think.
Hmm perhaps chanting a mantra is a way to bring together/harmonise the different energies of the vibrating syllables, helping to balance the energy flow which at times can be slightly off...going against the flow ...
After all.... the psycho-physical phenomenon called the self, is just a vibrating bundles of energy flux held together by karmic glue....
Chanting mantras helps the sense of self get back into the rhythm of life ...so to speak...
so to chant …
https://buddhaweekly.com/healing-meditation-prayer-and-mantras-do-they-work-according-to-research-with-new-viruses-arising-can-we-turn-to-mantras-for-help/
I only have experienced this since my Green Tara Empowerment.
The way I learnt it, The Green Tara empowerment has a faster pace and intensity than other mantras, Green Tara concentrates the mind by some very fast long winded out-breathing. This is a form of hyper ventilation and can indeed produce a light trance.
More extreme hyper ventilation can produce light headiness, hallucinations and immunity to pain.
Mantra can zombify you eg.
hope that is helpful
Vajrayana says you should not be doing their techniques without the in-person guidance of a qualified teacher (this will be a Lama).
They say doing it on your own will "drive you crazy" .. even the laypeople and even the Tibetan medical doctor say this.
And speaking from the standpoint of psychology, I can see why some of the practices/pujas could destabilize our personality or even make us delusional.
I don't profess to understand why the hand of the teacher keeps us sane ... these are their teachings .. not mine. But sometimes we get people coming to our Centre who have been doing Vajrayana on their own .. they are not "all there", but I do not know if they were off-balance BEFORE they took up Buddhism .. or if this was the result of doing Vajrayana without a teacher.
Even Zen says that their practices are a waste of your time if you don't have a teacher to work with.
Only Theravadan Buddhism is designed for the "solitary practitioner".
Too late for me. Craziness is my start point.
Most lamas that I have met are not qualified. The best ones have Mahayana virtues, good intentions and back up. It is the same in all official ‘sane’ spiritual development programs. The blind leading the sheeple.
However, slowly but surely we may develop powers of recognition, genuine aspiration and insight AND we are all capable of this … a little birdy buddha told me so …
Baaahhh …
Now you sound like Osho…