The Snow Leopard: OM MANI PADME HUM
[103] Phu-Tsering [. . .] is wearing his amulets outside his shirt, but tucks them away,
embarrassed, when I ask about them; they were given him by his lama, he murmurs, feeling
much better when I show him that I, too, wear an "amulet," a talisman given to me by the Zen
master Soen Roshi, "my lama in Japan." He admires this smooth plum pit on which a whole tenphrase sutra is inscribed in minute characters, and is awed when I tell him that the sutra honors
the most revered of all those mythical embodiments of Buddhahood called Bodhisattvas, the one
known to Phu-Tsering as “Chen-resigs” (literally, sPyan ras gzigs), who is the Divine Protector of
Tibet and is invoked by OM MANI PADME HUM. In the Japanese sutra inscribed upon this plum
pit, this Bodhisattva is Kanzeon or Kannon (in China, Kuan Yin; in southeast Asia, Quon Am). To
Hindus He is Padmapani, and in Sanskrit, He is Avalokita Ishvara, the Lord Who Looks Down (in
compassion). Like all Bodhisattvas, Avalokita represents "the divine within" sought by mystics of
all faiths, and has been called the Lord Who is Seen Within.
Like most good Buddhists, Phu-Tsering chants OM MANI PADME HUM each day, and in time of
stress; he also clings to fear of demons, and is frightened by the dark. Walking behind GS one
night in eastern Nepal, he chanted this mantra so incessantly that GS longed to throw [104] him
off the cliff. But the faithful believe that the invocation of any deity by his mantra will draw
benevolent attention, and since OM MANI PADME HUM is dedicated to the Great
Compassionate Chen-resigs, it is found inscribed on prayer stones, prayer wheels, prayer flags,
and wild rocks throughout the Buddhist Himalaya.
Pronounced in Tibet Aum—Ma-ni—Pay-may—Hung, this mantra may be translated: Om! The
jewel in the Heart of the Lotus! Hum! The deep, resonant Om is all sound and silence throughout
time, the roar of eternity and also the great stillness of pure being; when intoned with the
prescribed vibrations, it invokes the All that is otherwise inexpressible. The mani is the
"adamantine diamond" of the Void—the primordial, pure, and indestructible essence of existence
beyond all matter or even antimatter, all phenomena, all change, and all becoming. Padme—in
the lotus—is the world of phenomena, samsara, unfolding with spiritual progress to reveal
beneath the leaves of delusion the mani-jewel of nirvana, that lies not apart from daily life but at
its heart. Hum has no literal meaning, and is variously interpreted (as is all of this great mantra,
about which whole volumes have been written). Perhaps it is simply a rhythmic exhortation,
completing the mantra and inspiring the chanter, a declaration of being, of Is-ness, symbolized by
the Buddha's gesture of touching the earth at the moment of Enlightenment. It is! It exists! All that
is or was or will ever be is right here in this moment! Now!