The jewel in the lotus, India's great gift to world Buddhism, six syllables held to carry all of the Buddha's compassion.
Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion Buddhist (born in India; beloved across the Himalayas and East Asia) Devotion
The mantra
ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ
oṁ maṇi padme hūṁ
Meaning
"The jewel in the lotus" is the plain reading; the tradition warns that its full meaning is the whole of the path, each syllable held to purify one of the six realms of being.
In the tradition
Included here honestly labelled: this is India’s Buddhist tradition’s mantra, carried out of India and kept alive most vividly in the Himalayas. The six syllables are studied a lifetime, the Dalai Lama’s own summary of them is disarmingly simple: the path of the jewel (compassion’s method) and the lotus (wisdom), held together in one phrase.
Sources & further reading
- Karaṇḍavyūha Sūtra , the Mahāyāna sūtra corpus (the sūtra in which the six syllables appear as the condensed teaching)
- The Himalayan mantra tradition , Tibetan & Nepalese Buddhist lineages (the mantra's millennium of daily practice)