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Mantra and Movement
by Catherine Rathbun
March 1999
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By now we've all been exposed to pictures of hunched or robed figures muttering incomprehensible syllables and clutching beads to their chests. "Looks like mumbo-jumbo", you might say. But mantra has ancient roots, as old as speech itself and in fact, mantra is one of the seven classic categories of meditation, as is movement.
According to anthropologists, speech was invented to chase away the darkness. The need to communicate in the blackness of a cave in the middle of the night must have been powerful indeed. And power over fear is one aspect of speech, for by naming something we gain a kind of control over it. Watch yourself in the woods, sometime, especially where there might be poisonous creatures or dangerous ones, like bears. Notice how when something rustles, the body tenses and anticipates the possibility of flight until you see it and can name it. "Oh, that's a harmless snake, or, that's a squirrel." You breathe out and walk on. You're back in control.
So speech connotes power and control. In ancient times, to know the name of something also gave you the magical capacity to control it. Consequently, in many esoteric societies, secret names or words were viewed as extremely important to one's unfoldment. In the present day, there are several Western groups that give out a "secret" and supposedly "personal" mantra, usually after charging quite a bit of money for it. This is a link to the magical formulae of old and a great deal of superstition surrounds this way of working with mantra.
Scientifically, we know that sound can effect physical change. Early in this century the French tested a weapon which emitted sound waves and caused people to basically turn to jelly, yet left all buildings standing. The ultimate in materialist weapons! Fortunately, they were unable to control its direction and so abandoned their research. Far better to investigate the healing that can be achieved through the use of sound. It is less commonly known that sound has the capacity to alter states of consciousness. Through the wave patterns of resonance, a vibration is set going that has noticeable effects. The use of sound for healing body, speech and mind has been part of the ancient traditions in many lands and cultures and this awareness is now creeping into the common culture with expensive sleep devices being sold which emit soothing sounds of nature.
There is a lovely story in the Sufi literature about a skeptic who was attending a class. The teacher had just given out a mantra to help a person to heal. The skeptic complained, "How can that help someone who is ill!" The teacher erupted, "How dare you ask such stupid questions, you numbskull. You, who are completely unfit to be a student!" etc. etc. The skeptic was taken aback, upset and insulted. The teacher smiled, "You see," he said, "if you can be that upset by a few words, how is it that someone else cannot be healed by another word?"
In the Tibetan tradition there are literally thousands, perhaps millions of mantras to be used for different and highly specific purposes. They basically fall into two categories: those that have meaning and those that have none.
Those without meaning are called seed syllables. When working with seed syllables, you don't have to pay any attention to what they might mean. Rather you are seeding the body/mind continuum with a vibratory sounding that will have an effect on your psyche and on your physiology. It is imperative that you work with mantra aloud or it cannot have much effect. One of my teachers used to say that if you said all your mantras silently, it meant you were only working for yourself and therefore you must do them aloud. "At first," he said, "Everyone will think you are crazy, but you'll get used to that." Getting used to being vocal is hard for many polite Canadians and other Westerners but do try to get used to it. It will show you many riches as it opens your voice box, resonates your cells and dissolves the blockades in your chakras.
Three Important Seed Syllables
OM: Chakra of Body
OM opens us to the divine. It should be intoned from a place deep within the belly, for it connects us also to the abdominal area. It is pronounced almost as three syllables separately but on one breath: A-U-M.
First one should take a long, slow breath, filling the belly full of air until it resembles a pot. Then one exhales and lets the sound out: A-U-M. Each letter or portion of the syllable should have an equally long intonation.
The chakra of body is located at the forehead. The visualization often given with this syllable is to place a white light in the forehead area; you can also imagine white droplets cascading down inside the body gently cleansing, healing and opening. This forehead energy centre is called the chakra of body and, when successfully opened, the belly will vibrate and feelings will loosen. Eventually, working with this syllable brings about mental stability.
AH: Chakra of Speech
AH opens us to communication. To truly communicate with others is to learn how meshed we are with "other". Opening communication means opening empathy and relinquishing control, "dying" to the small egotistical self with its demands to be heard, in order that we may more deeply hear another's cry.
The chakra of speech is located in the throat, between the two clavicle bones, reaching up under the chin. Imagine a red light there, like a warm bowl of fire. Once ignited, this chakra helps us at the ordinary level to improve and clean up our speech patterns. More significantly, it ignites our immune system and helps us to begin on the long journey to understanding the 84,000 veins and channels within. This latter activity takes much practice and many years to develop fully: that is the work that develops the Healer.
Once again, take a deep breath and murmur the sound on the long out breath. Don't try to always replicate the same sound but watch for maximum resonance.
HUM: Chakra of Mind
This seed sound can be invoked a number of ways. One good way to start working with this is by humming like a bee and focussing the mind on the centre of the chest, from the bottom of the breastbone, reaching up from 2 to 5 inches. This is the "heart centre" and is considered to be the seat of the mind in the Vajrayana tradition.
This area of the body/mind often has a lot of armouring, barnacles slowly formed from life troubles of the past. It is not advisable to attack this area; the armouring has been necessary for survival. A much better approach to releasing armouring is to respect your past and resolve to recover from it. There is often particularly strong blocking around the heart centre and it may be more helpful to think of the area as being slowly washed clean.
Imagine a soft blue/white light there and a feeling of gentle opening, like a water lily on a quiet pond or a sea anemone waving in a warm ocean pool. Eventually, the mind of compassion will dawn and later become firmly lodged in your consciousness.
Movement
The Chinese have a saying: "To move is to live". Using movement as part of our studies is a way of coming to a more alive state, bringing us closer to the Buddha's declaration of himself as not a god but someone who was "awake". Hence, "awakening".
Movement is another classic area of meditation, although the way in which I have developed it is far from traditional. In my work over the past 20+ years, I have taught hundreds of movement workshops that invoke and evoke meditation themes through themed but loosely structured movement, folk dance, and what I call choreographic arranging.
Working with creative movement loosens the mind and directly cuts through the Western tendency to intellectualize experience. Once an insight is perceived directly in the body, it is known in a way that is rarely forgotten.
It is possible to undertake a formal study of mudra; that is, a study of the positions and stances of the various statues in Buddhism, particularly in Vajrayana Buddhism. You need to be careful, however, of the tendency towards embracing an exactitude of ritual that may become a hindrance. Indeed, belief in rule and ritual is considered to be one of the 10 classic impediments to progress for the aspirant. If working with a Tibetan figure, however, it is useful to sometimes take up the various positions of the arms or legs of the figure as a slow sweeping dance and this can help to give you a "real" feeling for the aspect of consciousness that is being developed.
One mudra frequently seen on Buddha statues is called the "earth-touching mudra". When the Buddha awakened, he called the female spirit of the earth to witness that he had reached a highly developed state of consciousness. This action connotes the idea of maintaining contact with the ordinary state of the human being as well as the idea that the earth, which is silent, is the only true witness to the enlightenment of an individual. There is no certificate given for arriving at the stage of the arhat or at the stage of the advanced bodhisattva levels. In fact, these levels only enable you to truly begin the deep work of helping sentient beings.
Strive on, strive on with diligence for your own Awakening.
May Compassion guide your footsteps and Wisdom light your way.
Sarva Managalam - All is Blessing