Om ah Hum – 3 Syllable Mantra

In Vajrayana Buddhism, OM AH HUM are the three seed syllables of body, speech, and mind. Seed syllables are syllables that give rise to the powerful deity or Yidam.

OM AH HUM Meaning

OM

AH

HUM

OM

The body is represented in the crown chakra just inside the top of the head. Here there is a white OM syllable.

The syllables in the centers purify obscurations and bring about wisdom. They blaze with light and do what’s called emanating and gathering, or sending out light, good wishes, purification to sentient beings, sending out offerings and supplications to the Buddhas and receiving them back in the form of merit and blessings.

The OM purifies obscurations associated with the body. The body in this case is associated with physical appearances, the outer world of the senses especially. Vajrabody can be represented on an outer and an inner level. On the outer level it’s the illusory form of things. Things appear without truly existing. In other words, the appearance of things is vivid, but their conceptual reality isn’t fundamentally supported. They don’t have durability or singularity. See this post on emptiness for an explanation of this.

AH

The red AH is in the throat chakra and it purifies obscurations of speech. When it is fully perfected, so to speak, realized in its form as a stronger existing reality, the red AH manifests as vajra speech.

Vajra speech can have an inner and outer component as well. On the outer level, it is associated with all sounds being mantra. So whatever occurs, it reflects the innate unreality of sound. It is not that mantra is especially beautiful or compelling, though that is a mistake that is easy to make. It is that sound is empty in essence.

As the seed syllable of speech AH represents the primordial essence of all the teachings of the Buddha, it is the fundamental teaching, simply the seed syllable AH.

This has to do with the speech of Sanggye (Buddha). SANG is purification. The purification is for the obscurations, the things that interfere with the ability to manifest Buddhahood. And GYE – brought forth – has to do with saying that from the Vajrayana perspective, everything is completely perfected within your own being.

You, as you are, in any being, has these virtues, fully developed, that simply need to be brought forth. They need to be revealed, and then that sentient being is a fully enlightened Buddha.

HUM

HUM is the seed syllable of mind. It exists in the heart center. The Sanskrit word for mind is chitta, but it also means heart. The mind, the seed of consciousness, is considered to reside in the heart center, at least in a strong relative way, in Buddhist theory.

Meditating on the HUM purifies obscurations of mind. These include the outer obscurations of, or the more thick obscurations of avarice and anger, desire and so forth, and “timuk” or bewilderment, which is confusion about virtue.

MaRigpa

There’s also a deeper level of obscuration called ma-rigpa. The blue HUM can also purify “ma-rigpa” and turn it into rigpa. Rigpa is the essential nature of reality.

This nature is awareness. Why? Because without awareness, meaning the ability to be sentient, to exist, to perceive and so forth – without that, there is nothing that can be perceived or known. Without any perception, there’s no way to say that something is real or not real, even oneself. It wouldn’t make any sense.

The HUM cut through ma-rigpa, which can be seen as the dualistic barrier, the separation between oneself as a being and the outer world. The separation is fictional. There is no real division.

For instance, other people are not separate from the world. They’re just part of it. And from their perspective, you are just part of their external world. But we perceive it differently. We perceive it as if there’s an inner “me” and an outer world, a separate sort of boundary. But upon close examination, there is no precise boundary that can be found. If you can’t find a precise boundary, there it is exactly, and point to it, really know exactly where it is, then how can it be said to be real?

This gets into a little more Madhyamaka philosophy, so it’s best to study more there. But for example, does your boundary end at the skin? Well, is the hair part of you or not? If air goes in and out of your mouth or nose, is it part of you until the incident leaves your mouth? And then as air coming in, is it not part of you until suddenly it enters? If you eat food, at what point does it become part of you? And if you defecate, at what point does the waste cease to be a part of you? Exactly at the moment it leaves the body?

Is sweat on your skin part of you? Are your fingernails part of you? And so forth. Is your hand a part of you? Is your hand you? If you lose your hand, are you still you?

These are questions worth exploring. They approach the dualistic barrier that can be overcome. In terms of the more Vajrayana approach, the HUM can take you directly to the absolute nature, pure awareness.

This is in a sense working from the inside out, working with ideas, the concepts before, the Madhyamaka concepts of overcoming the self and the idea of the body ending at the skin and so forth which is more working from the outside in. The HUM purifies those obscurations more directly so that we can see the absolute nature.

OM AH HUM Meditation

By meditating on a white OM in the top of the head in conjunction with the visualized guru externally or the Yiddam as a self-visualization, obscurations of body can be purified. These include evil deeds that have been committed in the past, karmic stains, anything that covers up the insight. Bodily obscurations tend to have a coarse quality action such as killing, stealing, and so forth become obscurations of body.

So after studying the teaching for a time, you can meditate on a red AH in the throat to purify your speech. When, as with body, when speech is purified, fully purified, then it becomes vajra speech, then it serves only to benefit other sentient beings in the world. This is similar to the Sangye principle. Sangye is Tibetan for Buddha, which means purified and brought forth.

Finally, meditate on a blue HUM in the heart center to purify the mind. When purified of obscurations – anger, desire, ignorance, wrong view, and grasping and fixation – the vajra mind can emerge. This is the mind of the Buddha.

The vajra gates are the indestructible manifestation of one’s being in an enlightened manner. Gates refers to interacting with outer and inner realities. When they are ‘vajra’ they are indestructibly open, empty, luminous, beyond thought, and alway functioning to benefit beings.

OM AH HUM Sanskrit

OM AH HUM are the core syllables that represent enlightened body, speech and mind in the Sanskrit language. They are used in guru yogas in the Tantric tradition to purify the 3 gates – body, speech and mind. Purifying these gates allows for the Vajra body, vajra speech and vajra mind to emerge. The syllables also purify emotional obscurations, as well as past evil karmic deeds.

Finally, the syllables are used to gather blessings. This is a common feature of guru yogas and especially notable in Jamgon Mipham, Rinpoche’s Rain of Blessings guru yoga. RoB uses Padmasamabhava as the principal figure in yab yum with his consort Yeshe Tsogyal.

OM AH HUM Mantra

The OM AH HUM mantra is chanted or sung or silently recited to represent body, speech, and mind. By reciting it many times, with strong faith and devotion and with a visualization, the mantra and meditation can purify vast amounts of karma. The mantra also generates the 2 accumulations of merit and wisdom if done correctly.

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Conclusion

OM AH HUM are the seed syllables that bring about the enlightened form of the deity. OM correlates to body, AH correlates to speech, and HUM correlates to mind. By meditating on these, you can purify your obscurations and bring about genuine realization.

May all beings be happy

May all beings be peaceful

May all beings be safe

May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature

May all beings be free