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Tey A Ta Om Bekandze Bekandze Maha Bekandze Radza Samogate Soha

A few days ago I shared a delightful video of Surya singing the Medicine Buddha mantra of healing. Since I had not known about this mantra before, I did a bit of searching on the internet to find out more.

Interestingly, what we have here is a short mantra; there is a longer mantra where what Surya sings is the last segment of the entire piece.   You can find the full mantra and its meaning/translation here.

Let’s walk through in a little more depth what this short mantra is all about:

Tey A Ta Om
I have the impression every mantra starts with  Om / Aum - it is the primordial sound, and an auspicious greeting to the Universe.  While I saw that Tey A Ta can mean “like this” I don’t quite see what its function is in this mantra.  I can only guess it transforms/enhances the Om somehow.

Bekandze Bekandze Maha Bekandze Radza
Bekandze is one of the names of, or one of the ways to address, the Medicine Buddha.  It also means to eliminate pain.  By saying Bekandze you are thus invoking, or calling upon, the Medicine Buddha to eliminate pain within you (or, in Surya’s case, within the person she’s “sending” the mantra to).

The first Bekandze eliminates gross physical bodily pain and suffering.

The second Bekandze tackles the true source of the suffering previously eliminated, i.e. karmic and mental turmoil.

The third invocation calls upon the Maha Bekandze, the Bekandze Radza, the supreme king of physicians, the highest form of the Medicine Buddha, in order to tackle the remaining problems: the sutble impact of the now-eliminated problems on your consciousness.

Samogate
This is the target of the mantra - once cleansed of all those problems plaguing your mind, your body, your psyche, the path is then clear to achieve a higher state of consciousness.

Soha
This is often used at the end of mantras, and essentially means Hail! or Make it So!.

It is no wonder this is considered a very powerful mantra — it tackles symptoms, root causes, and subtle consequences of any problems you might be experiencing. It also describes one’s journey to realisation/enlightment - overcoming the physical, mental then subtle aspects of one’s nature.

I find myself spontaneously singing this mantra at odd times of the day.

How about you? What do you think of this mantra and its meaning, its function? Do you plan to incorporate it into your (daily) life?

Some useful reading:

• Medicine Buddha in wikipedia
• The Meaning of the short Mantra at Purify Our Mind
• Medicine Buddha resources in Dharma Haven

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Here’s a mantra I’ve not heard before, sung so very beautifully:

.(Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks she looks and sounds a lot like Sheryl Crow Alanis Morissette here! … and do drop by in the comments to tell me how many times you hit “replay” — I’ve been listening to this for about an hour now!)

It’s easy to sing along; here are the “lyrics”:

Tey A Ta Om Bekandze Bekandze Maha Bekandze Radza Samogate Soha

Literal translation (based on info from here):

Tey A Ta: like this (??)
Om: the cosmic salutation AUM
Bekandze Bekandze: the Medicine Buddha (2x)
Mahabekandze: great or supreme physician
Bekandze Radza: King of physicians
Samogate: Perfectly liberated or awakened
Soha: Hail!

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It’s interesting to see the slightly different pronunciations for terms I recognise: Soha I know as Swaha; Radza I know as Raja.  This is because Surya is using Tibetan pronunciation while in general the mantras I know are in Sanskrit.

But what does it mean?  I’ll cover that in the next post.

In the meantime, you can see and hear more of Surya in Twitter, YouTube and MySpace.