Reciting the longest mantra just once brings the same benefits as reciting the short mantra one hundred million times. It is unbelievable, unbelievable!

Your life practice

In order to develop compassion, you need to understand the Buddha’s teachings on how to develop it, which is explained in the lamrim (see chapter 13). But even if you can recite the teachings on compassion by heart and know how to meditate on them, that alone is not enough for you to realize them. For this you need the support of the blessings of Chenrezig, the Compassion Buddha.
 
Chenrezig completely embraces all sentient beings and knows directly all sentient beings’ minds, all the methods to guide them perfectly, with perfect power, perfect wisdom and perfect compassion.

Everyone should practice Chenrezig. Do this not just for yourself but for numberless sentient beings—everyone; every small ant, every tiny insect. They all want happiness and do not want suffering. This practice brings all happiness: temporary (the happiness of this and all future lives) and ultimate (the happiness of liberation and enlightenment) to the numberless sentient beings, yourself included. 

You can use your time in prison to practice as much as possible, to purify negative karma, to purify all the defilements and to collect extensive merit. In order to receive these blessings, with faith in Chenrezig please chant his mantras, as many as possible, and practice meditating on him. Reciting the Chenrezig mantra brings skies of benefit, especially if you do it with bodhicitta. You could recite OM MANI PADME HUM or the longest Chenrezig mantra, which is at the end of this chapter. 

I am in the process of writing a new book about the benefits of reciting the Compassion Buddha mantra and this will include many different prayers to Chenrezig. When it is done you will get it. The idea of this book is to spread it throughout the whole world, so it will be translated into as many languages as possible.

By studying Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand or the other lamrim books, you will understand how much suffering sentient beings are experiencing and the urgent need for them to be liberated. By reciting the mantra for all sentient beings, you are taking responsibility for each one of them, not only for their temporary happiness, this life’s happiness, but for the happiness of future lives; and not just that, but also for their ultimate happiness, the blissful state. 

Recite as many as you can. Actually, don’t worry about the number, that is not the point. Recite each mantra for all sentient beings, to free them from samsara and to bring them to enlightenment.

The fifteen benefits of reciting the short Compassion Buddha mantra

Depending on how qualified you are, depending on your motivation and depending on how perfectly you recite, recitation of OM MANI PADME HUM brings benefits as infinite as the sky. You collect so much merit—more merit than there are drops of water in the ocean, of snowflakes in a snowfall, of drops of water in rainfall, of grains of sand in the Pacific Ocean. The Buddha explained that the benefits are such that you cannot finish explaining them.
It is said in the teachings that whichever deva or human being recites the Chenrezig mantra with compassion will receive fifteen benefits.

• In all your lifetimes you will meet a virtuous or religious king or leader, such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
• By being born where they are, you will always have the opportunity to practice Dharma. In those places there will be a lot of temples in which there are many holy objects such as statues and stupas, and there will be many people practicing. This will inspire you to practice Dharma, the cause of happiness. These holy objects give you the opportunity to practice, to accumulate merit.
•  You will always be fortunate and meet good conditions, which helps your Dharma practice. Many good things will happen and this inspires you to practice, to receive teachings, to meditate.
• ​​​​​​​You will always meet a virtuous friend, a spiritual teacher.
• ​​​​​​​ You will always receive a perfect human body.
• ​​​​​​​Your mind will always be familiar with the path, with virtue.
• Your vows, your morality, will not degenerate.
• The people around you—your family, Dharma students, people in the office—will always be harmonious with you.
• You will always have enough means to live.
• You will always be protected; you will be served by others.
• Your possessions, your wealth, will not be stolen.
• You will succeed in everything you wish.
• You will always be protected by the virtuous nagas and devas.
• In all your lifetimes you will see the Buddha and be able to hear the Dharma.
• By listening to the pure Dharma, you are able to actualize the profound meaning of emptiness.

Besides the benefits mentioned below or other benefits, such as being healed of disease or protected from many harms, at least remember these fifteen.

There are other amazing benefits

By reciting one thousand mantras every day, for example, your body becomes blessed. Therefore, the air that touches you is blessed, and wherever you are the air that touches your body purifies whoever else is touched by it, human or animal, preventing them from being reborn in the lower realms.

The water that touches you is blessed, so that the many billions of sentient beings in any river or ocean you go into are purified, and whoever drinks the water gets purified. You save the animals from the most unbelievable suffering of the lower realms.

Even the smoke from the cremation of a body that had been blessed by the recitation of the mantra purifies the negative karma to be reborn in the lower realms of whoever is touched by it or whoever smells it.

It is written in the Casket Arrangement Sutra that any “men, women or children or any other sentient being” who simply look at the six-syllable mantra “written by hand on rocks or stone walls” will “become bodhisattvas of the end of samsara.”

Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM purifies heavy negative karma:

• It purifies broken root vows of a fully ordained monk: Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM just once can purify the negative karma of a fully ordained monk who has broken the four root vows—killing a human being, engaging in sexual intercourse, taking things not given and telling the biggest lie (that one has realizations)—negative karma that would otherwise result in being born in the hell realms.
   
• It purifies the five heavy negative actions: Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM can purify the five heavy negative actions without break, which are karmas that are created by deeds so heavy that they ripen immediately as a rebirth in the hell realm. They are: killing one’s mother, killing one’s father, drawing the blood of a buddha, killing an arhat and causing disunity among the Sangha.
   
• It purifies eons of negative karma: Reciting OM MANI PADME HUM seven times purifies one hundred lifetimes of negative karma. Reciting it twenty-one times purifies four thousand eons of negative karma and you are able to have bodhicitta realizations. If you recite it one hundred and eight times it purifies forty thousand eons of negative karma.
   
• It purifies the karma of animals: If you recite OM MANI PADME HUM in the ears of animals, after their death they will be reborn in the human realm; they will not be reborn as hell beings, hungry ghosts or animals.

The longest mantra is unbelievable

If possible, recite the longest Chenrezig mantra—there are incredible benefits.

It liberates from prison: It is said in the texts that if you recite the longest mantra, suddenly the king of the land (the president, etc.) generates compassion for you and liberates you from prison. Things like that can happen; suddenly change can happen.

Reciting the longest mantra just once brings the same benefits as reciting the short mantra one hundred million times. It is unbelievable, unbelievable!
So much heavy negative karma that has been collected from the past gets purified and in future lives you will always be with buddhas and bodhisattvas and will go toward enlightenment.

In the beginning it may take time. Recite it three times at the beginning, then after some months you can recite it seven times or more.
The longest one is the best, most precious.

Meditation on the Compassion Buddha

At the moment you can’t generate yourself as Chenrezig, because you haven’t received a great initiation. So visualize Chenrezig in front of you.

He is in the nature of light and is huge. See him as an actual living being, alive. He is looking at you and all sentient beings with so much loving kindness and compassion, seeing how much suffering there is.

He is white in color and has one face and four arms. The first two hands are joined together at his heart holding a wish-fulfilling gem. His second right hand holds a crystal rosary while his second left hand holds a white lotus. He is seated in the cross-legged vajra posture, clothed in fine silk garments and is adorned with precious ornaments.

From the white OM at his brow, the red AH at his throat and the blue HUM at his heart light goes out to all the directions, inviting actual Chenrezig from his natural abode. He melts into your visualization, becoming one with it.

First, purify yourself: As you recite one mala of the mantra—one hundred and eight—imagine that Chenrezig is sending compassion to you, in the form of beams of nectar. The beams enter your body and mind.

When the beams are received by you, your mind becomes unbelievably blissful and peaceful and your body becomes totally clear, in the nature of light. You are purified of all negative karmas and obscurations collected from beginningless rebirths. Think that you are completely purified—immediately, instantly purified.

Second, purify others: As you recite another mala, Chenrezig sends beams to all the sentient beings—numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless gods, numberless demi-gods and numberless intermediate state beings—from whom you receive all your beginningless past happiness and all the collections of goodness, as well as ultimate happiness, liberation from the oceans of samsaric sufferings.
Think that they are totally purified of their specific sufferings as well as the causes, their karma and delusions.

As much as possible, try not to be distracted or to think of anything else as you meditate.

Third, while reciting the next mala concentrate on receiving all the qualities of the Compassion Buddha in the form of nectar pouring into you: all the limitless skies of qualities of Chenrezig’s holy body, speech and mind, especially compassion for all sentient beings, but also omniscience and the perfect power to do perfect works for all sentient beings.

If you want to recite more mantras, for example ten malas, for half of them think you are being purified and for the other half imagine that sentient beings are being purified.

As you recite, think all the qualities of Chenrezig are received by you and all sentient beings.

Combine the practice of Chenrezig with the eight Mahayana precepts and a two-day fasting retreat

From time to time, please practice the two-day fasting retreat called nyung nä, especially, if you can, on the solar eclipse or the special buddha days, when the merit increases one hundred million times. You can ask the prison project to send you a Tibetan calendar, which shows the dates.

To do nyung nä on those days is extremely good. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it at other times too. Sometimes you can do it a few times in a row, sometimes one at a time, depending on what is more convenient.

This practice combines many, many powerful practices such as prostrations, mantra recitation, the eight Mahayana precepts, meditation on the Compassion Buddha and bodhicitta.

It is an unbelievable way of creating merit, skies of merit. The practice involves quite a lot of prostrations as you recite the names of the Thirty-five Buddhas, also to Chenrezig. You also recite OM MANI PADME HUM which creates unbelievable merit as well as unbelievable purification.

On the first day you take only lunch and on the second day you fast completely, including no drinking. You totally fast for sentient beings, to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, to purify sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering.

It is very good to do a few of these retreats every year. Especially for a busy person this two-day retreat is very, very good; it’s such powerful purification, a very quick way to purify and the best way to go to a pure land after you die, to not wander endlessly in samsara.

Of course, it is not so easy to do while you are in prison, but as I mentioned, if you can, try to do it on the solar eclipse or on the special buddha days when the merit increases one hundred million times.

Just fit the sessions in however you can, according to your schedule. You can discuss with the people at Liberation Prison Project how to do it in a flexible way.
 

The short Compassion Buddha mantra

OM MANI PADME HUM

Chenrezig name mantra: the longest Compassion Buddha mantra

  NAMO RATNA TRAYAYA / NAMA ARYA AVALOKITESHVARAYA / BODHISATVAYA / MAHASATVAYA / MAHAKARUNIKAYA / TADYATHA / OM SARVA BANDHANA CCHHEDHANA KARAYA / SARVA PAPA SAMUDRO CCHHOSHANA KARAYA / SARVA VYADHI PRASHAMANA KARAYA / SARVA ITYU PADRAVA VINASHANA KARAYA / SARVA BHAYEṢHU TRANA KARAYA / TASYA / NAMAS KRITVA / IDAM / ARYA AVALOKITESHVARAYA / TAVA / NILAKANTHA NAMA PARAMA HRIDAYAM / AVARTA YISHYAMI / SARVA ARTHA SADHANAM / SHUBHA CHETAM / SARVA BHUTANAM / PAPA MARGA VISHODHAKAM / TADYATHA / AVALOKITE / SHVARYA / ALOKE / ADHIPATI / LOKATI KRANTE / EHI / EHI / MAHABODHISATVA / HE BODHISATVA / HE MAHABODHISATVA / HE PRIYA / BODHISATVA / HE MAHAKARUNIKA / MAHASMARA HRIDAYENA / EHI / EHI / ARYA AVALOKITESHVARAYA / PARAMA MAITRI CHITTA KARUNIKA / KURU KURU / KARMA SADHAYA SADHAYA / VIDYAM / DEHI / DEHI / ME ARAM GAMAM GAMA / VIHAM GAMA / SIDDHA YOGISHVARA / DUHU / DUHU / VIRYANTE / MAHAVIRYANTE / DHARA / DHARA / DHARENDRESVARA / CHALA / CHALA / VIMALA MURTE / ARYA AVALOKITESHVARA / JINA KRISHNA JATA MUKUTA / ALAMKRITA SHARIRA / LAMBA / PRALAMBA / VILAMBA / MAHASIDDHA VIDYADHARA / BALA / BALA / MAHABALA / MALA / MALA / MAHAMALA / CHALA / CHALA / MAHACHALA / KRISHNA VARNA / KRISHNA PAKSHA / NIRGHATANA / HE / PADMA HASTA / CHARA / CHARA / NISHCHARESHVARE / KRISHNA SARPA KRITA YAJNOPAVITA / EHI / EHI / MAHAVARAHA MUKHA TRIPURA DAHANESHVARA / NARAYANA RUPA VESHADHARA / HE / NILAKANTHA / EHI / EHI / MAHAHALA / HALA / VISHANIRJATA / LOKASYA / RAGAVIṢHA VINASHANAM / DVESHA VISHA VINASHANAM / MOHAVISHA VINASHANAM / NIRMOKSHANA / HULU / HULU / MUNCHA / MUNCHA / MAHU / MAHU / RAHULA / RAHULA / HALA / HALA / HARE / MAHAPADMA NABHI / SARA / SARA / SIRI / SIRI / SURU / SURU / BUDDHYA / BUDDHYA / BODHAYA / BODHAYA / BODHAYATAVA / NILAKANTHA / EHI / EHI / NILAKANTHA / EHI / EHI / VAMASTHITA / MAHASIMHAMUKHA / HASA / HASA / MUNCHA / MUNCHA / MAHATTATTA HASYA / EHI / EHI / BHO BHO / MAHASIDDHA YOGVISHVARA / BHANA BHANA / VACHANA / SADHAYA / SADHAYA / VIDYAM / SMARA / SMARA / TVAM / HE / BHAGAVAN / ALOKA VILOKATVAM / TATHAGATANAM / DAHI DAHI ME / DARSHANA / KAMASYA / DARSHANAM / PRASADHAYA ME SVAHA / IDADHAYA SVAHA / MAHASIDDHAYA SVAHA / SIDDHA YOGISHVARA SVAHA / NILAKANTHAYA SVAHA / VARAHAMUKHAYA SVAHA / MAHAVARAHAMUKHAYA SVAHA / NARA SIMHAMUKHAYA SVAHA / MAHANARA SIMHAMUKHAYA SVAHA / VAJRA HASTAYA SVAHA / MAHA VAJRA HASTAYA SVAHA / SIDDHA VIDYADHARAYA SVAHA / MAHASIDDHA VIDYADHARAYA SVAHA / PADMA HASTAYA SVAHA / MAHAPADMA HASTAYA SVAHA / KRISHNA SARPA KRITA YAJNOPAVITAYA SVAHA / MAHAMALA MUKUTA DHARA SVAHA / CHAKRAYUDHA DHARAYA SVAHA / SHAMKHA SHABDA NIRNADANA KARAYA SVAHA / BODHANA KARAYA SVAHA / VAMASTHITA SKANDHA DESHA KRISHNA JINAYA SVAHA / VAMAHASTA VYUGHRA CHARMA NIRABHASANAYA SVAHA / LOKESHVARAYA SVAHA / MAHALOKE SHVARAYA SVAHA / SARVA SIDDHESHVARAYA SVAHA / RAKSHA RAKSHA MAM SVAHA / KURU RAKSHA MUDRANAM SVAHA / NAMO BHAGAVATE / ARYA AVALOKITESHVARAYA / BODHISATVAYA MAHASATVAYA / MAHAKARUNIKAYA SIDDHYANTU ME MANTRA PADANI SVAHA
 

Remember

• Remember the fifteen benefits of reciting OM MANI PADME HUM
• Reciting the mantra can purify eons of negative karma.
• Reciting the long mantra is one hundred million times more powerful than the short one.
• Combine the recitation with meditation on the Compassion Buddha.
• Combine the recitation with a two-day fasting retreat.