Did you know that the Tibetan Nuns Project’s online store sells four different types of Tibetan mantra prayer flags? Mantras are a sequence of words or syllables that are chanted, usually repetitively, as part of Tibetan Buddhist practice.

Tibetan prayer flags are used to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras printed on the flags will be spread by the wind and bring goodwill and compassion to benefit all beings.

These special prayer flags are handmade and blessed by Tibetan Buddhist nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery and Institute near Dharamsala, India. Because they are handmade, sizes vary slightly, but each flag measures approximately 4″ x 5″.

Each set includes between 5 and 12 flags, depending on the mantra, with one or two syllables of the mantra per flag. The length of the sets of prayer flags also varies, depending on the mantra. The Tara and Vajra Guru sets are about 4′, the Mini Mani set is 2′ long, and the Buddha Shakyamuni mantra prayer flag set is 5′ long, with each set having about 1 1/2′ of string on each end.

Four designs of Mantra Prayer Flags

Mini Mani Mantra Prayer Flags

Tibetan prayer flag with mantra of compassion

Set of mini Tibetan prayer flags with the six-syllable mantra of Avalokitesvara or Chenrezig, Om Mani Padme Hum.

Om Mani Padme Hum is the six-syllable mantra of Avalokitesvara or Chenrezig in Tibetan. Tibetan Buddhists believe that saying this mantra out loud or silently to oneself invokes the powerful benevolent attention and blessings of Avalokitesvara, a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. Even viewing the written form of the mantra is said to have the same effect. This extremely popular and well-known Tibetan mantra is often carved into stones, creating mani stones that are placed for people to see them.

Buddha Shakyamuni Mantra Prayer Flags

Tibetan prayer flags with mantra of Buddha Shakyamuni, Om Muni Muni Maha Muniye Soha. This set of prayer flags has 12 flags with one syllable of the mantra per flag.

Om Muni Muni Maha Muniye Soha is the mantra of Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. Also known as Siddhartha Gautama, Shakyanmuni Buddha was born in the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. The name Buddha means the “awakened” or “enlightened” one. Following his enlightenment, Shakyamuni taught a path which others can follow to be awakened to the true nature of reality and to be freed from suffering. Muni means sage and Maha means great. So the mantra means, “Om wise one, wise one, greatly wise one, wise one of the Shakyans, Hail!”

Tara Mantra Prayer Flags

Tibetan prayer flags with the Tara mantra.

These prayer flags are printed with the ancient Tibetan mantra to Tara, Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha. Tara is considered to be a Bodhisattva or Buddha of compassion, relieving us of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering. Tara has 21 major forms, each of which has a different color and spiritual attribute, and this mantra is most associated with Green Tara. Of her 21 forms, two forms of Tara are especially loved by Tibetans – Green Tara, who is associated with abundance and enlightened activity, and White Tara, who is associated with compassion and long life.

Vajra Guru Mantra Prayer Flags

Tibetan prayer flags with the Vajra Guru mantra.

The 12-syllable mantra of Guru Padmasambhava is Om Ah Hung Benza Guru Pema Siddhi Hung. The Vajra Guru Mantra is the heart essence of Padmasambhava who is also know as Guru Rinpoche, the Precious Master. Padmasambhava was an Indian tantric master who played a major role in bringing Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century and is considered as the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. This mantra is also the mantra of all the masters, buddhas, yidams, dakas, dakinis, and protectors. When you chant it, you are invoking the very embodiment of Padmasambhava.

About Tibetan Prayer Flags

You don’t have to be a Buddhist to hang prayer flags. Your motivation and intentions are key. Hang them with a wish for all beings to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering, or for a positive intention of your choice.

The five colors of Tibetan prayer flags represent the different elements:

Blue for the sky
White for the clouds
Red for space
Green for water
Yellow for earth

Prayer flags are made of block-printed fabric using traditional printing techniques going back hundreds of years. They come in various types and sizes and we have many other types of Tibetan prayer flags available in our online store here.

Tibetan prayer flags, types of Tibetan prayer flags, lungta, windhorse prayer flag

Here are some of the types of Tibetan prayer flags sold in the Tibetan Nuns Project online store. They are made and blessed by the nuns at Dolma Ling Nunnery.

All our prayer flags are handmade and blessed by Tibetan Buddhist nuns in India. Your purchase of them helps to provide education, food, shelter, clothing, and basic medical care to over 900 Tibetan Buddhist nuns in India.

A Tibetan Buddhist nun makes prayer flags at Dolma Ling Nunnery. All the prayer flags sold in our online store are made and blessed by nuns in India.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains the meaning of Om mani padme hum.

om mani padme hum, mantra, Tibetan mantra, meaning of om mani padme hum

The mantra Om mani padme hum. The six syllables are Om ཨོཾ mani མ་ཎི padme པ་དྨེ hum ཧཱུྃ.

A Talk On Om Mani Padme Hum By H.H. the Dalai Lama

It is very good to recite the mantra Om mani padme hum, but while you are doing it, you should be thinking on its meaning, for the meaning of the six syllables is great and vast.

Om

The first, Om is composed of three letters. A, U, and M. These symbolize the practitioner’s impure body, speech, and mind; they also symbolize the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.

Can impure body, speech, and mind be transformed into pure body, speech, and mind, or are they entirely separate?

All Buddhas are cases of beings who were like ourselves and then in dependence on the path became enlightened; Buddhism does not assert that there is anyone who from the beginning is free from faults and possesses all good qualities. The development of pure body, speech, and mind comes from gradually leaving the impure states and their being transformed into the pure.

How is this done?

The path is indicated by the next four syllables.

Mani

Mani, meaning jewel, symbolizes the factors of method—the altruistic intention to become enlightened, compassion, and love.

Just as a jewel is capable of removing poverty, so the altruistic mind of enlightenment is capable of removing the poverty, or difficulties, of cyclic existence and of solitary peace.

Similarly, just as a jewel fulfills the wishes of sentient beings, so the altruistic intention to become enlightened fulfills the wishes of sentient beings.

Mani stones outside the Tsuglagkhang Complex, near the home of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala, India. Photo by Liz Highleyman, Creative Commons, https://bit.ly/3fuozRB

Padme

The two syllables, padme, meaning lotus, symbolize wisdom. Just as a lotus grows forth from mud but is not sullied by the faults of mud, so wisdom is capable of putting you in a situation of non-contradiction whereas there would be contradiction if you did not have wisdom.

There is wisdom realizing impermanence, wisdom realizing that persons are empty of being self-sufficient or substantially existent, wisdom that realizes the emptiness of duality—that is to say, of difference of entity between subject and object—and wisdom that realizes the emptiness of inherent existence.

Though there are many different types of wisdom, the main of all these is the wisdom realizing emptiness.

Hum

Purity must be achieved by an indivisible unity of method and wisdom, symbolized by the final syllable hum, which indicates indivisibility. According to the sutra system, this indivisibility of method and wisdom refers to wisdom affected by method and method affected by wisdom.

In the mantra, or tantric, vehicle, it refers to one consciousness in which there is the full form of both wisdom and method as one undifferentiable entity.

In terms of the seed syllables of the five Conqueror Buddhas, hum is the seed syllable of Akshobhya—the immovable, the unfluctuating, that which cannot be disturbed by anything.

The six syllables: Om Mani Padme Hum

Thus the six syllables, om mani padme hum, mean that in dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.

It is said that you should not seek for Buddhahood outside of yourself; the substances for the achievement of Buddhahood are within.

As Maitreya says in his Sublime Continuum of the Great Vehicle (Uttaratantra), all beings naturally have the Buddha nature in their own continuum. We have within us the seed of purity, the essence of a One Gone Thus (Tathagatagarbha), that is to be transformed and fully developed into Buddhahood.

First published in Kindness, Clarity, and Insight by The Fourteenth Dalai Lama His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, co-edited by Elizabeth Napper. Snow Lion Publications, 1984. Reprinted here by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com

Video on the meaning of Om Mani Padme Hum

Here’s a video from 2013 of His Holiness the Dalai Lama answering a question about the meaning of the mantra Om mani padme hum.

Category Archives: Mantras

Tibetan Mantra Prayer Flags