Toh 2559Personal Instructions on Understanding “The Recitation of the Names of Mañjuśrī” and Turning Away from the Three Poisons
Pāli / Sanskrit:mtshan yang dag par brjod pa'i shes pa dug gsum las bzlog pa'i man ngag
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Explanation of the Scripture “Personal Instructions on Understanding the Practice of Reciting the Names of Mañjuśrī”
Context
The Tengyur of the Northern Tibetan tradition contains commentaries and practice instructions gathered from the great Dharma masters of Tibetan Buddhism. This scripture belongs to the category of man ngag, personal instructions, intended to guide students in practicing the recitation of the names of Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of great wisdom in the Mahāyāna tradition.
Mañjuśrī is the symbol of genuine wisdom (prajnaparamita), the capacity to discern deeply between intrinsic nature and wandering thought. Reciting his names is not the worship of an image, but a means to activate wisdom and remove the three poisons: attachment, aversion, and delusion, the root causes of suffering.
Main Content
The scripture instructs that the proper recitation of Mañjuśrī’s names does not lie in mechanical repetition, but in profound understanding of the meaning of each name. Each of his names reflects a quality of wisdom, such as “Gentle Voice” (Mañjuśrī), symbolizing the voice of truth, or “Vajra Mañjuśrī,” representing the unshakable strength of wisdom.
This instruction emphasizes that the three poisons, desire (rāga), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha), are the strongest obstacles obscuring wisdom. Desire leads to difficulty in forgetting oneself, hatred gives rise to psychological violence, and delusion blinds one to the relations of cause and effect. When one recites the names of Mañjuśrī with a mind intent on understanding, these three poisons cannot stand before the light of clear awareness.
The scripture teaches that practitioners should daily, especially at times when the mind is calm, such as after meditation, recite the names of Mañjuśrī while clearly understanding the nature of attachment, aversion, and delusion. One should not try to “suppress” the three poisons by willpower; rather, allow the light of wisdom to cause them naturally to fade.
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