Body, Speech and Mind

Om Ah Hum is a mantra of three seed syllables that Tibetan Buddhist practice associates with the enlightened body, speech and mind of the buddhas. The three sounds are used to consecrate offerings and images, to bless food and substances, and as a foundational element within longer liturgies and visualisation practices, where they may be imagined at the crown, throat and heart, the sites of body, speech and mind, of a deity or of the practitioner.

Understood as sound rather than as translatable words, the syllables condense the whole of buddhahood into three tones and provide a compact means of purifying and sanctifying whatever they are directed toward. They also recur as the core of many more elaborate mantras. Their use is pervasive across the Vajrayana traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya, where the recitation of mantra is a central form of practice and the three syllables serve as one of its basic building blocks.