འཕགས་པ་འཇམ་དཔལ་གྱ་རྩ་བའ་རྒྱད 150

150

with the following mantra, and throw it into the water. What mantra?

“Homage to all the buddhas, the perfect teachers. The mantra is:

“ Oṁ, paralyze all evildoers, hūṁ! You who hold a blue lotus and possess the graceful form of a divine youth, bind them, bind! Remember your samaya! Phaṭ phaṭ, svāhā! ⁸⁹³

“One should use this mantra to effect protection [for oneself], bind the directions, form a protective circle for one’s companions, bind the fire pit,⁸⁹⁴ and summon all the wicked and utterly wicked beings. With this mantra one can also arrest semen.⁸⁹⁵ One should roam everywhere with a cord tied around one’s waist and incanted seven times. One should recite this mantra one hundred thousand times in order to destroy or appease the evil obstacle makers, reciting both during recitation sessions and the time of ritual bathing. In this way one will be able to accomplish all activities. When performing any ritual, one should put on the great fivefold seal [of Mañjuśrī].⁸⁹⁶ One will be able to accomplish everything; it cannot be otherwise.⁸⁹⁷

“The practitioner should take some powder consisting of dried clay and cow dung and do the ritual ablutions as he pleases. He should bathe in water that is free of living organisms. In all the rites, one should always use only water that is free of living organisms. Having bathed, one should smear oneself with a paste of clay and cow dung, or other fragrant unguents that are especially helpful.⁸⁹⁸ One must not release into the water any phlegm,⁸⁹⁹ urine, or feces. One should not splash in the water or engage in play. One should compassionately reflect on oneself and others and on the absence of self, emptiness, and the pain of experiencing pervasive suffering, which is like the pain experienced by someone separated from their mother.⁹⁰⁰ A mantra adept should thus imagine himself to be a being without a practice to follow, one subject to ruin, fall, decay, and destruction, all of which are attended by suffering. He should think of himself as sinking deep into the ocean of saṃsāra,