The Śuddha Mantra, also called the Purity Mantra or the Śunyata mantra, is among the most popular and important of all mantras. The Great Lama Yeshe called it the “Universal Love” mantra because it purifies and benefits all beings who hear it.

This mantra reminds all beings they are pure by nature and One with Dharma. It’s purity blesses all beings, all objects, all senses, all phenomena. It begins every Buddhist Dharma formal practice. It can also be used for any time you feel “haunted.” It can be used to help pacify or exorcise any location, being or person. It reminds all beings that they are pure, including any beings who might be invisible to us. The Śuddha Mantra embraces all beings with loving compassion.

Video of the first of our new Śuddha Mantras:

 

It is also often called the Śunyata mantra, although this name refers to two mantras, the Method or purity mantra and a more specialized wisdom mantra. Regardless of your lineage, teacher or yidam, you likely start your practice with this Purity Method Mantra known as the Suddha mantra.

The Śuddha mantra is

oṃ svabhāva śuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāva śuddho ‘haṃ

This literally translates as:

All Dharmas are Pure. Pure is what I am

In a teaching in Holland in 1981, the revered teacher Lama Thubten Yeshe explained why every Sadhana and yoga practice begins with this mantra (1):

“First, it’s significant that the words of this mantra are the original Sanskrit—just hearing or reciting them imparts great blessings,” said the great teacher.

He added, “this mantra contains a profound explanation of the pure, fundamental nature of both human beings and all other existent phenomena. It means that everything is spontaneously pure—not relatively, of course, but in the absolute sense. From the absolute point of view, the fundamental quality of human beings and the nature of all things is purity.”

The Practical Heart

The mantra’s “real meaning” can be summed up in three affirmations:

1. All things are pure in their fundamental nature. (The universal truth.)
2. I am not separate from that purity. (The personal application.)
3. Therefore all beings are pure, and I am one with them. (The compassionate conclusion.)

This is why it can be used anywhere, anytime — waking, sleeping, before practice, after nightmares, to bless objects, to pacify places, to accompany the dying. It is not a ritual formula but a portable realization: a reminder that wherever we are, whatever we face, the ground of reality is purity, and we are never outside of it.

Śuddha Mantra — Word-by-Word Breakdown & Commentary

The Mantra

oṃ svabhāva śuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāva śuddho ‘haṃ

Part 1: Word-by-Word Literal Meaning

oṃ — Oṃ — the sacred primordial syllable; the sound of the universe; invocation and blessing

svabhāva — own-being / intrinsic nature / essence (sva = own; bhāva = being/nature)

śuddhāḥ — pure (plural, nominative) — “are pure”

sarva — all / every

dharmāḥ — dharmas / phenomena / things / teachings (plural)

svabhāva — own-being / intrinsic nature

śuddho — pure (singular, nominative — sandhi form of śuddhaḥ)

‘haṃ — I am (aham — “I”)

Literal translation

Oṃ. All dharmas (phenomena) are pure in their own-being. In my own-being, I am pure.

Or, as the text offers more universally:

Oṃ. All dharmas in their own-being are pure; in our own-being we are all pure.

“What It Really Means” — Commentary

 

The Structure of the Mantra

The mantra has a beautiful two-part symmetry:

1. “All dharmas are pure in their own-being” — the objective, universal statement. Everything — every phenomenon, every being, every thing — is pure at the level of its fundamental nature.
2. “I am pure in my own-being” — the subjective, personal application. I am not excluded from this universal purity. I am one with it.

This mirrors the classic Mahayana core truth and teaching: the purity of all things = the purity of oneself. There is no gap between the two.

What “Pure” (Śuddha) Actually Means Here

 

This is crucial: śuddha does not mean “clean” in the moral or relative sense. It does not mean “without sin,” “without defilement,” or “morally good.” Lama Yeshe is explicit: it means pure in the absolute sense — the fundamental nature of all phenomena is spontaneously pure.

From the relative, perceptual point of view, we seem impure — we have afflictions, confusion, karma, stains. But from the absolute point of view, those stains were never truly present in the nature of mind or the nature of phenomena. They are adventitious — temporary, removable, like clouds over the sun. The sun was never actually dimmed.

So the mantra is not a request for purification — it is a reminder and affirmation of what is already the case. We are not becoming pure; we are recognizing that we always were.

“Svabhāva” — Own-Being, Not a Thing

Svabhāva (own-being / intrinsic nature) is a loaded term in Buddhist philosophy. In Madhyamaka, the lack of svabhāva (svabhāva-śūnyatā) is precisely emptiness — no phenomenon has independent, inherent existence.

But here the mantra uses svabhāva in a different, devotional-yogic register: it points to the fundamental nature of a thing — its essence, its “suchness.” And that essence, it declares, is śuddha — pure.

This is not a contradiction with emptiness; it is another face of the same realization. The “own-being” that is pure is not a self-existent essence — it is the nature of mind itself, which is naturally luminous and unstained. Purity here is synonymous with the fundamental ground: empty, luminous, and compassionate by nature.

“Sarvadharmāḥ” — All Phenomena, No Exceptions

Sarva-dharmāḥ means all dharmas — not just Buddhist teachings, but all phenomena whatsoever. Every thing, every being, every experience, every world-system. Nothing is excluded from this purity.

This is what makes the mantra universal. It is not sectarian. It does not say “all Buddhists are pure” or “all humans are pure.” It says all dharmas — including the beings we cannot see, the places we fear, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the dying and the dead.

This is why it can be used to “exorcise” a house, bless a sick person, purify food, or remind a dying being of their ultimate nature. The mantra’s scope is reality itself.

“‘Haṃ” — The Personal Pronoun and the Universal “We”

The final word — ‘haṃ (aham, “I”) — is where the mantra lands. After declaring the purity of all phenomena, it turns to the practitioner: and I am that purity.

The text notes that because Sanskrit often drops personal pronouns, the line can equally read “we are all pure.” The “I” is not a private, isolated ego — it is the “I” that is one with all beings. This is the Mahayana heart: my purity is not separate from the purity of all beings. To realize my own purity is to realize the purity of all.

This is why Lama Yeshe called it the “Universal Love” mantra. The mantra’s essence is Mahayana — the Great Vehicle of Compassion. To affirm “I am pure” is to affirm “all beings are pure,” because there is no separate self. Purity and compassion are two sides of the same coin: seeing beings as pure is loving them.

Why It Begins Every Practice

Every sadhana and puja begins with this mantra because before we do anything, we must remember the ground we stand on. We do not practice to become pure — we practice from purity. We do not visualize ourselves as a deity to manufacture something new — we visualize to recognize what we already are.

The mantra purifies body, speech, and mind symbolically by reminding us they were never ultimately defiled. It re-establishes the view: relative impurity is not the final word; absolute purity is.

Two Śunyata mantras?

Since there are two mantras that bear the name of the Śunyata mantra (pronounced Shunyata), here we’ve been referring to this critically important mantra by it’s other well-known name, the Śuddha mantra (pronounced shuddha) to emphasize the main word in the mantra, Śuddha, meaning Pure.

The other mantra known as Śunyata mantra is more focused on wisdom yoga practice, with the word Śunyata as the root of the mantra. They both, as the names imply, suggest inseparable nature, Oneness, Śunyata, but the Śuddha mantra focuses on the “method” or  compassion aspect of the equation and the more specialized Śunyata mantra is focused on the wisdom aspect.

IAST Sanskrit:

oṃ sva bhā va śu ddhāḥ sa rva dha rmāḥ sva bhā va śu ddho ‘haṃ

Or, the syllables are often assembled for chanting this way:

oṃ svabhāva śuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāva śuddho ‘haṃ

The mantra translates as:

All Dharmas are Pure. Pure is what I am.

(Or more conceptually “Pure is what we all are.”)

Or, more elaborately translated:

Oṃ. All Dharmas in their own-being are pure; in my own-being I too am pure.

OR, more universally, since there is not personal pronoun use:

Oṃ. All Dharmas in their own-being are pure; in our own-being we are all pure.

This mantra reminds all beings they are pure by nature and One with Dharma. For this reason it can also be used for any time you feel “haunted” whether you believe it’s your own mind or an external haunting. It can be used to help pacify or exorcise any location, being or person. It reminds all beings that they are pure, including any beings who might be invisible to us.

Mantra is Used EVERYWHERE!

This mantra can be used when we wake up to remind ourselves we are pure. It can be used after a nightmare to settle our mind. It can be used to settle our mind and body for sleep. Here are it’s many uses:

• Before every practice, after Refuge, before main practice.
• Any time your mind is unsettled or your body is filled with tension.
• To bless and purify a mala
• To bless and purify a Dharma Statue
• To bless and purify the food you are about to eat
• To bless a newborn child
• To bless a sick person
• To bless and purify ourselves when we wake up
• To bless and purify a Dharma text (Although Dharma texts don’t require purification — they are always pure. But, we can do it symbolically or to reinforce in our own mind.
• To bless and purify any object, even household objects. For this purpose you usually chant 3, 7, 27 or 108 times then blow on the object symbolically with your breath which is now purified.
• To exorcise a house, location or object.
• To purify the essence of any Dharma or non-Dharma object.
• To purify a person passing or passed — it reminds their surviving essence of their ultimate purity and Oneness with all.

Mantra Retreat and Accumulations

Notably, this mantra is used before every mantra accumulation session we might chant this mantra, then blow on our Mala (or touch the mala to the top of our heads) to symbolically re-affirm the mala is pure. In deity yogas, it is used before (and often after) every self-generation visualization. This purifies our body, speech and mind.

The “other” Śunyata Mantra.

Although the essence of the Śuddha mantra relates to Śunyata, the word Śuddha means “pure” while the other popular mantra which focuses on the word Śunyata  means “emptiness” and related concepts.

The Śunyata mantra is:

oṃ śūnyatā jñāna vajra svabhāvātmako ‘haṃ

This means:

“oṃ emptiness knowing diamond self-nature-essence I”

Whereas the Śuddha mantra, which is very similar conceptually on “oneness”  is specifically and adds the important aspect of “sarva” meaning “all” and compassion-method.

oṃ svabhāva śuddhāḥ sarvadharmāḥ svabhāva śuddho ‘haṃ

All Dharmas are Pure. Pure is what I am.

They can be — and often are — interchangeably used, but in most Sadhanas they are separate recitations because they activate different recognitions in our mind.

The Śuddha Mantra focuses on method (compassion, activity) The Śunyata mantra focuses on wisdom (Jnana). This is the key difference.

NOTES

(1) Universal Love By Lama Thubten Yeshe, Holland 1981 (Archive #206, 348, 354)  https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/appendix-1-explanation-shunyata-mantra-and-meditation-emptiness