Bliem: The Quest to Count 10 Million Mantras

For 25 years I studied Hinduism. I had two teachers. One had told me “Bliem, your path is the path of the Tathagata”. I asked “what’s the Tathagata?” but he never said anything more about it. For a couple of year’s I was looking for an answer. Then, one of my first times at the Kadampa center in Brooklyn, with Kadam Morten, I heard the prayer “Guru Founder Blessed One, Tathagata, and Arhat…” I asked Kadam Morten, “what’s Tathagata”? He explained “it’s Buddha, Bliem“. I knew then I was in the right place. That was back in the 90s. I’ve studied under Kadam Morten ever since.

A few years after I started attending the Center, Venerable Geshe-la visited America and I received the Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment.

We must have been studying Vajrayogini in class with Kadam Morten, I don’t really remember, but I suddenly got this inspiration to count ten million Vajrayogini mantras [the extensive great close retreat of Vajrayogini with the recitation of the three-OM mantra ten million times]. I’ve been in retreat ever since. I’ve spent two hours every night for the last 25 years or so doing the Quick Path to Great Bliss sadhana and counting about one thousand mantras a day.

I’m now at 8,900,000 mantras counted, so I have about a million more to go, which will take me two or so more years. Towards the end it gets harder. It’s slower.

I can’t really believe I’ve done this. It’s definitely taken longer than I thought it would.

This practice is just a part of me now, I do it every night before I go to bed. In the mornings I do the Heart Jewel sadhana.