Japa meditation How to meditate with a mantra and a mala

Lots of people bounce off breath meditation. The breath is too faint, too slippery, too easy to lose. Then someone hands them a string of beads and a single word to repeat, and something finally clicks.

Japa is one of the most widespread meditation practices on earth, and one of the most forgiving. It hands a restless mind a job: a sound to come back to, and something to hold. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna names it outright. Among offerings, he says, I am the offering of japa (10.25).

What japa is

Japa means repetition, specifically repeating a mantra or a name of the divine with your full attention. The mantra can be a single syllable like Om, a name like Rām or Om Namaḥ Śivāya, or a longer verse such as the Gāyatrī. Many people receive one from a teacher or a family tradition. If you haven't, a simple one from your own background will do.

Three ways of chanting

Within a single sit, people often start aloud, soften to a whisper, and then let the mantra carry on silently. Silent japa is the form that slides most easily into the unbroken attention the yoga texts call dhyāna.

How to use a mala

Hold the mala in your right hand, draped over the middle finger (some traditions use the ring finger). The index finger traditionally stays off the beads.

Find the meru, or sumeru, the larger bead or tassel where the string joins, and start on the first bead beside it. Say the mantra once, then pull the next bead toward you with your thumb. One bead, one repetition. Let the beads do the counting so your mind doesn't have to.

When your thumb arrives back at the meru, you've finished a round of 108. Don't cross over it. If you want another round, turn the mala around and go back the way you came.

Why 108? You'll hear astronomical, numerological and devotional explanations, and nobody agrees on one. In practice, a round is long enough to settle into. With a short mantra it usually takes five to ten minutes.

When the mind wanders mid-mantra

It will. At some point you'll notice your thumb still moving and your lips still shaping the words while your mind is off in last Tuesday's meeting. Everyone who has held a mala knows this.

When you notice, come back to the sound and the meaning of the next repetition. Don't restart the round. Coming back is the practice here, the same as in any other meditation.

What happens in the body

One of the most-cited studies of repetitive prayer appeared in the BMJ in 2001. When people recited the rosary in Latin, or a yoga mantra, their breathing slowed to about six breaths a minute, the pace at which heart rhythms and blood-pressure rhythms fall into step. A larger review found that mantra-based meditation lowered systolic blood pressure, though the evidence there is weaker than for other effects.

So steady chanting quietly does what paced-breathing exercises set out to do. It also explains why your watch can read high after a round. More in meditation and HRV.

Ajapa japa

Ajapa japa, “unrepeated repetition”, ties a mantra to the breath until it seems to repeat itself. The classic pairing is so on the in-breath and haṁ on the out-breath, meaning “I am that”. It's a gentle bridge from japa into silent breath meditation.

Japa on Apple Watch

A real mala is lovely, and it isn't always in your pocket. In Dhyaan, the Apple Watch's Digital Crown can stand in for one. Each click is a bead, a tap marks the end of a round of 108, and the screen can stay dark the whole time. There are other ways to sit with only the Watch in meditating without your phone.

But if you have a mala somewhere in a drawer, try it tonight. One round. See where the 108th bead finds you.