My Mantra

May I Be Relieved of Anger, Fear, and Judgment, that I May Help Others with a Loving Heart.

     I discovered this mantra through meditation at a retreat at Southern Dharma Retreat Center in the summer of 2006. It represents what I hope to achieve in this life. It is not a prayer to God, nor does it represent denial of an unseen force for good in the universe. It is a statement of intention for my life; an intentional posture toward the world which I am able to reinforce by repetition during periods of meditation or at any time during my day. When I say that it was discovered, I mean to say that it what came to me as I looked for the greatest hindrances to my living a life of acceptance and service.
     I realized that feelings such as anger, fear, or judgment of others tend to separate me from others as well as the openness necessary to really know myself and create change in my life. If the motive for my behavior stems from anger, fear, or judgment I will actually be re-acting, and solidifying these negative mindsets. So the idea is to be able to reinforce to myself my INTENTION not to react from these mental/emotional orientations. In this way, I will be striving to intentionally generate the attitude and demeanor that I wish to project to the world. I will be in the world as a manifestation of that intention.
     It was first day after Christmas 2007 when the thought arose during a meditation period that I should speak to the precise meaning of these words. It is my belief that each individual is the director of his/her intentional life and that this intention is the project of their heart and mind alone. So it is for this reason, in order to be of service to those who might be so moved in this direction, that I offer this explanation of “my mantra”.

Intention

     Living with intention is operating from a posture whereby I am directing my intent as it relates to the way I want to be living my life. The opposite of intentional living is being passive with respect to life’s unfolding. How I think and act is my life and if I offer no direction to the thoughts, attitudes, or actions that arise in the course of my daily living, I will be at the mercy of those patterns deeply entrenched in the pathways of my personal history.
     An intentional life is one in which I make choices about my actions by reinforcing my intent to act. This intent is formed after a thorough evaluation of my attitudes, thoughts, and actions up to this point and deciding (forming an intention) which of them are most in need of correction, and systematically replacing them with those I wish to employ. The new intended attitudes, thoughts, and actions are reinforced daily by simply repeating the intent over and over in the form of a mantra.
     In the sense of supplication, this mantra is not a prayer for some other power to change me. It is rather a request directed to myself. It is a petition of intent from me to me, in order to change the direction of my life in a very specific way. It is not a petition in order to receive something from the outside, but rather a request for something from within; from that power that is within me. If the need for God is necessary one might see this power as the power of God within us. However, for me the important thing is not wait for a God out there to grant me the Grace to perform, but rather to choose to take responsibility for the power within, regardless of a belief about its origin. And to use it daily in order to form new pathways of attitude, thought, and behavior. The words used have a special significance for me.
     “May I” is simply another way of saying “I want to”, but with a bit more power behind it.

“Try? There is no try.There is only do or do not do.”–Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

     Perhaps you’re familiar with the parlor game where someone asks you to hold your arm out straight from your side and then while he applies upward pressure under your wrist, you are asked to try to lower your arm while keeping it straight. And when you are unable to move it, perhaps more than an inch or so, he stops and starting over, he tells you to move your arm down (eliminating the word “try”). Miraculously, or so it seems, you are able to move it further than before. Our actions are decided by history, or our intentions and the words we use to express that intent over and over. Having a desire to do something is far less powerful than the firm ownership carried by the words “May I.” To say, or even to think we will try, is to admit to having reservations despite our desire to achieve. Simply wanting to do, or receive, something implies but a state of longing or desire for something, without the firm intention of now. “May I” says I am ready here and now to act or receive.
     “Be Relieved” takes ownership of that which has control over me. When does relief come? It comes does it not, when something is removed; as a shroud or cloak of something unwanted? I intend, here and now, to have this shroud removed; to be relieved of the burden of myself - my unwanted attitudes, thoughts, or behaviors. In short, it is a statement of what I desire for myself in this moment. No wishing for - no hoping that something will arrive - but rather, “here and now I desire to be relieved of my burden.” In my case, they are the blocks to an intentionally driven life.

Relieved Of What?

     At this point we move to the specifics of our personal mantra. It should state specifically what human baggage it is that we wish to jettison. In my case I was able to see how anger, fear, and judgment conspired to control my life. I was able to recognize that all those years where fear was the predominant reaction to life, I acted out of low self esteem. The fear represented my inability to trust and honor myself. I never had the confidence to just move ahead and play the game. I always had to worry about the fact that I would not meet up to expectations or that I would fail. I was always more sure, at some non-verbal level that I would fail rather than succeed. And as I got older and this “habit energy” became more solidified, I employed anger and judgmental attitudes to keep me at a distance from the painful judgment of myself as inept.
     In time I realized that my mother, unwittingly and with the best of intentions, taught me very early to turn every instance of competition into a trial to the death. “If you are going to do something,” she would say, “then do it right!” There was always the right way to do everything - and incidentally, I did not often embrace it as my way. However, I connected being and doing right with success just as I was told and anything less was failure. And of course failure was synonymous with a lack of perfection. My mother wanted me to be successful so she insisted that I must do it right and if I did, then I received acceptance and support. And if I did it my way, then in most cases I did it wrong and that can’t be accepted. Perhaps you can see what a logical step it is then to judge myself by a mythical standard of perfection. “Either be perfect,” were the words in head, “or it’s not worthy” and of course that is but another way of establishing that “I am not worthy.”
     Winning is achieved by doing things right, by not making mistakes and doing things correctly. Winning is success. If you are going to play the game, play it right – be perfect - win. Riding the bus to a football game became dreadful as the lonely flight of a paratrooper over enemy territory. I became deathly afraid of making mistakes which set me to worrying and being unable to relax under pressure. However I learned how to avoid the fear; to avoid the pain of death. I simply didn’t play the game. Unfortunately, this need to be perfect, to avoid the fear of failure, prompted me to take action (or avoid action) that assured my failure, and some very real possibilities in my life were aborted. And in their place I acquired a generalized dread of reasonable risk and a fear of not being in control of an outcome.
     Anger was always the drug of choice whenever I felt an emotion that created my fear of a loss of control, and it was the only emotion I was able to identify with for much of my life. Others like love or compassion - any that might bring tears - were experienced as a threat to the sense of control I felt I needed in order to be safe in the world. And when one lives out of just one emotional state the world becomes quite narrow. So in order to justify this lopsided sense of life, I became adept at being judgmental of other people, as well as those feelings I avoided - those with which they seemed to be so comfortable. Together they became my trinity of delusion; Anger, Fear, and Judgment. They became an instrument for survival or, in the words of Nietzsche, my “will to power”. Unfortunately it was only an illusion of power.

Anger, Fear, and Judgment

     Anger often arises as a result of a conflict between me and some other. Perhaps it feels like that the sudden flush of adrenaline after narrowly escaping a car accident, or simply having to experience something that I don’t want to experience. But most often it’s about not getting what I want, or when I am experiencing some other form of emotional insecurity. Perhaps it’s a pain that arises from feelings of inadequacy, or a feeling of impotence in the face of some challenge. Or perhaps I am afraid of making a choice between two alternatives. Whatever the origin, finding some way of being judgmental or angry allows me to avoid my discomfort by overshadowing the pain or fear with a sense of energy and power, or efficacy.
     Fear and its offspring, anger, are emotions that can give me the energy to act without hesitation when I am faced with the fight or flight response, but its value extends no further. Anger blinds me to clear thinking and problem solving; it blocks from my awareness values I might otherwise cling to, if I were not so distracted by fear or insecurity. Surely, it fills me with adrenaline and gives me the sense of power I might otherwise lack in a particularly stressful situation. But the price I pay, is the loss of my ability to make discriminating choices.
     In the long run, anger will lead me directly into resentments, or forms of self-righteousness if revisited for too long, too often. When I replay the situation over and over I can become seriously deluded as to the facts that led to the anger in the first place, and I run the very real risk of making choices based on these illusions. And just as in any cumulative process, one small miscalculation, one illusory judgment at any point, will be magnified many times over by the time I reach the end of the process. A false premise at any point will result in larger miscalculations and lead to more and bigger illusions. It is this sort of continuum, perhaps containing many false premises over years of drinking or drug use, that we see active in the lives of angry, resentful alcoholics…..or just the common man. I found however, that I do have the power to initiate a process of anger management. For some of us it may take longer than others but success is sure to follow if we are willing to practice a few simple steps with the same degree of dedication we previously employed in avoidance. The first thing I needed to do was dedicate myself daily, to a process of self awareness and a willingness to take responsibility for my thoughts, feelings, and actions.
     There was a moment when I realized just how important all this was going to be in my life. Wanting to stretch the kinks out of my legs after a long drive, I purposely chose a spot at the back of the parking lot. I was leisurely making my way through the parked cars; enjoying a bright, afternoon sun. The leaves were beginning to turn dull and fluttered against the crisp, blue sky. I took a deep breath and my lungs screamed in betrayal, as the smell of burned cooking fat rode on a cool September breeze from the dumpster on the other side of the property.
     As I approached the drive-thru lane, a young man carefully backed thorough the glass door and turned in my direction. The remains of a Value Meal box in his right hand, his left shoulder dipped downward toward the whining ball of flesh which he held firmly by the hand.
     “Come on now,” he pleaded, “you’ve got to stand up.”
     The boy’s rebellion reminded me of an outraged chimpanzee. Legs curled up toward his stomach, he dangled at the end of his father’s arm; a vanilla complexion now scarlet against his long, blonde hair. With eyes closed in a grimace of wrinkles, he swung the weight of his body against his father’s grip.
     “Come on now, you’ve got to stand up.”, his father continued. His voice was calm and clear, with no hint of uncertainty.
     That’s when it hit me. I saw myself in this little boy. Whirling in outrage against life with eyes locked tight to everything around me. I too was often kicking and screaming against the firm hand of an unflinching world. And like this little boy, I saw my vision was obscured behind a ball of clenched fear and anger, unable to grasp the cause of my suffering.
     “That I may help others” is to remind me of the reason I want to entertain this constant striving for improvement. To fall back on old patterns will be forever the easier, softer way to exist, albeit entirely without self-worth, self-respect, and joy. And without continued reminders of the raison d’etre for this quest, I am condemned to fall into an everlasting, disingenuous existence.
     “With a Loving Heart” is to remind me that this is not about me. It is not being done so that I can improve my personal ego and catapult my soul into heaven. It is to remind me that I do not always know what’s best for others and that all I can do is listen to the world and remind myself that it is “unfolding as it should”. It is forever difficult to listen from my heart and not from my head. And for that reason alone, I try to recognize and embrace the value of the one over the other. So it is with this intention that I try to meet each day.
     In The Eighth Duino Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke, he writes “O bliss of the diminutive: creature born from a particular womb into womb perpetual” and a few lines later, “All is womb to him”. These words speak to me of the human condition. And in the words of Alexander Pope in his Essay On Man, man is “Born but to die and reasoning but to err, alike in ignorance, his reason such, whether he thinks too little or too much. Chaos of thought and passion all confused; still by himself abused or disabused.” Not unlike the diminutive creature referred to by Rilke we are, as Pope goes on to say, “Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, the glory jest and riddle of the world.”
     Unlike us, it is the lesser creatures of the world that by nature’s grace, are not blinded to the experience of this life as a “perpetual womb.” They emerge from the “particular womb” of their mother and make no distinction when they plop down in the womb of this life, and begin another journey toward maturity. They simply act out their time in this world without a second-thought, sans the intellectual imagery to which we are heir. And although we may be “great lord of all things” here on earth, still “we strut and fret our hour upon the stage” like harnessed mules dragging the wagons of our past behind us - all the while imagining ourselves beautiful stallions galloping free upon the open range. Always struggling to see truth or beauty beyond the horizon, we bury it beneath each prancing hoof and find it not.
     This life is the “perpetual womb” in which we must grow and become mature again before we move on. An unintentional life for the human animal is one of imprisonment behind the gilded bars of our delusions of grandeur. And maturity is but the image of a dream cast upon the wall of our solitary cell.
     This is where my mantra now becomes an important weapon in the battle for supremacy over my habituated negative patterns of being in the world. Whenever I find myself blaming or being judgmental, I realize I am at a turning point. It is crucial that I recognize myself being at a crossroad if I am going to continue.
     My success or failure begins from the crossroads of awareness and illusion. Either I work to be aware or I bury my head in the sands of illusion. It begins with a willingness to look at the root of my anger the moment it arises. And in order to do this I must become more closely connected to how and where my anger manifests itself in my body, and where in my body it first appears? Where do I feel flushed or tense or physically shaky? How exactly do I experience fear, lack of confidence, insecurity, and anger. When I suddenly feel a rush of adrenaline for instance, I need to know I may be witnessing a trigger for anger which habitually results in a projection of responsibility onto someone or something else. I need to practice an ever-vigilant mindfulness as to the triggers I am accustomed to feeling but are not necessarily aware of in the moment. My mantra, whether I am in meditation or just driving home from work, is today my alternative to saying or doing something I will be ashamed of.

     Once I have recognized the trigger I will have cut the umbilical cord that habitually feeds my anger. That’s not to say that identification alone is the entire solution. It’s merely the initial step toward liberation. When identified, the process momentarily short circuits and I am given a window of opportunity. It is an opportunity, if I am willing, to choose to focus on the manner in which my thinking fuels my anger and loss of control. However, I must become more aware of just exactly how this happens if I am to know the freedom it offers. Mindfulness, as a tool, is guided by the integration of my mantra into daily life and can be utilized at any moment, anywhere. And the cost is nothing more than the time it takes to practice it into second nature.

Using It Actually Works

     When I realize that I have just experienced a trigger I can identify which feeling I am about to try to hide with my anger: fear, insecurity, poor self-esteem, or sadness perhaps. In this way I come to know myself in a new way and with this knowledge I am able to look to self-forgiveness, acceptance, offering forgiveness to others, rational problem solving, and any number of healthy alternatives to my anger. A moment’s mindfulness here can be just what I need to avoid an argument, an apology, or even a jail sentence.
     This is a process that will take time to master and will continue to mature as we grow within it. Most of us will be unable, in the beginning, to recognize our triggers before we have made the leap into some unwanted thought or behavior. And while that may seem to be a failure it is rather, at the very least, an improvement. The experience offers me another cue to recognize, as I work toward earlier recognition of my triggers. With each success I gain insight into myself and not only add to my resolve, but I strengthen my ability to set myself free. I believe it was Voltaire who is credited with saying, “If we don’t find anything pleasant, at least we will find something new.” And that is the nexus of my journey.
     Aside from knowing that they are neither sin nor original, the manner or source from which these postures emerged into my life script, is unimportant. Just knowing that they exist in the present allows me to work to remove them in the here and now. This mantra is my dedication to intentionally directing the course of my life away from these unhealthy reactions.