Mantras: An Aid in Meditation with Psalm 136

In this episode, we explore different mantras that can be used in meditation and how meditation might be useful for us as our contemplative nature grows. This episode includes a reading from Psalm 136.

Media mentioned in this episode:

Thich Nhat Hanh: Mindful Meditation
https://youtu.be/J62F0Y6PKes

Center for Action and Contemplation
Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org)

Turning To the Mystics with James Finley
Turning to the Mystics — CAC Podcast with James Finley 

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Transcript

Welcome to Loving the Imperfect Podcast, a show for seekers of deeper contemplation. I'm Brianne Turczynski. For 10 years, I've been studying offerings from holy teachers and holy texts. I'm a journalist who has listened to the stories of many people throughout the years, and so I thought it was my turn, to share a thing or two about my journey and my thoughts on scripture and holy work from different faith traditions and practices, mostly from Sufi teachers, Buddhists, and Christian mystics. So join me as we imperfectly and clumsily make our way through each day, mustering up compassion and some words of love for the hours ahead. Hello and welcome to Loving the Imperfect. Today's psalm is 136. It is a responsive psalm, and it is by an anonymous psalmist.

Okay, so here we go. Psalm 136:
 
 1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
 His love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
 His love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
 His love endures forever.

4 to him who alone does great wonders,
 His love endures forever.
5 who by his understanding made the heavens,
 His love endures forever.
6 who spread out the earth upon the waters,
 His love endures forever.
7 who made the great lights—
 His love endures forever.
8 the sun to govern the day,
 His love endures forever.
9 the moon and stars to govern the night;
 His love endures forever.

10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
 His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
 His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
 His love endures forever.

13 to him who divided the Red Sea[a] asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
 His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
 His love endures forever.

16 to him who led his people through the wilderness;
 His love endures forever.

17 to him who struck down great kings,
 His love endures forever.
18 and killed mighty kings—
 His love endures forever.
19 Sihon king of the Amorites
 His love endures forever.
20 and Og king of Bashan—
 His love endures forever.
21 and gave their land as an inheritance,
 His love endures forever.
22 an inheritance to his servant Israel.
 His love endures forever.

23 He remembered us in our low estate
 His love endures forever.
24 and freed us from our enemies.
 His love endures forever.
25 He gives food to every creature.
 His love endures forever.

26 Give thanks to the God of heaven.
 His love endures forever.

-Borrowed from the NIV Bible

 This repetitive, responsive psalm is as if to say, when you hear it like the way I read it, it's almost as if to say, no matter what happens, God’s love will endure forever.

It's almost like God is speaking to you and saying, my love for you will endure forever, or, it always endures, no matter what you're going through, no matter what you're doing. And you can see throughout the psalm that certain events took place. This happened, then this happened, then this happened, and all the while, God is loving us and I think that that is the purpose of repetitive psalms like this that repeat a mantra over and over.

We can take that for our own lives, no matter what we're doing, God is loving us. God is loving us. God is loving us. God is completely present in our present every moment.

I thought that because this is a repetitive psalm that we would talk about mantras because to say his love endures forever if you repeated that and repeated that in meditation that would be a mantra that's what you would call a mantra, a phrase that is repeated and repeated to help you remain in the present. Mantras are helpful because it connects us to the body and the mind and make them one because, as Thich Nhat Hanh said, we spend so much of our day, a lot of us with our bodies and mind living separately if you live a meditative life or a contemplative life, you are trying to bring the body and mind together. If you have a body and a mind that is connected, you can start to see the connection between your being and the rest of creation. And how we are all connected. Everything's connected.
 
 The word mantra comes from Sanskrit, and it means that which clears the mind. So, if you just fill your mind with that one phrase repeatedly, then your mind is less likely to go off in different avenues of what you have to buy at the grocery store that day, or what you have to do tomorrow, or what happened to you yesterday, because you're concentrating on that phrase. 
 
Mantras were originally used in meditation in Buddhist and Hindu traditions. For example, there are four mantras of love from the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. And these include:
 
1. Darling, I am here for you. 
2. Darling, I know you are there, and it makes me happy. 
3. Darling, I know you suffer. 
4. Darling, I suffer. Please help. 
 
And then two more were added to this. 
 
5. This is a happy moment. 
 
6. Darling, you are partly right. 
 
Which would be used more in conflict situations. When someone might tell you something that isn't very nice. Or when they compliment you too much, there's too much praise coming your way. And so it is that way to humble yourself. “You are partly right that I am amazing. These are all the ways I'm not so amazing.” And just to keep that awareness, you don't have to say these things out loud, but that is something that people can repeat to themselves silently in their heads or alone quietly.

In Christianity, we have parts of prayers like Come Holy Spirit. That would be considered a mantra. If you pray that all throughout your meditation. Come Holy Spirit. We have, Oh God, come to my assistance. Oh Lord, make haste to help me. So these are parts of prayers that we've heard, or parts of psalms that we've heard, and people have taken key verses out of scripture to create these beautiful phrases that can be repeated and repeated in meditation.

Another is Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. I was in church last Sunday and our pastor did that meditation, that mantra for the whole congregation. It was a meditation where you just took one word away from it every time you repeated it.

So, you would say, Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know. Be still. And Be. And you do this very slowly in between your breaths. And it was very calming. I've done that before with,  James Finley, who is one of the core faculty members for the Center for Action and Contemplation with Richard Rohr, and he is the host of the Center for Action and Contemplation podcast called Turning to the Mystics which is another podcast that I would recommend people listen to. He does that meditation sometimes at the end of his podcast. And so that was the first time I experienced that meditation, but then my priest did it in church, our pastor with the whole parish, and it was very nice. 

Another one that I've said to myself is, This is a day the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it. But sometimes I just cut that short and I say, This is a day the Lord has made to remind me that it's going to be a good day, or it is a good day because I'm alive. And there are many others. And they don't have to be popularized, and they don’t have to be from the Bible. It can be from some famous poet that you love, or maybe your mother always said it, or your father always said it. It doesn't have to be something from scripture or a famous wisdom teacher. It can be from wisdom teachers in your own life.

Om, for example, is a sacred syllable and mantra. It is considered the first sound of the universe. O M and it connects us back to nature and the cosmos. So chanting Om is said to have healing and spiritual powers, and this is according to a Google search, okay? There is the prayer of the Tibetan Buddhists that goes Om Mani Padme Hum. It is the compassion mantra, the jewel of the lotus, or praise to the jewel in the lotus. And what's interesting is the meaning of this ancient Buddhist prayer is still debated among scholars, because this prayer, this mantra, is more of the essence of the meaning of words. And so that's very interesting because it's vague, which is a good thing. It's not concrete. It’s fluid, and it can change its meaning depending on who's looking at the text. 
 
 Om is the first sound of the universe. Okay. That's what is said to be the first sound of the universe. It's sacred. Mani means jewel. And Padme is Lotus. Which means purity because the lotus flower grows out of the mud. So, there's a lot of symbolism in that, you have this flower that grows from the mud and when it emerges, it is not stained by the mud from which it came. So, Padme is lotus, and then you have Hum, which can be the spirit of enlightenment. So that's how we get the jewel in the lotus. You can see how the definition is sort of vague that way because a lot of these words and sounds are more like the essence of something. So, when one chants these prayers or mantras, they are intended to keep us focused on the present. But we are also supposed to remember our breath and concentrate on the sound of these words. And the feeling of the air and the sound of them as they come out of our mouths. 
 
 In Centering Prayer, which is considered the Christian version of Buddhist meditation, you begin with a sacred word, and it can be anything that you'd like, that gives you a sense of comfort. And anytime you feel your mind is going adrift from your center, from your breath, you bring yourself back to your sacred word, and eventually, you won't need to say your sacred word as often, and on occasions when you are in the midst of much stress in your life. You can remember your word and it will bring you peace.
 
 I would suggest, as many teachers have said, to do meditative practice as early in the morning as you possibly can, before anyone is awake before you're needed by anybody, and when the world is quiet. If you're like me and you live in a busier area, it's harder to find that peace and quiet out there.

And so, in the morning, before anybody has started their car to go to work, it's a good time for meditation. I would do it every day. I would say it would be good to do it for 20 to 30 minutes a day. But if all you have is 10 minutes, that's perfectly fine too. Or even 5. That's fine also. Meditation reconstructs looping brain pathways that send us down the roads that we don't really want to go down and it takes us to a different road because what you're doing is, when your brain gets distracted and goes down those normal, common roads that it goes down when it gets distracted and all those thoughts that are toxic or busy, you're interrupting those thoughts with that sacred word.

And so, you can see how that would help your brain to reroute those pathways, you're training your brain to be more disciplined and better at concentrating, and not get so distracted. It keeps you in the present moment, which is the healthiest thing to be, is to be present. 
 
 Thich Nhat Hanh has a lot of helpful videos online about mindfulness and I will put a link to one that I thought was very helpful in the information for this show. I hope that you found some of this helpful. 

Thank you so much for joining me. Next week's psalm is Psalm 143, which is a Psalm of David, and we will end exactly on Psalm 150, which is the last psalm. That worked out pretty well, I think. In about two weeks, we'll be finished with Season 1, and we'll start Season 2, short interviews for you. So, thank you for joining me today. I'll see you next week. Bye. Bye.