Buddhist Mantras for Transforming Fear into Love: The Four Mantras
“The nicest gift you can give someone when you love them is your presence.”
Hannah Arendt stated in her outstanding early work on love and how to live with fear that “fearlessness is what love desires.” The only legitimate tense is the present, the Now, since “Such fearlessness exists only in the full serenity that can no longer be rocked by events expected to occur in the future.”
As old as the human heart and the consciousness that first felt the blade of anticipating loss pressed against the bare underside of the need for connection, this idea of presence as the antidote to fear and the furnace of love is rooted in the human condition. Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm (public library) by the great Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh, who continues to enrich, ennoble, and empower with his teachings well into his nineties, brings it alive afresh in a splendidly practical way. It is at the centre of millennia-old Buddhist philosophy.
Thich Nhat Hanh writes in the typical Buddhist manner of befriending complication via simplicity and with his unique knack for simple words strung into a rosary of vast wisdom radiating immense kindness.
We all harbour a strong, ingrained fear. We fear a variety of things, including our own mortality, losing loved ones, change, and being alone. Mindfulness training enables us to experience nonfear. Only in the present moment can we truly feel relieved and happy. Through Buddhist practise, we can observe that all mental formations, such as compassion, love, fear, sorrow, and despair, are organic in nature. Since any of them could evolve, we don’t need to be terrified of any of them.
Buddhist Mantras for Transforming Fear into Love: The Four Mantras
Only through conscious effort is such transformation possible; no deliberate activity is more difficult or fruitful than the purposeful practise of turning fear into love. He bases this transmutation practise on four mantras that are “useful for nourishing the seeds of happiness in yourself and your beloved and for changing fear, sadness, and loneliness” in keeping with his teaching that “to love without knowing how to love hurts the person we love.”
A mantra is not addressed at anything or anyone external and is entirely focused on reducing the object of hope to its most simple form. In contrast to a prayer, which channels a hope at some imagined entity capable of interceding in favour of that hope and has as a side benefit (though arguably its only real and robust benefit) the psychological self-clarification that comes from honing our hopes in language. As a result, the hope becomes more actionable and is spared from the special complacency that Descartes warned against when he thought about the crucial connection between fear and hope. A mantra, then, is not a method of magical thinking because it simply clarifies, concentrates, and consecrates intent, and all meaningful transformation arises from purposeful, devoted intent, even though there is a sense of magic to how such distillation seems to change the situation by its very utterance.
Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
A mantra is a type of magic phrase that, when spoken, can completely alter a situation. It has the power to alter both ourself and others. However, this secret phrase needs to be said slowly, with both the body and the mind fully focused. In this mentality, whatever you say becomes a mantra.
A generation after Simone Weil proclaimed that “attention is the rarest and purest kind of charity,” he presents four mantras for changing fear into love, starting with “Mantra for Offering Your Presence.”
Your genuine presence is the most priceless present you can give to the person you love. The first mantra is therefore extremely straightforward: “Dear one, I am here for you.”
Even though it seems like a simple mantra, he reminds us that developing the capacity for it — the capacity for presence, which is where our capacity for love resides — is incredibly challenging in the face of the onslaught of demands and distractions that engulfs daily life and engulfs us with it, leaving us perpetually on the verge of drowning and devoid of what Emerson celebrated as “the power to swell the moment from the resources of our own heart until it.
Thich Nhat Hanh gently reminds us that, a century after Tolstoy stated that “love is a present activity alone,” the most powerful aspect of our own hearts—our greatest source of strength, our most potent remedy for fear—is the kind of love we give via the kind of our presence.
The best gift you can give someone you love is to be there for them. If you are not present, how can you love? When you are alone again, turn to them and say, “Dear, you know something? You are expressing your presence by saying, “I’m here for you.” You are there for your loved one; you are not thinking about the past or the future. The transformation won’t happen unless you say this simultaneously with your body and thoughts.
The following mantra, “Mantra for Recognizing Your Beloved,” requires such crystalline presence:
“Darling, I know you are there, and I am so glad,” is the second mantra.
The first step is to simply be present, and the second is to acknowledge the other person’s presence. You understand that the presence of your loved one is something really important because you are truly present. If you embrace your partner mindfully, they will blossom like flowers. To be loved is to first and foremost be acknowledged for who you are.
He reminds us that these mantras can be recited without the beloved being physically present, over distance, via wires, cables, or screens. Regardless of how they are expressed, they are at their core meditations that contain all four of the qualities of true love as defined by the Buddha: love, compassion, joy, and freedom.
The benefits of Thich Nhat Hanh’s “hugging meditation” could amplify and deepen the third mantra, “Mantra for Relieving Suffering,” but it can also be extended across the digital chasm.
Since we have a huge need for the presence of the people we love while we are suffering, even before you do anything to help, your sincere presence already brings some solace. We suffer more if the person we love ignores us when we’re in pain. Therefore, the best thing you can do right now is to tell your loved one that you are truly there for them while chanting the following mantra with complete mindfulness: “Dear one, I know you are hurting. I’m here for you because of it, and your loved one will already feel better.
It is a miracle that you are there, that you recognise their suffering, and that you are able to express this facet of your love right away. Try your hardest to be there for yourself, life, and the people you care about. Recognize your neighbours’ presence and make an effort to be there for them when they’re in need since their presence is really valuable to them.
Jean-Pierre Weill’s The Well of Being artwork
The fourth and final mantra, “Mantra for Reaching Out to Ask for Help,” may appear to be self-centered on the surface, but it is actually the source of all selfless love and presence. It is also the hardest of the four, according to Thich Nhat Hanh, because it is in the area of our greatest weakness and simultaneously forces us to rely on our most damaging crutch:
This mantra should be recited when you are experiencing pain and feel that your loved one is to blame. You would have suffered less if someone else had committed the same evil against you. However, because this is the person you love the most and are suffering the most, asking that person for assistance is the last thing you feel like doing. As a result, the barrier to healing and reconciliation is now your pride. According to Buddha’s teachings, pride has no place in genuine love.
You must seek out the support of the person you love while you are in such pain. True love is that. Don’t let pride separate you. You have to get over your arrogance. Always seek him or her out. This mantra is meant to help with that. It is extremely easy to say, but very difficult to execute, the fourth mantra: “Dear One, I am suffering; please help.” Practice on yourself first to achieve unity of body and mind before approaching the other person.
