A Peaceful Heart
On Wednesday morning, my meditation was guided by Tamara Levitt, the Head of Mindfulness on the Calm app. While every meditation includes silence and encouragement to focus on a home base (such as the breath), each individual meditation centers on a particular theme. Wednesday’s theme was kindness and included a mantra: May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have a peaceful heart. Tamara invited us to direct the mantra to different people: ourselves, someone we love, someone we find challenging.
As you have probably guessed, the purpose of the mantra was to shift our perspective and make us more mindful of our relationships. If we go through our day wishing happiness, health, and a peaceful heart on everyone we encounter, including and perhaps especially those people we find challenging, we’ll find not only our relationships but also our very selves transformed.
As I’ve reflected on the meditation since hearing it, three thoughts come to mind.
First: Easier said than done. Saying a mantra is easy, living it much harder. Of course, Tamara didn’t say it would be easy. She simply invited us into a practice. Say the mantra. Focus it on someone else. See what happens. Repeat. We often look for solutions when what we really need is a process, a practice, something that opens our hearts and minds over time to new perspectives.
Second: The last question of our Baptismal Covenant invites us to accept each person as a child of God. We are asked: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Respecting each person’s dignity is very hard to do, especially the people we find most challenging and difficult. I wonder if a mantra would help us live into this promise. We don’t need to use Tamara’s. We could try something else. May you be joyful. May you be loved. May you be at peace.
Third: Meditation is a form of prayer, though I find myself arbitrarily separating the two practices as if they are different. While the practice of meditation fits within my morning prayer time, my actual prayers tend to be spoken and directive. Whether focused on myself or others, my prayers often take on the form of requests. I make petitions to God with the hope of getting results.
But what if prayer is less about results and more about relationships? What if prayer is not convincing God to act but instead focusing my mindset so that I live more authentically and relationally?
“But for us as Christians,” Br. James Koester, SSJE said a few years ago, “prayer is not about the magic of saying certain words so that some desired outcome happens. Rather prayer is about mystery. It is about the mystery of love. We pray, not because we want something, but because we love someone.” (Praying Well, Loving Much)
We pray because we love someone. Still easier said than done, right? But give it time and it just might work. May you be joyful. May you be loved. May you be at peace.
“Kindness mantra: May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you have a peaceful heart.”
