The Four Buddhist Mantras for Turning Fear into Love
“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer that person is your presence.”
“Fearlessness is what love seeks,” Hannah Arendt wrote in her magnificent early work on love and how to live with fear. “Such fearlessness exists only in the complete calm that can no longer be shaken by events expected of the future… Hence the only valid tense is the present, the Now.”
We don’t need to be afraid of any of them, because transformation is always possible. Such transformation is possible only through deliberate practice — none more challenging, or more rewarding, than the practice of transforming fear into love.
Mantra for Offering Your Presence
The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence. So the first mantra is very simple: “Dear one, I am here for you.” You’re not preoccupied with the past or the future; you are there for your beloved. You must say this with your body and with your mind at the same time, and then you will see the transformation.
Mantra for Recognizing Your Beloved
The second mantra is, “Darling, I know you are there, and I am so happy.”
To be there is the first step, and recognizing the presence of the other person is the second step. Because you are fully there, you recognize that the presence of your beloved is something very precious. You embrace your beloved with mindfulness, and he or she will bloom like a flower. To be loved means first of all to be recognized as existing.
Mantra for Relieving Suffering
Even before you do anything to help, your wholehearted presence already brings some relief, because when we suffer, we have great need for presence of the person we love. If we are suffering and the person we love ignores us, we suffer more. So what you can do — right away — is to manifest your true presence to your beloved and say the mantra with all your mindfulness: “Dear one, I know you are suffering. That is why I am here for you.” And already your loved one will feel better. Recognize the presence of those who live in the same place as you, and try to be there when one of them is suffering, because your presence is so precious for this person.
Mantra for Reaching Out to Ask for Help
If someone else had done the same wrong to you, you would have suffered less. But this is the person you love the most, so you suffer deeply, and the last thing you feel like doing is to ask that person for help… So now it is your pride that is the obstacle to reconciliation and healing. According to the teaching of the Buddha, in true love there is no place for pride. When you are suffering like this, you must go to the person you love and ask for his or her help. That is true love. Do not let pride keep you apart. You must overcome your pride. You must always go to him or her.