My Mantra

My Mantra

This poem I actually wrote a couple of years ago, 2014 or 2015? I was listening to a series of lectures on Buddhism while commuting. The lecturer commented on how emptiness was a difficult concept for most Westerners to understand in a positive way. After he had repeated this idea several times I replied that it depended on what you were empty of. I then recited the first stanza of this poem. It was, if I may be permitted to borrow from the bard, extempore from my mother wit. The second stanza came while I was driving home after work.

It has been rewritten and added to several times, being six stanzas at its longest. However, I keep coming back to these two stanzas. The first unchanging and the second changing only in the final line.

One of the reasons I've cut it down to these two verses is because I use these two as a kind of mantra. When I am agitated, stressed, or angered by something I will repeat this over and over until I start to feel more myself.