Practicing Non-Interference

  This morning, I was using a mantra to calm my mind prior to going to work, and this mantra acted as a sort of prayer to me. There were moments when I did feel that the mantra had a hold on me and wouldn't let me go, and I felt the pleasure of that. But during my work hours, there was this feeling of my mind being pulled in different directions, and eventually, I did have to fully engage in those tensions. But the interesting thing is that there were moments when I could tell that these tense moments aren't really a part of me, and they are just moving through me. They may be painful, but I am not literally dividing myself because of them. This seems to have been an important insight for me, because had I just clung to the words of mantra, I would have experienced a greater tension around trying to suppress thoughts by way of the mantra itself.
   There are so many ways in which this practice can somehow backfire, including trying to create a dualistic 'mantra' and 'non-mantra'. But its important to enfold all experiences into prayer or mantra. It's easy to fall into the idea that prayers or mantras are referring to other-worldly experiences, and can thus be used to try to get rid of the tensions of living. Even easier still is the notion that there are sacred words which transcend the so-called 'profane' or non-sacred things of this world, which then creates a subtle rejection of anything that demands attention around me. But in thinking this way, one only creates more tensions, and dissociation as well. It might be apt to describe practice as entering into a place of non-interference, where the method just flows naturally into and around whatever is happening, like water rushing through rapids. Rather than contradicting or opposing the terrain, the mantra flows evenly across it, illuminating all the quiet corners of the terrain itself.