[Watch] Japa: A Meditative Practice of Mantra and Social Justice
This film was created as a meditative reflection for my Loyola Marymount University Yoga Studies MA graduate course on Buddhism and Yoga. We were assigned to incorporate a new or different style of meditation into our lives. In the middle of a global pandemic and social unrest, with protests happening almost everyday here in LA County, I chose to come back to an old friend, Japa meditation—which often includes the repetition of a mantra. It is no coincidence that my daily Japa mantra practice and the chants of protest were in parallel—both are striving for change, transformation, peace and the ultimate end of suffering in this manifest world that we all share.
A communal vocalization, a mantra, is evoking revolution through the embodiment of global protest calling for an end to systemic racism, oppression, discrimination and unjust killings of Black people, Brown people, Indigenous people and LGBTQ+ people.
Whether repeated in the mind, whispered upon the breath or chanted as a collective, mantra is one of the most powerful tools we have to truly embody the energetics of change. Through this meditative practice, thoughts, speech, actions and life trajectories have been transformed, and before our eyes we are witnessing institutions be called-in to do the same. Let us not stop this mantra practice of repeating their names, their words and their worth. Together our voices are a meditative social justice movement on speaking truth to power.
Words:
I’ve practiced some form of meditation for the past decade or more.
At different points in my life, I apply the seemingly necessary tool to find moments of mental ease, quiet and peace. Some days I am guided by one of the greats, others I sit silent with eyes closed, others I chant out loud, singing devotion to Creator, Spirit, the Universe, the Divine. Many times I find respite in moving meditation: a mindful asana practice, a walk in nature, sitting in the passenger seat of a car watching the world pass bye.
In the very beginning of my meditation journey, I practiced Japa meditation with male beads. 108 stones to ground my thoughts, cultivate focus, and one Mountain bead to signify a new beginning. Though, lately my mala has sat dormant upon my alter. Something kept me away, like I couldn’t find the right words that I wanted to repeat and hold dear.
But recently, with the entire world sequestered and sick, with the most marginalized mourning their fallen siblings, loved ones and friends, with Black and Indigenous and people of color raising their voices to combat hundreds of years of injustice and murder and genocide and colonization, oppressive laws and systems and institutions and internalized racism, colorism, bigotry and sexism and unwarranted discrimination, the words of my community grew louder and louder within me, so much so, that there was nothing that I could do but say their names:
George Floyd
Ahmaud Arbery
Tony McDade
Breonna Taylor
Laquan Mcdonald
Trayvon Martin
Freddie Gray
Eric Garner
Aiyana Stanley-jones
Botham Jean
Michael Brown
Sandra Bland
Yvette Smith
Alton Sterling
David McAtee
Walter Scott
Tamir Rice
Philando Castile
Stephon Clark
The voices of the protestors were like a collective mantra recognizing the appalling number of Black and Brown people killed at the hands of police and a system never meant for their success or even their survival.
But beyond the tears and the grieving, the voices also sang hope, resilience and change. Where my re-discovered japan practice started with reputations of names, chants of “Black Lives Matter,” they also included a focus on how to evolve through the suffering:
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, Pada II, verse 16:
heyaṃ duḥkham anāgataṃ | The suffering yet to come is to be avoided.
heyaṃ duḥkham anāgataṃ | The suffering yet to come is to be avoided.
heyaṃ duḥkham anāgataṃ | The suffering yet to come is to be avoided.
108 times, sometimes 216, sometimes, 324 or until I lost track of the rounds.
Meditation is not “to forget” or “Let go”, meditation is an opportunity to work through. Especially with Japa and mantra, you are providing your mind with a focus, like an arrow that can soar through any medium to exact its target on the other side. Yes, your mind may clear, yes your central nervous system gains stasis, yes its just feels good.
But it also builds conviction, resolve, perseverance. Saying their names, chanting their names over and over again, saying Black Lives Matter on repeat on the streets, behind masks even, No Justice, No Peace, Si Se Puede is to embody the mantra, to make real once again in every moment how precious life can be. And though we are all tired and hurt and struggling to breathe, we are moving as a collective to impart change, to make an impact and ensure that the suffering yet to come will be avoided.