# Do you have a mantra?



## wee_blondie (Nov 12, 2006)

Hello folks, just wondering if any of you have a particular favourite saying or motivational phrase that keeps you going?  Something that you might say to yourself when you are nervous or scared or maybe to psyche yourself up before taking on a new challange/exam/opponant?

I liked the one we had at a former gym, "Fearless, Focused & Full of Pride"  although lately i've been favouring "Soft as silk, hard as a diamond"

Happy posting!


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## Jade Tigress (Nov 12, 2006)

Hmm. No, I don't.  I think I need to get one.


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## Drac (Nov 12, 2006)

Jade Tigress said:


> Hmm. No, I don't


 
Same here Jade..However a mantra  was given to me the day I was sworn in..To Protect and Serve..I think that will suffice...


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## FearlessFreep (Nov 12, 2006)

"Not the face!!"


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## OUMoose (Nov 12, 2006)

I don't know about a formal mantra per se, but one phrase that does come out of my mouth quite a bit recently is "oh god, why me?".


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## dubljay (Nov 12, 2006)

The only mantra I have happens to be a string of explistives that I frequently use.


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## Drac (Nov 12, 2006)

OUMoose said:


> one phrase that does come out of my mouth quite a bit recently is "oh god, why me?".


 
My brother use to say that until the day a loud, deep and booming voice that was preceeded by a crack of thunder answered him by saying "Do you want a list??"


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## lulflo (Nov 12, 2006)

Often I am asked "where are you?" because of the vacant expression I am giving due to being stuck in my head.  Or when I am concerned with something that has yet to happen - I am asked "what time is it?"

So I came up with my own Mantra - "I am Here, Now!"

Farang - Larry


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## exile (Nov 12, 2006)

Drac said:


> My brother use to say that until the day a loud, deep and booming voice that was preceeded by a crack of thunder answered him by saying "Do you want a list??"



!!!

Good one, Drac!

My own personal mantra, which I repeat several times a day, is `Ogod, why am I such an _idiot_???! No answer forthcoming... maybe `do you want a list??' is the right answer here as well...


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 12, 2006)

Well it use to be &#8220;Oh no not again&#8221; 

But believe it or not I do have a mantra and it is &#8220;om vajrasattva hum&#8221; 

It is Buddhist (and yes I do know what it is for) and I am not Buddhist. It is used mainly to get me to focus in day-to-day life, not Qigong or Tai Chi or CMA training. However if my mind is wandering or if I find myself daydreaming prior to any training it stops it quick 

I think it is that the words are so different from anything else I say that they force me to stop and think about what I am saying and therefore focus


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## exile (Nov 12, 2006)

Xue Sheng said:


> I think it is that the words are so different from anything else I say that they force me to stop and think about what I am saying and therefore focus



Hey, XS, that's the main point, right---you do whatever you need to achieve it, eh? Focus... why is it so hard to _do???_

I feel like such a hypocrite lecturing my 9-year old about how important it is (he's a magnificent kid, but focus is definitely _not_ his strong point), gvien that it takes me an average of a quarter of an hour to find my keys on any given occasion where I desperately need them...


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## Xue Sheng (Nov 12, 2006)

exile said:


> Hey, XS, that's the main point, right---you do whatever you need to achieve it, eh? Focus... why is it so hard to _do???_
> 
> I feel like such a hypocrite lecturing my 9-year old about how important it is (he's a magnificent kid, but focus is definitely _not_ his strong point), gvien that it takes me an average of a quarter of an hour to find my keys on any given occasion where I desperately need them...


 

Most unfortunately it has never helped me find my keys, although I have tried...... many times


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## Rich Parsons (Nov 12, 2006)

Unfortunately this is one I have been using at work for the last 9 months or so, "If He swings, do NOT Kill him" or "Do not laugh".


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## bydand (Nov 13, 2006)

The one I use under my breath is too rude and totally non-PC to say on this forum.  But it does help me focus.


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## morph4me (Nov 13, 2006)

I use  "Breath, Relax"


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## JasonASmith (Nov 13, 2006)

Mine is:
HEY, where the white women at?
:lfao: :lfao: 
Actually, it's: Where's my coffee at?


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## Ceicei (Nov 13, 2006)

I have two that I use frequently:

"Persistence, dedication!"  

These were the ones I use when I feel like I don't want to go on, but needed to give myself some extra push to go further.

"Do it. Don't stop. Keep moving."  

The second mantra was a life-saver in a time when I froze on the side of the cliff while free climbing (off rope).  These were the words my instructor told me to snap me out of it and keep going up rather than falling.  The bottom of that cliff wouldn't be very pretty as others got injured there from previous times that required a SAR unit (Search And Rescue).


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## bydand (Nov 13, 2006)

Ceicei said:


> "Do it. Don't stop. Keep moving."
> 
> The second mantra was a life-saver in a time when I froze on the side of the cliff while free climbing (off rope).  These were the words my instructor told me to snap me out of it and keep going up rather than falling.  The bottom of that cliff wouldn't be very pretty as others got injured there from previous times that required a SAR unit (Search And Rescue).



Man I want your instructor!  Mine hollered up "Keep going! I am NOT going to drag your dead *** out of here if you fall!"  It was an inspiring moment, kind of brings a tear to my eye looking back upon it.  It does help that we were great friends, and I knew it was just to get be back on the rock mentally.


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## bydand (Nov 13, 2006)

Man that might be a good one for my MA training as well, just change the "fall" to "fail."


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Nov 13, 2006)

"I am created Shiva, The Destroyer. I am made Death, and the Shatterer of Worlds. Who is this dog meat that stands before me?"

Interesting to chant the first 3/4 until you feel it rouse inside you as a cold, steely, calculated rage, barely contained within your skin; great idea when some guy you threw out of a bar has come back with his buddies...bad idea to chant before moving the family crystal collection from one cabinet to another.

D.


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## Drac (Nov 13, 2006)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> "I am created Shiva, The Destroyer. I am made Death, and the Shatterer of Worlds. Who is this dog meat that stands before me?"


 
If the Master of Sinanju finds out you stole his worthless white student's mantra you're gonna be in *DEEP *doo-doo....


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## bshovan (Nov 13, 2006)

I offer one that is probably the most universal and vibratory mantra I know of- use it carefully and research/study/reflect upon it's use. The one is Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. Hope this helps

Bill Shovan


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## CoryKS (Nov 13, 2006)

One that I use on the road a lot is, "Thank you for helping me to become a more patient person."

Sometimes it works, sometimes... not so much.


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## crushing (Nov 13, 2006)

"All your base are belong to me."


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Nov 14, 2006)

Drac said:


> If the Master of Sinanju finds out you stole his worthless white student's mantra you're gonna be in *DEEP *doo-doo....


 
But can you name the book number and title? Or the injuries -- and how he got them -- that left Remo face down in the dirt in the village of Sinanju, rising for the first time as full Avatar to destroy Nuihc? Hated algebra in high school, so read a lot of Murphy & Sapir.

I've seen Mantra threads crop up before, and always find myself hoping the content will run deeper and explore more about the nature of mind, soul, and outcome.

Interestingly enough, this (the Destroyer) is from a Hindu scripture, made most famous in it's quotations (minus the dogmeat part) by one of the nuclear researchers (Opie) as they watched the first atom bomb test pop off. It's used as a mantram on a mala (108 meditation beads) by Crabby Bong (linguistic joke intentional) fighters to get into state; it's also used by sects of hindu mystics to dissolve the illusions that bind the mind to the untruths of the Matrix, so to speak ("worlds" equaling limited artificial universes of the mind, seperate from the true presence which infuses all things; the power of Mahaguru Shiva, focused as Destroyer, to disperse illusion and reveal truth to the opened mind). 

I talked to a well-known archetypal author over dinner, and we spoke about the function of mantra to reach into the depths of the other-than-conscious mind to find archetypal frequencies that match the energy expressed through the mantra. In other words, The Destroyer aspect of the divine is present within all of us; we just have to set up the phone connection to it for contextually appropriate use (done through the prayerful repetition of mantram). The Creator aspect of the divine is within all of us; healing mantras would pick up the phone, and dial the appropriate channels in the unconscious to bring this energy forward for the application of creating new health, and so on.

One of my driving favorites is the Ganesha mantra to the Ganapati; that aspect of the divine which is The Remover of Obstacles (versus the Destroyer of Worlds). Despite my best intentions to avoid superstition, traffic seems to clear right up. Of course, I could just be veering into trance, and not waking up until after traffics moving. Still exploring that possibility (I refuse to wear a watch, so it might just be that I'm so rapt chanting, that I don't pay as much attention to the traffic until it disperses...an initial null hypothesis).

When designing a personal mantra, think long and hard about the energy you wish to access, and the emotional charge that should be associated with the accessing. Personal combat, to me, is a resolution and a resolve. I am resolute in my determination to do what it takes to get out of here with most of my pieces intact; that includes using moves that may harm the bad guy(s), or myself (i.e., continuing to hit with a broken hand if it's the only hand you can hit with). I am resolved to the prospect of chance and chaos producing unforeseen elements that may prevent me from getting out alive (i.e., more guys around the corner; guns; knives), but I refuse to let that deter me from engaging in the events as they unfold (internally, it feels like a surrender to fate). Even if the unfolding shortens this trip a bit more than I had hoped. 

So, after assessing the situation and determining that involvement is the proper course of action, I say deep inside..."Let's do this thing." Come what may, to whatever end, is "this thing", and may consist of me losing parts, or taking parts. "Let's" is the dance of life all of us involved are about to join into together, from which some of us may not emerge; it also refers to all my own unconscious parts that may play a functional role in this activity ("Wake up in there guys! We got stuff to do!"). It's not a training or sparring mantra, but to me sparring and training are playtime, and don't require a mantra...just concentration, focus, and remembering that it's for fun. Resolution and resolve; the resolution to walk into a burning building, resolved to the possible fate that you might not walk back out...and doing it anyway. THAT takes dipping deep into the cookie jar of the mind.

Sorry for the verbal blather (another favorite word from Murphy and Sapir's writings); it's just a big topic for me. Have you ever had a sense or suspicion that you can't sum up, then someone else does it and you think, "Yes! That's exactly it!"? For me, Wayne Dyers simplistic axiom that we aren't humans having a spiritual experience, but rather spirits having a human experience was one of those "Dang...I wish I'd thought of that first" things for me, because I've felt that way since being a wee little dave. In keeping with that idea, mantram are not merely motivational sayings to me, but rather one of the few remaining tools we have left with which we can re-establish communication lines with the divine within, and without. I'm one of those darned hippie-warrior-poet-mystics who believes the presence of Divinity infuses all things...not just living, but inanimate as well. And as our minds wander fretfully in an attempt to avoid realizing and owning the truth of this and what it means for us as we live out our years in this classroom, mantras allow the willing to maintain a focal point from which to re-establish a brief connection with Source.

I'll spare you the rest; thanks for the time.

Pale piece of a pigs ear,

Dave.

PS -- The movie sucked; the books rocked. At least until the first author passed.


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## Drac (Nov 14, 2006)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> But can you name the book number and title? Or the injuries -- and how he got them -- that left Remo face down in the dirt in the village of Sinanju, rising for the first time as full Avatar to destroy Nuihc? Hated algebra in high school, so read a lot of Murphy & Sapir


 
It might have been "Assassins Play Off." I don't have the number..



			
				Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:
			
		

> PS -- The movie sucked; the books rocked. At least until the first author passed.


 
Sucked BIG TIME..Did you ever see the TV pilot???


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Nov 14, 2006)

Drac said:


> It might have been "Assassins Play Off." I don't have the number..
> 
> 
> 
> Sucked BIG TIME..Did you ever see the TV pilot???


 
I am absolutely amazed that I have found another Destroyer Dork who would know Assasins Play Off (number 20). Never did see the TV pilot.

Technology and budget would have had to play a big role; the gymnastics and wire-work in Matrix was the fist special effects I'd seen that I thought might approximate Sinanju cinematically, and wondered in the back of my mind if the script developers hadn't read some Destroyer series stuff in their past. Like listening to a band where you just know the writer liked the Beatles.

Built in sequels, too (i.e., the Dutchman).

D.


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## Drac (Nov 14, 2006)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> . Never did see the TV pilot


 
The actors playing Chiun and Remo were better..The opening was Chiun talking about his worthless white student.




			
				Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:
			
		

> Built in sequels, too (i.e., the Dutchman)


\
"Next of Kin"  which introduced the Dutchman was one my favorites so was "The Masters Challenge"..


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## Drac (Nov 14, 2006)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> Or the injuries -- and how he got them -- that left Remo face down in the dirt in the village of Sinanju, rising for the first time as full Avatar to destroy Nuihc?


 
Let's see how good my memory..It was both arms and one leg..Attacked by 2 men and a female trained my Nulic..All died because after delovering the crippling blows they were "wide" open for Remo's counter move..


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Nov 14, 2006)

Drac said:


> Let's see how good my memory..It was both arms and one leg..Attacked by 2 men and a female trained my Nulic..All died because after delovering the crippling blows they were "wide" open for Remo's counter move..


 
Good memory. Play Off & Masters Challenge were my favorites for years; tattered paged from multiple reads. So was Childs Play...the erie image of a bunch of kids running around with .22's & cultlike mindlessness for the act itself. That would still make a good script for a film, with or without Sinanju sentral to the plot.

I never did find out what ultimately happened to that Chinese Vampire, or why his strike and those of his students had such a strong Sinanju influence. Was there another Sunny Joe-type history piece behind the Vampires making and the history of the House?

D.

PS -- At one point, I had the whole collection, all the way up to whatever was available at the time (including multiple copies of some of the originals...some old from used bookstores, some new re-issues. One of the many things that got sold off or donated to goodwill in my absence...boy was I pissed).


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## Drac (Nov 14, 2006)

My brother had the whole collection too..i was recovering from an industrial accident and desperate for something NEW to read..he gave me "Summit Chase" and I was hooked..I read them all in under a week..


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Nov 14, 2006)

Drac said:


> My brother had the whole collection too..i was recovering from an industrial accident and desperate for something NEW to read..he gave me "Summit Chase" and I was hooked..I read them all in under a week..


 
Easy to get hooked on. The banter & satire, subtle cynicism, and mystery all combined under a banner of quirky humor...great way to kill a couple hours. And addictive.


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## exile (Nov 14, 2006)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> Interestingly enough, this (the Destroyer) is from a Hindu scripture, made most famous in it's quotations (minus the dogmeat part) by one of the nuclear researchers (Opie) as they watched the first atom bomb test pop off.



But what's interesting is that, as Oppenheimer described it, his first thought was from another passage from the same source: `If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like unto the splendor of the Mighty One', when he watched the fireball rising from the ground at the Jornada del Muerto. The thought about Shiva (`I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds) came into his mind as the fireball was obscured by the mushroom cloud that arose in its wake... It was a kind of sobering up after the initial rush.


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## Kembudo-Kai Kempoka (Nov 15, 2006)

exile said:


> But what's interesting is that, as Oppenheimer described it, his first thought was from another passage from the same source: `If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like unto the splendor of the Mighty One', when he watched the fireball rising from the ground at the Jornada del Muerto. The thought about Shiva (`I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds) came into his mind as the fireball was obscured by the mushroom cloud that arose in its wake... It was a kind of sobering up after the initial rush.


 
A side note...I saw a photographic essay of Einstein in the years before and after the Bomb. His face chnaged from always smiling, to looking depressed, as if with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Could have all been coincidence, for all we know...but iot sure LOOKED as of the weight of the technology wore heavy on his conscience.


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## exile (Nov 15, 2006)

Kembudo-Kai Kempoka said:


> A side note...I saw a photographic essay of Einstein in the years before and after the Bomb. His face chnaged from always smiling, to looking depressed, as if with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Could have all been coincidence, for all we know...but iot sure LOOKED as of the weight of the technology wore heavy on his conscience.



Apparently, Einstein said after the war, about Hiroshima, `Had I known that the bomb would be used this way, I would have become a shoemaker instead.' 

Oppenheimer was different... it's likely that his eventual opposition to the `Super' project, as the military H-bomb research carried out by Edward Teller and others was called, came from a gradual surfacing of qualms based on years of reflection---probably subconscious---about what the introduction of atomic weapons---weapons that he as Los Alamos director had a big part in creating---had led to in terms of the danger the world was now in.  But I don't know that I've  ever heard of any expression of regret for the effects of the bombing that he actually expressed. I think he was, to his dying day, mostly _proud_ of what he'd been able to accomplish in solving some of the toughest questions in applied physics that had ever arisen---he used to describe the solutions represpresented by the two different A-bomb designs, particularly the implosion-based plutonium version, as `technically sweet'...

What's really weird (bringing this all back to the thread topic :wink1 is that Oppenheimer had in his youth studied the _Bhagavad-gita_ in detail and adopted from it and the Vedas his own personal mantra, which was _Ahimsa_---`do no harm'....


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## chris_&#3617;&#3623;&#3618;&#3652;&#3607;&#3618; (Nov 17, 2006)

Xue Sheng said:


> Well it use to be Oh no not again
> 
> But believe it or not I do have a mantra and it is om vajrasattva hum
> 
> ...


 

mine is similar , "om mani padme hum" , refereing to the jewel in the lotus i think


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## Randy Strausbaugh (Nov 22, 2006)

Drac said:


> The actors playing Chiun and Remo were better..The opening was Chiun talking about his worthless white student.


Roddy McDowell played Chiun and Jeffrey Meek (the guy who starred in the short-lived ninja wannabe series "Raven") played Remo.
Good to see there are other Destroyer geeks on MT.
Are the new books any good? "Wolf's Bane" was so bad, I stopped reading them. 

Oops, off topic again!
My mantra: "Don't worry, be happy." Works well with Taijiquan.


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## Drac (Nov 22, 2006)

Randy Strausbaugh said:


> Roddy McDowell played Chiun and Jeffrey Meek (the guy who starred in the short-lived ninja wannabe series "Raven") played Remo.
> Good to see there are other Destroyer geeks on MT


 
Hello fellow Destroyer geek..


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