In repeating a phrase, whether it is the phrase this person was encouraged to use, or whether it is any phrase. You can become very peaceful, you can become very loving in your heart because the mind has very little thoughts.
Concentration practice by itself can be extremely calming, extremely peaceful. In that calming and peacefulness, we feel wonderful, we feel great, we feel that we can love the world, we feel we can forgive the world. For a lot of people this ability stays for a certain amount of time. But, then see what happens when somebody spits in their face. Can they still remain loving? Can they still remain calm? That's a challenge for people.
Now we deal with the intention of working with reality and understanding people's pain, understanding about the person. To understanding why they do certain things, in order to actually forgive them in a true way - a way that you can carry with you, every moment of every day.
In reference to concentration practice, mantras are a key way for concentrating and you could use "Coca Cola". You could actually sit there for a whole hour and say "Coca Cola" to yourself over and over and over. And if you do it well enough, you will feel very peaceful at the end of it. Any word can do, any phrase can do, when it is a concentration practice. It doesn't necessarily produce any wisdom at all, but it will get a person very calm and very peaceful.
This person practiced for three months. That's a lot of concentration work and I would be surprised if they were not fairly peaceful and calm at the end of it, if they did as told. How well it continued I don't know because the person didn't write that. But I just want to clarify this difference relating to concentration work, from what we are doing.
We are trying to understand the other person. Here it's said they were able to forgive their former marriage partner. We are not going to do it though generating concentration, feeling good and peaceful. We are going to do it through understanding anger, we are going to do it through understanding jealousy, we are going to do it through understanding fear. Then we are going to understand our partner as possibly someone who got caught up in the hindrances, and we are going to understand ourselves as someone else who probably got caught up in them to. It's important to remember, we have to forgive ourselves, too. If we had a rocky marriage, it's not going to be a 100% the other person's fault. So we made some mistakes, too. Through developing wisdom, we are going to be able to forgive, we are going to be able to have a true deeper love and compassion for everyone... hopefully.
Now the little bit at the end, the extra question here: talk about the difference between mercy and Compassion. There is a difference. Mercy, by large is what someone gives to you: Please have mercy on me. Or you may give to someone else: I will give you mercy. There is a separation going on. I have never heard mercy used in a way that did not imply an actual separation. Maybe there are some people who mean it as we use the word Compassion. That would be nice. But I have always heard it and read it as a separation.
When we are thinking about Compassion, having Compassion for others as I said before, with the selflessness, it's like we disappear. It's not just me having mercy for them. I'm having Compassion for them. I'm having compassion for all of the mass of people around the world and in that way I forgive them, because I understand they are just another human being who made a mistake. It isn't anything that I can give in that way, other than opening my heart for them. If the person is given this from me, it still doesn't solve the person's problem. Even if I had mercy on you, it doesn't stop your problem.
So we don't use the word mercy at all in any of our teachings as far as I know. I don't and I don't think Rosemary does either. We don't use this word because we feel it is very different to Compassion. It can be slightly similar in some ways, but it is very different from the way that we want to develop our wisdom practice.