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NOW YOU KNOW MEDIA S T U D Y G U I D E

Christian Meditation: Entering the Mind of Christ

Presented by Dr. James Finley, Ph.D.

CHRISTIAN MEDITATION: ENTERING THE MIND OF CHRIST STUDY GUIDE

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Dr. James Finley Ph.D., Fuller Theological Seminary

ames Finley, Ph.D., lived as a monk at the Trappist monastery of

the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton

was his spiritual director. He later earned degrees from the

University of Akron, Saint John’s College, and the Fuller Theological

Seminary.

James Finley leads retreats and workshops throughout the United States

and Canada, attracting men and women who seek to live a

contemplative way of life in the midst of today’s busy world. He is also

a clinical psychologist in private practice.

Dr. Finley is the author of Merton's Palace of Nowhere, The

Contemplative Heart, and Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God.

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Table of Contents

I. Course Information

Presenter Biography

Course Overview ......................................................................................................... 1

II. Course Materials

Session 1: Being Alone with God ................................................................................ 2

Session 2: How to Meditate ........................................................................................ 6

Session 3: The Fruits of the Monastic Life .................................................................. 9

Session 4: The Mind of Christ ................................................................................... 14

Session 5: The Meditative Journey ............................................................................ 18

Session 6: The Path of Meditation ............................................................................. 22

Session 7: Present, Open, and Awake ...................................................................... 26

Session 8: Sitting Still ............................................................................................... 30

Session 9: Slow, Deep, Natural Breathing ................................................................ 34

Session 10: Sitting Straight ........................................................................................ 37

Session 11: Eyes Closed or Lowered Slightly ........................................................... 40

Session 12: Compassion ............................................................................................ 44

III. Supplemental Materials

Suggested Readings ................................................................................................... 47


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Course Overview

You are invited to experience the heart of Christianity's distinctive meditation

tradition with this powerful retreat.

Since the time of the Desert Fathers in the third century, Christian mystics have

practiced meditation as a way of experiencing the direct presence of God in

daily life. Legendary seekers such as John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, and

Meister Eckhart explored how meditation can lead us beyond the closed horizon

of the ego to an ever-present holy refuge.

In Christian Meditation, renowned spiritual teacher Dr. James Finley offers an

introduction to this transformative way of life. As you experience Christian

meditation in these retreat sessions, you will arrive at the ever-deepening

realization of oneness with Christ.

After presenting an overview of the Christian contemplative tradition and its

historical roots, Dr. Finley guides you step-by-step on how to progress in your

own practice of meditation. In 12 sessions, you will walk along this path of

awakening, glimpsing the infinite union that holds the secret of who we really

are. This state of awakened consciousness, known as the “Cloud of

Unknowing,” is revered in great wisdom traditions of both East and West.

Meditation, as you will learn, has the power to reveal the surprising nearness of

God. As you expand your meditation practice, in concert with your faith, you

will find that these divine moments come more often, until you are finally

awakened to your own deepest self, one with Christ.

Enjoy this spiritually edifying practice today.



Session 1: Being Alone with God

Overview

elcome to these reflections on Christian meditation. The first four sessions will be devoted

to the foundations of Christian meditation, and the remaining eight will focus on the

practice of meditation itself. This program is intended to provide listeners with a gentle,

basic introduction to the fundamentals of Christian meditation and the way of life that it embodies.

Through the entire process, the commitment will be towards simplicity.

I. A Note About God as Masculine or Feminine

God is infinitely beyond the categories of masculine and feminine, and also the infinite source,

ground, and fulfillment of both.

Because the Judeo-Christian tradition is grounded in a patriarchal culture, we are most

accustomed to referring to God as “He.” In this program, God will be referred to in both the

masculine and feminine terms as a way of honoring this truth about God.

II. Mystical Traditions

Each world religion has its own mystical traditions:

1) Kabbalah in the Jewish tradition

2) Yoga in the Hindu tradition

3) The search for enlightenment in Buddhism

4) Sufism in the Muslim tradition

Toward the end of his life, Thomas Merton became committed to fostering a dialogue between

Christianity and Buddhism.

1) On his final trip to Asia, he wrote that everything he had been searching for could be found in

Christianity.

2) It is in this spirit that we will focus on how the Christian man or woman can find a path to self-

transformation within his or her own tradition.

III. Never Less Alone Than When Alone

Most likely, listeners are attempting to learn the practice of meditation in order to grow in their own

spiritual path and deepen their relationship with God.

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We will experience this spiritual growth together. We are alone together in the shared intention of

our hearts.

IV. Two Modes of Consciousness

Ego consciousness:

1) The consciousness of our

self-reflective bodily self in

time and space.

2) The consciousness that man-

ifests itself in saying “I

want,” “I need,” etc. It is the

consciousness that we live

with in our everyday life.

3) Our ego consciousness is

itself a gift from God, but it

is not enough in itself to

bring us to the fulfillment

that our heart desires.

4) Egocentric consciousness is

the attitude that we are

nothing but the ego.

We begin in ego consciousness,

but a shift in the quality of our consciousness will occur as we progress.

Contemplative consciousness:

1) This is the interior, mysterious depth of awareness beyond the realm of ego consciousness.

2) This will provide a context from which we can begin to understand meditation. Meditation

consists of all the ways in which we seek to invite this transformation of consciousness.

3) The contemplative awareness in which we find ourselves in this moment may be shallow, but we

are in it nonetheless. We must learn to appreciate the humble beginnings of this awakening.

V. My Journey

We come to be who we are through the work of grace in our hearts, brought unwittingly along a path

that we did not understand.

My siblings and I were taught to turn to God for strength in difficult times.

I found a refuge through prayer. In the midst of all that happened, there was a place within me that

the violence could not destroy.

The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Photo by Bryan Sherwood



1) The images and rituals of my faith concretized this refuge.

I began to read Thomas Merton and found that he also recognized this place.

I entered the Abbey of Gethsemani after high school and remained there for five years. The monastic

life had a profound and lasting effect on me.

I learned the history of monastic life and was exposed to the figures of Christianity’s contemplative

tradition: the Desert Fathers, Saint Benedict, Meister Eckhart, Saint Francis of Assisi, Julian of

Norwich.

1) I saw in these great figures the epitome of the Church’s mystical contemplative tradition.

After leaving the monastery, I felt myself called to remain faithful to the contemplative way of life:

1) How was I to be faithful to this inner path in such a hectic world?

2) If I could live in the present moment, in an awareness of oneness of God, I could continue in the

contemplative way of life.

3) The emergence into a contemplative consciousness was beyond my powers to produce by sheer

force of will, but I could practice meditation in order to invite this consciousness. I could open

myself to the awakening of the mind of Christ within me.



Reflection Questions

1. Over the course of this program, listeners will learn about the foundations and practice of

Christian meditation. What compelled you to pursue this path? What are you hoping to achieve

through listening to these sessions?

2. What are some differences between ego consciousness and contemplative consciousness? Can

you think of times when you passed from one to the other?

3. In this session I shared some of the experiences that drew me to the Christian meditative

tradition. In what ways has grace worked within your heart to bring you to this place?



Session 2:

How to Meditate

Overview

n the opening session, we began to explore the foundations of Christian meditation. In this second

session, we will open up the heart of this entire series and discover how these foundations are

experienced in the practice of meditation itself. I will first provide some basic guidelines for

practicing meditation. Most people find these teachings helpful as they begin to commit themselves to

this practice. Keep in mind that these are general guidelines that you will apply to your own unique

situation. We will then enter into a meditation together.

I. Guidelines

Suggestions for practicing meditation:

1) Try to meditate every day, or even twice a day if your schedule permits. Meditation is a habit

that takes time to acclimate to.

2) Meditate for twenty to thirty minutes. This is short enough to be practical with respect to our

busy schedules, but long enough to begin to settle into the meditative state.

(a) Use a timer so you won’t have to watch the clock.

3) Meditate in the same place each day. Of course, you can meditate anywhere, but many people

find it helpful to have a grounding place.

Find a place in your own home.

4) You may want to set up some kind of altar

with sacred images that help to ground you

in your practice. Create a quiet order to

your place of practice.

5) Preface or end your meditation with spir-

itual reading, journaling, or prayer.

6) Settle into the practice. Realize that you are

beginning a long journey of transformation

and allow yourself to be open to the

discoveries that lie along the way—pleasant

surprises and joyful moments, but also

hardships and difficulties.

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Photo by Jeremy Vandel



(a) Do not continue beyond any point where you do not feel safe. Work through these difficulties

so that you can come back and gently re-approach your practice.

You may find it helpful to use these sessions as a way of beginning your meditation practice. Ground

yourself and listen in an open, attentive way, and allow the session to lead you in to your daily

meditation.

The essence of these sessions is not to provide a lot of information to be memorized or mastered.

They are intended to open the meditative state. Taken as a whole, they can be used as a basis for a

private meditation retreat. Set aside a series of weekends or a whole week to listen to these sessions

and meditate as a way to ground yourself and commit yourself to the practice.

II. Guided Meditation

Enter into this practice when you are in a quiet place conducive to meditation.

1) Body: sit still and straight with your eyes closed or lowered. Breath slowly and naturally.

2) Mind: be present, open, and awake, neither clinging to nor rejecting anything.

3) Attitude: non-judgmental compassion toward ourselves.

4) Open yourself to the presence of God.

5) Allow yourself to be present, open, and awake.

6) Each time you find yourself drifting into thought, return to the awareness of your breathing as a

way of reinstating this meditative state.

(a) You might find it helpful to repeat a word or phrase to yourself in order to reinstate a

meditative stance. Try silently saying, “I love you” with each exhalation.

You might want to end this practice with a simple prayer. End it in a way that feels natural to you.



Reflection Question

1. Participate in the guided meditation. Reflect on your mental and spiritual state after you have

completed this meditation.



Session 3:

The Fruits of the Monastic Life

Overview

n his letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul writes that we are to have the mind of Christ within us. In

this session, we will explore the mind of Christ as the foundation of Christian meditation.

Meditation offers a way toward awakening this mind of Christ within us. As a way of gravitating

toward this seminal metaphor of Christian faith, we will look at the way that monastic life embodies

Christian faith as a path that finds fulfillment in contemplatively realized oneness with God. We will see

how this way of life evokes the meditative, contemplative experience of one’s daily life as the context in

which one comes upon the fullness of one’s faith.

I. Life in the Monastery

Imagine that you have the opportunity to spend some time in a monastery. From the inside of the

monastic life, try to get a sense of the way that this community is Christian.

1) In what way is this a Christian way of life?

Inhabitants of the monastery understand that Christ’s teachings are trustworthy and a source of

wisdom. But this does not on its own account for what the Christian way of life is.

1) Beyond believing Christ, there is believing in Christ. Men and women in this monastic

community have devoted their lives to being disciples of Christ.

2) The invitation from Christ to “come to me” is also an invitation to “follow me,” through

participation in the mystery of His death and resurrection.

One would find that this very way of following Christ is not simply a matter of belief or morality.

Rather, it entails perpetual conversion that amounts to perpetual metamorphosis of the

foundations of consciousness.

II. The Rule of Saint Benedict

It would be difficult to underestimate the significance of the role of the Rule of Saint Benedict in

the history of Christian spirituality.

In the following chapter, Saint Benedict provides guidelines for how to respond to those who seek

to be admitted into the monastic life:

“To him that newly cometh to change his life, let not an easy entrance be granted, but, as the

Apostle saith, ‘Try the spirits if they be of God.’ If, therefore, he that cometh persevere in

knocking, and after four or five days seem patiently to endure the wrongs done to him and the

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difficulty made about his coming in, and to

persist in his petition, let entrance be

granted him, and let him be in the guest-

house for a few days. Afterwards let him go

into the Novitiate, where he is to meditate

and study, to take his meals and to sleep.

Let a senior, one who is skilled in gaining

souls, be appointed over him to watch him

with the utmost care, and to see whether he

is truly seeking God, and is fervent in the

Work of God.”

—The Rule of Saint Benedict, chapter 58

1) The quality of presence that the person

brings in their request of admittance into

the monastery still needs to be discerned.

(a) The opening chapter of the Rule of

Saint Benedict suggests that the

question, “Why have you come here?”

is not answered but deepened at the

gate. Monastic life involves perpetually

living with this question.

(b) Saint Benedict begins his Rule, “Listen,

my son, to the precepts of the master,

and incline the ear of thine heart.”

(c) The ear of the heart is the inner ear of

deep, intense listening. In passing

through the gate, one enters into a way

of life of ever-deeper listening.

III. Deep Listening

In an effort to maintain a perceived sense of control, we feel the potential threat that a deeper

level of listening would evoke.

We must catch ourselves when we reach places of resistance to listening more deeply and ask for

the grace not to be afraid, to be more vulnerable, and to go deeper.

Philosopher Jacques Maritain made a distinction between an inquiry into a problem and opening

ourselves to a mystery.

1) When inquiring into a problem, the mind moves in a linear fashion to come to a conclusion.

Benedict Presents the Olivetan Monks with His Rule by Il

Sodoma, 1505–08



2) When opening to a mystery, the mind goes deeper and deeper, as if down a spiral staircase, into

one place.

IV. Into the Eyes of Christ

The genius of the Rule of Saint Benedict is that it has no content. Its purpose is to mark out the

boundaries of a kind of clearing.

1) This perspective can shift into a specific purpose: gazing into the eyes of Christ as He gazes into

ours. His gaze is eternally fixed upon us.

God eternally knows who we eternally are in Him and as Him even before we are born.

The moment of pausing to into the eyes of Christ is also a moment of pausing to gaze into our

eternal destiny and the abyss-like foundation of reality itself.

This gaze might be understood literally as sitting in silent prayer before an icon or image of Christ. It

might also be a more interior gaze brought upon by reading the gospels.

It is difficult to maintain a silent gaze between two people. Yet how true it is that lovers delight in

gazing into each other’s eyes. This is because, in gazing, the mutual awareness of being other than

each other yields to a mutual awareness of being one with each other.

1) We can understand this transition as a mutual meditation.

We must be willing to move beyond our customary defenses and be immediately and radically

vulnerable in the presence of God.

Knowledge by co-naturality: the knowledge that is attained by virtue of being what one knows. Such

is our faith in Christ. It passes beyond devotional love into a vulnerable and transforming

experience. We know Christ in oneness with Him.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he writes about awakening to the mind of Christ within us:

1) The mind of Christ is realizing a oneness of God. Jesus realized himself to be eternally one with

God.

2) The mind of Christ realizes non-dual consciousness with God. The realization of this union is

impossible for our egos to grasp conceptually.

V. Precious in Our Brokenness

As we sit in meditation, we become painfully aware of how limited we are. Yet we discover a

oneness with God in our brokenness. This is the essence of the Christian faith.

1) We see this in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

2) Nothing we do or say can make God love us more or less. Our actions are never the measure of

God’s love for us.



The Christian tradition speaks of the gift of tears. This stems from the joy of being loved without

foundation.

Jesus proclaims that there is no difference between all that He is and all that the broken and

suffering, in their essence, really are.

To have the mind of Christ is to be in love with the entire world.

From the Gospel of John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and

the Word was God. All things were made through Him and without Him has been made nothing

that has been made.”

1) God eternally beholds the eternal possibility of all things. God is manifested in and as the world

around us.

VI. The Cloud of Unknowing

“Why do you suppose that this little prayer of one syllable is powerful enough to pierce the

heavens? It is because it is the prayer of a man’s whole being. A man who prays like this prays

with all the height and depth and length and breadth of his spirit. His prayer is high, for he prays

in full power of his spirit; it is deep that he has gathered all his understanding into this one little

word; it is long for if this feeling could endure he would go on crying out forever as he does now;

it is wide because with this universal concern he desires for everyone what he desires for himself.

It is with this prayer that a person comes to understand with all the saints the length and breadth

and height and depth of the eternal, gracious and almighty God as Saint Paul says, not completely

of course, but partially and in that obscure manner characteristic of contemplative knowledge.

Length speaks of God’s eternity. Breadth of his love, height of his power, depth of his wisdom.

Little wonder then that when grace so transforms a person to this image and likeness of God, his

creator, his prayer is so quickly heard by God.”

– The Cloud of Unknowing (late 14th c.)




1. Why is the process of entering the monastery so difficult? In what ways might Saint Benedict’s

method mirror our own journey toward a contemplative life?

2. What did Paul mean when he discussed awakening the mind of Christ within us?

3. Revisit the parable of the Prodigal Son. How can we apply this parable to ourselves and our own

journeys?



Session 4:

The Mind of Christ

Overview

e are in the process of exploring the foundations of Christian meditation. So far, we have

explored how our faith in Christ is the foundation of meditation. It draws us into an ever-

deeper realization of our oneness with Christ. The awakening of the mind of Christ within

us refers to the awakening of this unity, when we begin to realize who Christ eternally realizes us to be.

We begin to look at others and the world through Christ’s eyes and begin to see the Godly nature of

ourselves and others.

I. That Which Transcends This

This process can also be explored in terms of experience itself, realizing that we are relying on

language in a situation where words are inadequate.

With awareness of this poverty of speech, we turn toward our own moments of meditative,

contemplative experience.

The awakening of meditative experience is the experience of a sudden expansion of awareness, an

awareness of that which transcends this.

1) This sudden emergence of contemplative awareness happens to us many times, but it is

extremely subtle and delicate. It is not until we stop and pause that we can begin to appreciate it.

2) The awareness of this expansion is most often recognized as a sense of awe or gratitude.

In reflecting on this experience, it is helpful to realize that we are already on the meditative path.

The experience is woven into the texture of our day-by-day consciousness. This awakening

happens to us in the midst of the fundamental arenas of life itself: in aesthetic experience, in

philosophical thought, in prayer, in suffering, in joy.

We often name this awakening based on the context in which we experience it.

1) Ultimately, language won’t be sufficient to express this moment.

The awakening to that which transcends this is also the realization of that which transcends this

manifesting itself in and as the concrete immediacy of this.

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II. The Horizon

Reflecting on the nature of a horizon,

philosopher Martin Heidegger notes that

a horizon can be thought of as the point

beyond which we cannot see.

1) It could also be understood as the point

at which the unseen is seen, the

unmanifested manifests itself.

Everything around us is this horizon point,

at which the unmanifested manifests itself

in and as the concreteness of the

manifested.

III. Generosity

Meister Eckhart has an understanding of God as generosity: for all eternity, God is infinitely giving

Herself away.

1) The infinity of God is infinitely giving away all that its infinity is. This infinite generosity of God

is part of the concrete immediacy of this life.

We are attempting to become aware of the extent to which we are already in the midst of the mystery

we seek.

1) This very experience is blessedness manifested, the generosity of God.

IV. The Meditative Experience

The nature of the meditative experience:

1) It is not an awareness that consists of thinking. It is a clarity beyond the horizon of thought.

(a) Meditation in the Christian tradition is sometimes referred to as “unknowing.” The

contemplative experience cuts through the complexity of thought.

2) This experience is also beyond the will.

3) We are instantaneously beyond the tyranny of memory. We are awakened to an eternal newness.

4) These moments are beyond sensory gratification.

5) These moments are completely uncontrived, free of pretense and posturing. They are the

experience of moments of homecoming.

6) They are revelatory: they reveal who we are and are called to be.

7) These moments pass. In their passing, we return to our customary way of experiencing.



(a) Sometimes the return to egocentric consciousness is so complete, it is almost as if these

moments of grace had never occurred.

(b) We bring with us a holy restlessness or discontent that moves us along our path.




1. Have you ever had a spontaneous contemplative experience? In what context? How would you

describe it? Do you feel that it can be expressed through language?

2. Why does Meister Eckhart understand God as generosity?

3. What are some characteristics of the meditative experience? What aspects of it can we take with

us even as we return to our everyday lives?



Session 5:

The Meditative Journey

Overview

t is in learning to live these foundations that we move toward meditation practice itself. This

session will be a transitional one. We will be moving from the foundations of meditation into how

these foundations are experienced in the practice of meditation itself. What are these foundations?

In this session we will revisit the foundations and essential guidelines of meditation and explore the

nature of the contemplative path.

I. Foundations of Meditation

These foundations have their hidden origins in God. Thus, the path is always mysterious to us.

1) Meditation is not a technique; it is an opening up of our hearts to the hidden origins of ourselves

in God as those origins are manifesting themselves in the present moment.

These foundations are always life itself: the path toward oneness with God is woven into the

texture of lived experience itself.

These foundations are revealed to us through our Christian faith. Our faith shows us that union

with God is the mystery of our journey.

These foundations lie within moments when meditative experience spontaneously graces our

hearts.

II. Realized Eschatology

Eschatology in the Christian tradition:

1) The study of the last things

2) The reflection on the mystery of death and ultimate fulfillment of all reality in God

Realized eschatology: this fulfillment is already here. Jesus taught that we would awaken to a

divine mystery that is already upon us. Our faith illumines us to the presence of this mystery.

1) Meditation awakens in us a deeper desire for an abiding awareness of this realization and to

become the contemplative man or woman we are called to be.

We move through life learning to be aware of the mystery of all that life is and learn to live in

greater fidelity to that mystery.

The life of Christ is the great focal point for learning to lead an awakened, contemplative life.

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III. The Contemplative Journey

Theophany: a manifestation of the divine realized in contemplative experience.

Solitude: this self-transformation is, in a profound sense, made in solitude.

1) You might say that we cannot even bring ourselves along.

Faith awareness: in learning to live with childlike sincerity, we begin to see signs of God’s presence

around us—we are not alone on this journey.

We get a sense of the imminence of the encounter.

We become aware that the God we are seeking is also seeking us.

1) God places the restless desire within us.

Set down your gun: We must renounce a reliance on our own resources and learn to depend

completely on grace and move into a state of defenselessness.

Set down your watch: We must set down our reference to ourselves in sequential time.

1) On a broader scale, this involves moving beyond all that we have become in time.

Christ Handing the Keys to St. Peter by Pietro Perugino, 1481–82



Set down your compass: we set down our means of returning home. At some point, we realize that

there is no turning back.

1) The mystery that we seek is our home.

We wait in a quiet expectancy. In this sincere openness, we enter the quietness of our mind in God’s

presence.

IV. Meditation Practice

We cannot, by the sheer effort of our will, produce the blessed event of our awakening, but we can

approximate the basic stance that our moments of awakening occurred.

Essential guidelines:

1) Practice daily.

2) Practice for 20–30 minutes per session.

3) Meditate in the same place each day.

4) Preface or follow meditation with prayer and reflection.

5) Ask God for the grace not to break the thread of contemplative awareness.




1. What is realized eschatology? How does this concept differ from other understandings of

Christianity?

2. What is meant when we say that meditation is not a technique?

3. Reflect on the steps of the contemplative journey. Does it mirror any of your own experiences?



Session 6:

The Path of Meditation

Overview

n this session, we will be focusing on discernment as another foundation of meditation. Many, if

not most, of the classical texts of the Christian mystical tradition are works of spiritual direction.

They are an attempt to help people understand what is happening to them and how they are to be

faithful to the transformative process in which they find themselves. This is how we began our sessions

together. We are together so that you might, through God’s grace, enter into the meditation experience

as a way of deepening your awareness of God’s presence in you life.

I. Reading, Discursive Meditation, and Prayer

The question of discernment is also the question of understanding ourselves with respect to a

humble acknowledgement of our propensity for self-deception.

This reflection on discernment will also provide an opportunity to clarify certain terms in the

Christian contemplative tradition.

Three foundations:

1) Our daily life

2) Our Christian faith

3) Our faith awareness

Lectio divina: The reading is a way of taking in spiritual nourishment; it is itself the prayer. Scripture

is read most often in the Christian tradition.

Discursive meditation: pausing after a verse to begin to reflect on how the truth of that verse is

uniquely active in our life today. Each verse presents a natural opportunity to reflect and internalize

that which is being read.

1) Discursive meditation also involves the imagination. We reflect upon the verses as we might

reflect upon a dream, working toward a greater integrative understanding of ourselves.

2) We are processing how the truths of our faith are integral to our daily experience.

Prayer: the sincere, heartfelt expression of our love and gratitude for God. It is an exchange born of

our reading and meditation.

This process can be engaged in alone or in a community. It is the norm of Christian prayer life.

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II. The Dawning of Contemplation

From these activities come the beginnings

of contemplation or Christian meditation.

Saint Teresa of Ávila refers to the em-

ergence of this contemplative dimension as

“the prayer of quiet.” You are interiorly

inclined not to read the next verse, not to

think of anything, not to pray. You are

inclined to rest wordlessly in the presence

of God beyond all thoughts and images.

Contemplation has a passive or mystical

aspect and an active aspect.

1) It is passive insofar as it happens to us.

The awareness is granted to us unexpect-

edly.

2) It is active insofar as there are ways that

we can invite and respond to such an

experience. This brings us back to the

meditative practice we have been dis-

cussing.

III. Discernment

The desire to enter into meditative practice calls for us to be aware and authentic.

What is the process by which we can discern what is happening to us? How can we best respond?

1) There is a critical juncture at which a person begins to experience an inner call towards

meditation.

2) Saint John of the Cross helps us understand this formative shift. He speaks of the call to

contemplative prayer as a realization that one can no longer be satisfied by discursive meditation.

One is no longer nourished in thinking about anything. We begin to experience an interior loving

awareness and are drawn to give ourselves over to this awareness.

From The Cloud of Unknowing:

1) “There are some presently engaged in the active life who are being prepared by grace to grasp

the message of this book. I am thinking of those who feel the mysterious action of the Spirit in

their inmost being stirring them to love. I do not say that they continually feel this stirring, as

experienced contemplatives do, but now and again they taste something of contemplative love in

the very core of their being.”

St. Teresa of Avila by Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1615



2) In the first chapter of The Cloud of Unknowing, the author attempts to help the readers

understand themselves within the context of Christian living.

(a) The common life: “You know yourself that at one time you were caught up in the Common

manner of the Christian life in a day-to-day mundane existence along with your friends. But I

think that the eternal love of God, which had once created you out of nothing and then

redeemed you from Adam's curse through the sacrifice of his blood, could not bear to let you

go on living so common a life far from him. And so, with exquisite kindness, he awakened

desire within you, and binding it fast with the leash of love's longing, drew you closer to

himself into what I have called the more Special manner of living. He called you to be his

friend and, in the company of his friends, you learned to live the interior life more perfectly

than was possible in the common way.”

(b) The singular: “Is there more? Yes, for from the beginning I think God's love for you was so

great that his heart could not rest satisfied with this. What did he do? Do you not see how

gently and how kindly he has drawn you on to the third way of life, the Singular? Yes, you

live now at the deep solitary core of your being, learning to direct your loving desire toward

the highest and final manner of living which I have called Perfect.”

(c) On self knowledge: “Take courage, now, and frail mortal though you are, try to understand

yourself… pursue your course relentlessly.”

(d) Turn to the place within yourself where this love stirs. The practice is not a method; it is

giving ourselves over in a sincere and childlike way to the love in us.




1. The practice of reading, discursive meditation, and prayer is integral to the Christian tradition.

How has this practice played a role in your spiritual life?

2. Have you ever reached the point of “the prayer of quiet”? Why do you think that Saint Teresa of

Ávila refers to it this way?

3. What is the process of discernment? Why is it important in the practice of meditation?



Session 7:

Present, Open, and Awake

Overview

e have been exploring the foundations of Christian meditation and have had an initial taste

of the experience. In this session and the sessions that follow, we will go more deeply into

meditation practice itself. The underlying conviction is that by entering into each aspect of

meditation practice, we discover each aspect of meditation practice to be a path of self-transformation.

Sitting still, sitting straight, and slow breathing are all pathways passing beyond egocentric

consciousness and opening out upon contemplative consciousness.

I. Mind

When we begin to practice meditation, we are most aware of our minds.

We sit in meditation at the cutting edge of the present moment. As we enter into our practice, we

rely on certain assumptions.

1) We bring the fullness of our faith. We practice in order to realize what our faith assures us to be

true.

2) We are assuming that we have discerned that this path rings true to us.

3) We are assuming that this practice has become a habit that we are committed to deepening.

We can begin these explorations of practice as a way of shedding light on what happens as we sit

in meditation.

In this openness, we are immediately aware of all that we are aware of. The underlying logic of

this stance is that it embodies obedience to the wisdom manifested in moments of spontaneous

contemplative experience. Our thoughts do not make up the essence of these moments.

1) We begin to move beyond our customary reliance on thought and on our feeling states.

2) This sitting practice opens out upon a horizonless awareness.

II. Experiencing Thought

We can experience our thoughts in two distinct ways:

1) Contextually: the awareness of the thought is experienced as being woven into all other aspects

of the moment.

2) As distractions.

W



Keep in mind that, when meditating, we are

not attempting to stop thinking. We are

learning to recognize the divinity of thought.

We begin to see the pattern of how thought

arises, endures, and passes away.

1) As we watch this flow, we begin to see that

the day we are meditating is also arising,

enduring, and passing away. So too are our

lives and the whole universe.

2) The eternal impermanence of thought is one

with the eternal impermanence of all reality.

Little by little, we come to realize that the

specificity of things is no intrusion upon the

global underlying unity of all things. Sitting

present, open, and awake, we can begin to

realize the vast interconnected nature of all

reality.

The meditative mind realizes itself to be a

manifestation of the divine mind.

III. Distractions

We must deal with thoughts experienced as carrying us away from our grounded awareness in the

present moment. They arise quickly in meditation.

1) A distracting thought is not experienced as contextual, woven into the moment, but pulls us away

from the moment.

2) These thoughts feed upon our reactivity to them. As soon as we become aware that we are

drifting off, we must reinstate our open awareness.

3) For a while, you will get lost in distractions without even noticing that you have drifted off.

Renew your interior stance of being present, open, and awake. As we mature in our capacity to

sustain awareness, we learn to accept ourselves as we are.

The stance of being present, open, and awake is to be maintained regardless of the nature of the

thought that carried us away. Without rejecting the thought or ourselves, return to the meditative

state.

Because we are letting our defenses down, sometimes disturbing thoughts will arise within us. We

should be aware of these thoughts without rejecting them; they are part of the fabric of the moment.

All of this pertains to thoughts about God as well. Do not reject or cling to such thoughts.

Christ Pantocrator, detail of the 12th c. Deesis

mosaic. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul



IV. The Quality of Our Awareness

As we deepen in our practice, we become aware of the quality of our awareness. We learn not to

become disheartened by the experience of our spiritual weaknesses and to settle into an all-

encompassing field of awareness.




1. In meditation, we are not attempting to cease thinking altogether. In what ways can experiencing

thought help us along the path to contemplative awareness?

2. Distractions are a common occurrence in meditative practice. How do you deal with distractions?

3. What does it mean to be “aware of our awareness”?



Session 8:

Sitting Still

Overview

n the previous session we explored the transforming power of being present, open, and awake.

Now we can turn to the transforming power of sitting still. In one sense, the stillness of our practice

can become a grounding place. Just as we can return to the awareness of our breathing, we can

return to the awareness of the stillness of the moment as a way of regrounding ourselves. Sitting still

can, in itself, become a way of being present, open, and awake.

I. Stillness

In the beginning, sitting still is practical. It helps to still the mind. By being mindful of the

stillness of our sitting, we can reground ourselves.

By learning to sit still, we learn to be still.

As attentiveness to the present moment deepens, our sitting still becomes an act of incarnate faith,

giving witness that there is nowhere to go.

II. The Difficulty in Being Here

We tend to blur the relative order of things in time and space with the ultimate order of the divine

depths in which we sit. Subject to this confusion, we say to ourselves, “I wonder if I’ll ever get

there,” or assume that our difficulties are due to our disturbingly slow progress. As time goes by,

this disturbingly slow progress can become upsetting. We wonder if we will ever reach our goal.

1) Little by little, we can begin to recognize and understand the nature of this confusion. The

difficulty lies in how hard it is to be present, open, and awake.

2) We also begin to understand why it is so difficult to be here: precisely because we are trying to

get there.

3) We begin to realize why we are so deeply invested in attaining some spiritual goal.

Our setbacks and losses are often sources of our transformation.

The stillness of our practice begins to take on a quality of trusting acceptance of life as it is. This

stillness is the deep realization of the ultimate equality of the flux and flow of things.

I



III. Stillness and the Body

We begin to recognize and appreciate that in the stillness of our

practice we are learning from our body how to be. Unlike our

minds, our body is always in the immediacy of the present

moment.

It is relative to the tendency of our mind to be somewhere else

that we can begin to appreciate the suggested guideline of

sitting still for twenty to thirty minutes. When we first sit, we

are caught up in the agitation of the mind. As we sit quietly and

patiently, the unrest begins to yield to a deep calm open field of

body-grounded wakefulness to the present moment.

Little by little, we begin to realize the wondrous nature of our

bodily presence in the present moment. We are no longer

maintaining our ego consciousness in the present moment.

Our moments of spontaneous contemplative experience

manifest this stillness to us. Saint John of the Cross said that for

quite sometime, the stillness may have been present in our life,

but we were not aware of it. As we give ourselves over to this

practice, we become more and more aware of the incom-

prehensible stature of seemingly insignificant events.

With all of this, we begin to appreciate the primordial wisdom of our bodies.

IV. Movement as Stillness

Our fidelity to the stillness of our practice has an intentional element. As we sit, we become aware

that we are fidgeting and have to reinstate the stillness of our practice.

We cannot turn the stillness into one more there. True stillness is body-grounded oneness in the

moment. A movement arising out of this awareness does not break the stillness; it manifests it as

stillness in motion.

We rise from the stillness of practice not to break it, but so that every act is manifesting this

stillness in the world.

V. The Great Itch

What should we do if we feel an itch or pain that begins to overcome our awareness?

1) Scratch your nose if it itches; move your foot if it hurts. It is best to do what is natural.

2) Each of us has the ability to choose to remove ourselves or others from difficulty. But if we

always immediately scratch what itches, our practice in bodily stillness never ripens.

Saint John of the Cross attributed to

Cesare Gennari, 17th c.



3) The stillness of our practice begins to ripen as we enter the mysterious domain of the mystery of

choice.

Stillness comes to embody the mystery of powerlessness as it is manifested in each and every

situation.

We need to learn how to move past the pain of a distressful situation. Sometimes we cannot

deliver ourselves or others from disturbing situations. As disturbing as such moments are, they

can become moments of profound transformation in which we come to accept our powerlessness.

1) In the stillness of our practice, we come to the critical juncture at which we despair or go deeper.

There is a freedom in our communal powerlessness.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

1) The stillness is a way to divine knowledge. It brings us to the paradoxical place where a word

stills our heart with the realization that there is nowhere to go.

2) The stillness of our practice is the stillness of death itself.




1. Have you experienced any setbacks or losses that ultimately proved to be a source of

transformation?

2. What lessons do we learn from the stillness of our practice?

3. What is the difference between movement and “stillness in motion”?

4. How does our practice of stillness relate to the mystery of choice?



Session 9:

Slow, Deep, Natural Breathing

Overview

hope that by now you are able to appreciate the ways in which our faith leads us to this practice. It

assures us that God assures us that God is infinite presence. As our faith deepens in meditation, we

pass into a realization of the presence of God giving itself to us in and as the sheer immediacy of

our presence. This transforming process is expressed in Christian terms as the awakening of the mind of

Christ within us, the mind that is at once all that God is and all that we are. The deepening of this

experience is ineffable. We do not know what to make of this oneness. This ineffable experience is at

once the path and the fruition of meditation practice. We will now turn to reflect on slow, deep, natural

breathing as an aspect of meditation practice.

I. Awareness of the Breath

Slow, deep, natural breathing is practical in that it has inherent calming qualities that help to quiet

us.

Slow, deep, natural breathing helps to ground us in the moment.

As present moment attentiveness deepens, breathing becomes an act of incarnate faith. The very

texture of our consciousness begins to merge with the primitive rhythms of our breathing.

We can observe the evolution of breath awareness as a venue of self-transformation.

1) In the beginning, we are likely to have a surface-awareness of our breathing, viewing it as a

means to an end. We use it as a way to anchor ourselves in the present moment.

2) We begin to deepen the ways in which our breathing can deepen our consciousness of the present

moment.

3) At some point, we will sit in meditation with our awareness so merged with the miracle of each

breath.

4) As our practice deepens, we come to discover that the breath itself is the immediacy of God,

granting us the miracle of our aliveness.

II. Lessons from Breathing

Learning to enter into the flow of the unity of all within:

I



1) By breath awareness, the ligature

about our middle dissolves and gives

way to awareness of our totality.

One breath at a time, we grow into

an all-encompassing awareness of

the mystery of ourselves.

(a) Existential psychologist Rollo

May suggested that the neurosis

of our age is the fear of being all

that we are. In this fear, we

pretend that we are less than we

are.

2) Breath awareness helps us to realize our oneness with everything around us. Grounded in this

awareness, we come to realize what we have always known in a factual way: that we do not and

cannot exist without the universe.

(a) The wall of ego consciousness begins to dissolve. The distinction between outside and inside

no longer applies.

(b) As we yield to our breathing, our consciousness opens out upon a unitive awareness that

recognizes all distinctions but no longer identifies with them. God is giving Herself in and as

all that we are and all that the world is.

3) We also learn the lesson of the neglected essential. Breathing is always necessary, but we are

rarely of aware of it.

4) This transforming practice delivers us from the fear of loss. We come upon the startling

discovery that “having” itself is an illusion. Breathing in the sovereignty of our fragility, we see

the radical giftedness of life.

5) Finally, we learn the equality of receiving and letting go. Each inhalation is an act of receiving

the simply given nature of life itself. Meditation awakens the equality in love. Each exhalation is

an act of letting go of all that hinders our self-transformation into God. Ultimately, all of

meditation is about the process of letting go. This calls for great courage. We yield to each

exhalation, allowing us to be as open and free as we really are. In this light, we see the equality

of all gain and loss. The breathing embodies both birth and death.

(a) We come to a paradoxical confidence in the face of loss. We are infinitely trustworthy of

God giving Herself to us in the cycle of life itself. We see the eternal, deathless nature of

impermanence.




1. Do you agree with Rollo May that the fear of being all we are is the neurosis of our age? Can

you think of any examples of this in your personal life or in society?

2. As you progress on the path to contemplative awareness, have you felt an increasing realization

of your oneness with the environment?

3. What can breathing teach us about gain and loss?



Session 10:

Sitting Straight

Overview

n this session, we will explore sitting straight as an aspect of meditation practice. Sitting straight is

practical in that it enhances attentiveness with respect to a sequence of events integral to entering a

meditative state. As we sit still, we tend to relax and become prone toward drifting off. To sit still

is to reinstate the wakefulness of our practice by reinstating the straightness of our posture as a way of

being deeply relaxed and deeply awake at the same time.

I. Relaxed and Awake

In ego consciousness, we tend to see these as two opposing states of being. We relax in order to

drift off to sleep.

In a meditative state, we move toward ever-deeper states of integration.

Each time we sense ourselves drifting off, we renew the straightness of our posture without

disturbing the deepening relaxation of our bodily stillness. You will notice that breathing becomes

more subtle, as if the body is sound asleep even as one remains awake.

This aspect of practice passes through four different phases or seasons, each with its own lessons

in self-transformation:

1) In one state, we are serenely grounded and quietly awake. We remain poised and grounded in

quiet wakefulness and can quickly correct the beginnings of drifting toward sleepiness.

(a) The lesson here is the art form of being faithful to little things. Correcting the straightness of

our posture is a small thing, but in doing so, we manifest a fidelity that nobody sees. Love

knows that there is no such thing as a little thing.

(b) The art form of meditative practice is the art form of the subtle awareness of the little thing

that is the big thing.

2) At other times, the body-grounded wakefulness of sitting straight embodies an arduous struggle

to stay awake. Sitting entails the willingness to sit in the presence of great sleepiness. At other

times, we may want to just go to sleep. One of the gifts of meditation practice is that it awakens

us to a more refined awareness of ourselves.

(a) We learn how to trust ourselves.

(b) We come to discover that the struggle to stay awake should not be an adversarial struggle.

We accept the dynamic energy between the desire to meditate and the strength of sleepiness,

and realize a deep respect for the struggle itself.

I



3) There is also the season of experiencing all states of emotional stirring. We cannot pass around

the pain and chaos within as we move into a state of contemplative awareness. Our descent into

the depths is impeded when we either reject or cling to these emotions.

(a) In our willingness to continue our descent, we come upon a paradoxical lesson about our

path. Insofar as we are subject to an egocentric understanding of what it means to be more

than just ego, we foolishly imagine that our meditation will empower us to be a holier ego.

As we descend through the layers of ourselves, the egocentric awareness begins to give way

to a more profound understanding of the fullness to which our meditation is taking us.

(b) Since the end is infinite, no finite means will be adequate to reaching our ends. It is only in

the process of dying to the egocentric foundation that we can reach fulfillment.

(c) God reveals to us the limitless nature of our limits and the boundless nature of our

boundaries.

(d) Sometimes anxiety can give way to full-blown panic in meditative practice. Thus, this

practice should be approached with caution and concern. Meditation can be profoundly

healing, but we should proceed carefully.

(i) Often, as we begin to feel disturbing emotions, it is enough to allow these feelings to

arise and move past them. Sometimes, we come to the realization that we need to make

some changes. It is good to know how to distance ourselves from our pain, but sometimes

we have learned to hide so well that no one can find us. We have to be willing to be real

with ourselves, just as we are.

4) There is a season in which we find ourselves in a stillness so profound that no effort is needed to

sustain it. Our self-transformation into God comes to pass. Paradoxically, this tranquility arises

in juxtaposition to and one with all

of the chaos and emotions that we

have dealt with in our practice.

(a) Imagine that you are lost at sea.

In order to float, you have to

relax. In choosing to relax and

let go, you find a life beyond

life and death. Even when we

return to our customary way of

experiencing, we are changed.

Our sitting still and straight in

meditation is our free choice to

leap into the sea.

Photo by Tiago Floreze



Review Questions

1. How does the practice of sitting straight teach us about the art form of paying attention to little

things?

2. What are the four seasons of the practice of sitting straight? Whch of these seasons have you

experienced? Did you come away with any new realizations?

3. Do you feel that being lost at se is an accurate metaphor for the practice of meditation in general?

Why or why not?



Session 11:

Eyes Closed or Lowered Slightly

Overview

n this session, we will be exploring the visual dimension of our meditation practice. Some people

find it most natural to close their eyes when they enter into meditation practice. Others find that

closing their eyes makes them more susceptible to sleepiness or distracting inner imagery, and

therefore find it more grounding to leave their eyes open, unfocused, and lowered toward the ground. As

you settle into your practice, you will discover which method is most effective for you and most natural

as a way of embodying the visual dimension of the journey toward awakening.

I. The Visual Dimension of Practice

We are learning to gaze deeply into the abyss-like nature of life’s concreteness. As present-

moment attentiveness deepens, closing

or lowering our eyes becomes an act

of incarnate faith.

At first, lowering our eyes is

experienced as the practical method of

facilitating contemplative experience.

As we settle in, we gaze into the

concrete immediacy of what is in front

of us.

As with each aspect of meditation

practice, we take our lead from our

moments of contemplative experience.

What do we find when we reflect

carefully on the visual dimension of

our contemplative experience?

1) These moments contain both focused and unfocused aspects that spontaneously arise and play

with one another as these moments unfold. We tend to come away from these moments with a

greater appreciation for all that is around us. The focused and unfocused aspects of

contemplative beholding come together to form the visual realization of the totality manifested in

each thing.

2) We gaze downward without any intentionality to our gazing. We allow our eyes to be our eyes

free of intrusion by the ego. Our eyes rest for a moment on a single aspect of the totality.

I

Photo by Jeffrey Bruno-Aleteia



(a) In fidelity to the practice, do not cling to focused awareness. Do not cling to the global

awareness. As we give ourselves over to this gazing, we come upon a direct realization of the

unitive nature of all reality.

II. The Details and the Totality

Meditation practice becomes generalized to the point of permeating our most fundamental

attitudes in our daily lives.

1) It is good to see the concrete details clearly.

2) To see the details without the totality is to miss the true interconnected nature of reality.

3) Likewise, to seek fulfillment is good, but to seek it as wholly other than and beyond the

immediacy of the present moment is to be blind.

Our contemplative gazing is the visual expression of a journey in which we are set free from the

twofold ignorance of tending to see things as opaque to God as we seek God as being dualistically

other than the concrete immediacy of things.

We are not excluded from the contemplatively realized unity of reality. Meditation is not a

spectator sport. We open ourselves to the transforming realization of our oneness with the unitive

mystery we seek. Our very subjectivity is realized as a manifestation of the mystery we seek.

Contemplative gazing is the visual expression of this unitive experience. The capacity to see the

divinity of reality is our God-given nature, yet, as Jesus says, although we have eyes to see, we do

not see. It is necessary to move beyond our customary ways of seeing.

Meister Eckhart said: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees

me.”

III. Ways of Seeing

We can reflect on the qualitative difference between gazing, gawking, and staring:

1) Staring has an inherently hostile character.

2) Gawking is looking at something in a startled manner. We might gawk at something that strikes

us by its oddness.

3) Gazing is the unintrusive beholding that attends to the innermost essence of that which is gazed

upon. We can sense the continuity of gazing with our internal destiny. It is the mode of seeing

that beholds the divinity.

The meditative practice of contemplative gazing actualizes our eternal destiny.



IV. Spiritual Blindness

Our metamorphosis continues in the form of the painful void, the passing moments of

spontaneously contemplative gazing. We are made painfully aware of how blind we are to the

divinity of the life we are living.

We can bemoan the fact of our spiritual blindness, but we can also choose to gaze deeply into our

inability to see. This decision to gaze deeply into this painful reality is itself a pathway of

contemplative awareness.

By gazing deeply into what we lost, we can discover the preciousness of that which can never be

lost. The visual dimension of our practice can never really ripen if we do not gaze into our

blindness. In seeing more and more how little we see, we begin to see more and more in a visual

manifestation of our humility. We learn to live with gratitude and develop clarity of vision and

discover the divinity of our blindness.

Saint John of the Cross talks about learning to live in a darkness with no light to guide you but the

one that burns in your heart. By learning to live in this night, we come to the place in which we

can in all truth say, “Oh night, lovelier than the dawn.”




1. Name some other ways of seeing. If you had to describe the way you see in everyday life, what

would you call it?

2. What lessons can we learn from the visual dimension of our practice?

3. What did Saint John of the Cross mean when he suggested that we can reach a point when

darkness is “lovelier” than light?



Session 12:

Compassion

Overview

n our final session together, we will be exploring compassion as a vital aspect of our meditation

practice. Compassion is that love that recognizes and goes forth to identify with the preciousness of

all that is lost and broken within others and ourselves. As we have seen, each aspect of meditation

practice—sitting still, sitting straight, slow and natural breathing, gazing with eyes closed or lowered

slightly, being present, open, and awake—provides plenty of opportunity to be compassionate.

Compassion pervades every aspect of practice, and each aspect of practice is an occasion for

compassion.

I. Compassion toward Ourselves

In our practice, we discover the lack of compassion for ourselves in our brokenness. We notice

our impatience and frustration with ourselves and perpetuate violence upon ourselves.

Our meditation practice lays bare the root source of all suffering, for all suffering arises in the

absence of love.

It may not be initially clear how central love is to our practice. When we fall short of compassion

toward ourselves we are invited by God’s grace to love ourselves.

In meditation, we get to a place where we cannot turn back, yet we cannot seem to move forward

and past our own ineptness. Meditation practice is a paradoxical challenge that embodies the

human situation. In the midst of this situation, we can begin to experience how sustained we are

by our precariousness.

1) The only way to have peace and assurance is to continue to extend compassion toward ourselves,

knowing that this is a manifestation of God’s compassion for us.

2) Our failures are themselves the embodiment of the union that we seek. The process of yielding to

compassionate love unfolds and deepens over our lifetime.

II. The Barrier of Ignorance

Ignorance consists of all that hinders our awareness of our oneness with the mystery we seek.

Meditation brings us into direct contact with this barrier.

The barrier consists of the imagined power of our limits and frailties. Meditation gives us the

opportunity to struggle with this obstacle. We discover that the infinite love we seek is welling up

in our very powerlessness.

I



The more meditation discloses to us that we are beyond

human help, the more we find that meditation discloses

our powerlessness.

Each aspect of practice sets up a goal that we are

incapable of achieving through our efforts:

1) We discover the bankruptcy of effort and learn to

surrender to grace.

2) The more solidly our practice is established in love, the

more we advance in our powerlessness. Our com-

passionate love for ourselves and others is the ful-

fillment of our faith.

3) Our egocentric self sets out with an egocentric

understanding of what it means to be free from

egocentricity. Our struggles with distractions and

indifference bring us to a point of near despair. Then,

just as we are near giving up, love arises, and we fall

headlong into God.

The obstacle lies in all of the ways we continue to resist

the inexhaustible compassion of God.

III. Our Weakness Is the Claim to Love

It is as if, as we surrender ourselves to our meditation practice, we find ourselves caught in the

updraft of grace and carried aloft. In one single moment of love, we find ourselves in the depths

of our brokenness. The greater the descent, the greater God’s love. This is the liberation from all

fear. We overcome the illusion that anything has power over the immense love that is God.

This does not mean that the ongoing struggle ends with this realization. Rather, we come to

realize that the present moment cutting-edge of the effort is the fullness of spiritual fulfillment

manifesting itself. It is not a matter of getting through, but a matter of realizing how the details

are themselves the manifestation of the love that sustains us. Our effort is instilled with gentleness

and inoculates us against discouragement.

Compassionate love translates into an action that embodies compassion in the world. This

compassion begins with our attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors toward ourselves. We begin to

catch ourselves perpetuating suffering in the world.

In compassion, meditation comes home and manifests itself in day-to-day experience. We realize

that the whole human family is interconnected by this compassion and we seek to embody it in

our interactions with others and with ourselves.

Christ with Thorns by Carl Heinrich Bloch,

19th c.




1. As you become more accustomed to meditation, do you find yourself becoming more

compassionate toward yourself?

2. What does it mean to have an egocentric understanding of what it means to be free from

egocentricity?

3. Why do you think that the ultimate outcome of meditation practice is compassion?



Suggested Readings

Finley, James. Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God. San Francisco:

HarperSanFrancisco, 2004.

–––––. Merton's Palace of Nowhere: A Search for God Through Awareness of the True Self.

Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1978.

Fry, Timothy. The Rule of St. Benedict in English. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

Merton, Thomas. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton. New York: New Directions Pub., 1975.

Walsh, James. The Cloud of Unknowing. New York: Paulist Press, 1981.

christian meditation: entering the mind of christ · in christian meditation, renowned spiritual...

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