Fr
Laurence Freeman tells how, when he was a speaker somewhere, someone in the
front row was wearing a T-shirt with the words, “Meditation is not what you
think”. Just about everything is right
with that statement. Christian
Meditation is not what most people assume “meditation” to be… neither is Christian
Meditation a process of thinking, anyway… the slight humour, moreover, or
gentle paradox, is often a good way of seeing something true… But what appeals to me is how contemplatives often
grasp something better by saying what it is not. Meditation is not what you think.
So
this session is a reminder. It’s too
easy to replace the work of silence and stillness with thoughts we are having about
meditation, what we last read, what someone said they do, what the speaker just
talked about… or worst of all, what we think we should be doing,
feeling, or what we should be like.[1] We sit there thinking about ourselves
meditating, comparing with our last performance – all of which is simply the
ego, predictably, elbowing back into the front seat. We are not trying to be good meditators – we
are simply being present, at this time and place, fully present and still, warts
and all, for once. The mantra, whatever
mantra we use, exists as something to return to. It is a choice we make over and over again, to
turn away from the thoughts, the distractions, the various emotions, and return
to the simplicity – what some teachers call the poverty – of the mantra. I can’t really put it better than this
passage from Fr Laurence in his talk at a retreat:
If
meditation changes our life it is because it helps us to see the true value of
living faithfully. It shows what being
faithful in small things means, not just believing in big abstractions, or
holding tenaciously to the comfort zone of certain ideas because we have always
done so or because they shape an identity for us. Meditation develops the muscle of faith,
integrity begins to matter more, not as a prescribed moral code but as a sense
of what wholeness means… Being a
faithful human being, keeping our word, acting truly in all our relationships
intimate and professional, trying to tell the truth as it is, being just and
compassionate in small daily matters becomes increasingly linked to our sense
of meaning. Faithful to what, we might
ask? Just faithful, faithful in all we
do—faithful in the way we love, faithful in the way we work, but faithful also
in the way we walk and talk and walk the talk, faithful in the way we sit still
in meditation, faithful in the way we accept the gift of life by using our time
mindfully and treating our own body and others and our world with
respect.
So
Christian Meditation is a process of returning, turning away from self, but
always gently and without recrimination… and with respect for what we are
turning away from. “Returning” is such a
good biblical word. In returning and rest you will be saved, says the
Hebrew prophet, in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. The Prodigal Son, in Jesus’s parable, returns
home to his father’s house[2]. Returning is what the scriptures mean by
repentance[3]
– feeling sorry, however sorry we may be feeling, is not the issue… turning
around is very much the issue. In
returning and rest you will be saved, in quietness and in trust shall be
your strength.sz
[1] I
am on a personal crusade to expunge the modal verb should, and its
accompanying guilt, from life… but most certainly from spiritual practice.
[2] Isaiah
30:15; Luke 15:3-32
[3] The
Hebrew shuv , usually translated “repent”, basically means “return”. The Greek metanoia (μετάνοια),
“repent” means literally a change of mind.
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