An excerpt from John Main OSB, “From Isolation to Love,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 44-46.
We meditate because we know with absolute certainty that we must pass through and beyond our own sterility. We must transcend the sterility of the closed system, of a purely introspective mind. We know, with an ever greater clarity, that we have to pass beyond isolation into love. It is curious that introspection, the mind turned in upon itself, should lead to such sterility. Why should a self-centered consciousness be so sterile? Suppose for example we try to analyze some experience of our own. The almost inevitable consequence is that we end up observing ourselves in the act of observation.
An excerpt from John Main, OSB, “Focus on the Real,” in THE HEART OF CREATION (Norwich: Canterbury, 2007), pp. 83-84.
One of the things that we must clearly understand is that meditation, this pursuit of wisdom and love, must take place in an entirely ordinary, natural way. Meditation must be built into the ordinary fabric of everyday life. We must learn to see the whole of life shot through with the divine, in harmony with the divine. We must understand that it is our destiny to enter this divine harmony, to be in harmony with God. It is not a question of trying to fit a bit of spirituality into our lives.
An excerpt from John Main OSB, “Space to Be,” MOMENT OF CHRIST (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 92-93.
To know ourselves, to understand ourselves and to . . .get ourselves and our problems in perspective, we simply must make contact with our spirit. All self-understanding arises from understanding ourselves as spiritual beings, and it is only contact with the universal Holy Spirit that can give us the depth and the breadth to understand. . .The way to this is not difficult. It is very simple. But it does require serious commitment. . . Read more »
An excerpt from Laurence Freeman OSB, “The Labyrinth,” JESUS THE TEACHER WITHIN(New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 230-31.
Are we prepared to practice detachment from what we instinctively know is our most precious possession: our separate identity? Relationship with [Jesus] the teacher at this point is of supreme importance. It allows us to risk our own death. By now the discipline of the mantra has led to the fortifying sense of discipleshipwhich empowers us to let ourselves go.
Laurence Freeman OSB, "Spirit," JESUS THE TEACHER WITHIN (New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 186 87.
The joy of realizing the truth is the bliss of the Spirit. It erases the shame of all previous failures. Aware that this Spirit of truth is with us as a friend, we are better able to tolerate in others and in ourselves what has not yet reached fullness of being. . .Truth is tolerant because the Spirit is forgiving love. It allows the untrue to survive for the time being as a loving parent allows a child to make mistakes. Truth embraces rather than excommunicates its enemies.
John Main, OSB, “God’s Two Silences,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 6-8.
We live in a very unsilent world. We live in a world that is so full of bombarding foreground and background noise that we hear everything at once and listen to nothing. And yet each one of us is called into the state of prayer, of pure attention, of expansion of spirit in the eternal silence of God. Read more »
“The Silence of the Soul,” by Laurence Freeman OSB in THE TABLET 10 May 1997.
[One] reason why silence is so disturbing to us [is this]: As soon as we begin to become silent, we experience the relativity of our ordinary everyday mind. With this mind we measure our space and time coordinates, we calculate probabilities and count up our mistakes and successes. It is a very important and useful level of consciousness. It is so useful and familiar a state of mind that we easily think it is all there is to us: our whole mind, our real selves, our full meaning.
Life, love, and death frequently teach us otherwise. We bump into silence at many unexpected turnings on the road of life, in unpredictable ways, in unlikely people. Its greeting has an effect which is both thrilling, full of wonder and yet often terrifying.
Our thoughts, fears, fantasies, hopes, angers and attractions are all rising and falling moment by moment. We automatically identify ourselves with these fleeting or compulsively recurring states without thinking what we are thinking. When silence teaches us how unreliably transient these states really are, we confront the terrible questions of who we are. In silence we must wrestle with the terrible possibility of our own non-reality.
Buddhist thought makes this experience—what it calls anatman or “no self”---one of the central wisdom-pillars of its path of liberation from suffering and one of its essential means to enlightenment. The Buddhist practitioner is encouraged to seek out this sense of inner transience and rather than fleeing from it to dive headlong into it, as Meister Eckhart and the great Christian mystics did.
Understandably, anatman is the Buddhist idea that others generally have most trouble with. How absurd, how terrible, how sacrilegious to say that I don’t exist. In fact most Christian antagonism to anatman is unfounded or founded on misinterpretation. It does not mean that we do not exist but that we do not exist in autonomous independence, which is the kind of existence the ego likes to imagine it has; the kind of fantasy of being God with which the serpent tempted Eve. It is the hubris to which religious people often fall victim.
I do not exist by myself because God is the ground of my being. In the light of this insight we read the words of Jesus in the New Testament with deeper perception. “If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, he must leave self behind; day after day he must take up his cross and come with me; but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”
(Luke 9:23-24). If through silence we can embrace this truth of anatman, we make important discoveries about the nature of consciousness. We discover that consciousness, the soul, is more than the amazing computing and calculating and judging system of the brain. We are more than what we think. Meditation is not what we think.
Meditate for Thirty Minutes.... Remember: Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert. Silently, interiorly, begin to say a single word. We recommend the prayer-phrase "Maranatha." Recite it as four syllables of equal length. Listen to it as you say it, gently, but continuously. Do not think or imagine anything—spiritual or otherwise. Thoughts and images will likely come, but let them pass. Just keep returning your attention—with humility and simplicity—to saying your word in faith, from the beginning to the end of your meditation.
After Meditation, from THE DHAMMAPADA, “The Path,” verses 276-279, ed. by Anne Bancroft (Rockport, MA: Element, 1997), p. 81.
You must make the effort, the awakened only point the way. Those who have entered the path and who meditate, free themselves from the bonds of illusion.
Everything is changing. It arises and passes away. The one who realizes this is freed from sorrow. This is the shining path.
To exist is to know suffering. Realize this and be free from suffering. This is the radiant path.
There is no separate self to suffer. The one who understands this is free. This is the path of clarity.
Please note:
These readings are meant for your personal use. As you know, the work of our Community relies on the generosity of visitors like yourself. Please consider making a regular donation to the WCCM. (See the "Please Donate!" link at the right of this page.)
If you would like to have these "Weekly Readings" delivered to your email inbox each week, use the "Stay in Touch" box at the top of this page.
Laurence Freeman OSB, “Meditation,” JESUS THE TEACHER WITHIN(New York: Continuum, 2000), pp. 212-213.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus identified material concerns as our main source of anxiety. How can we make ourselves more comfortable and reduce personal suffering? This is the major preoccupation that obscures the present moment and disrupts true priorities.
Therefore I bid you put away anxious thought about food and drink to keep you alive, and clothes to cover your body. Surely life is more than food, the body more than clothes (Mt 6:25).
When he tells us not to worry Jesus is not denying the reality of daily problems. It is anxiety he is telling us to abandon, not reality. Learning not to worry is hard work. . . .[Yet] despite its “attention-deficiency disorder,” even the modern mind has its natural capacity to be still and to transcend its fixations. In depth it discovers its own clarity where it is at peace, free from anxiety. Most of us have half-a-dozen or so favorite anxieties, like bitter sweets we suck on endlessly. We would be frightened to be deprived of them. Jesus challenges us to go beyond the fear of letting go of anxiety, the fear we have of peace itself. The practice of meditation is a way of applying his teaching on prayer; it proves through experience that the human mind can indeed choose not to worry.
This is not to say we can easily blank the mind and dispel all thoughts at will. In meditation we remain distracted and yet are free from distraction. This is because---however minimally at first---we are free to choose where to place our attention. Gradually the discipline of daily practice strengthens this freedom. It would be childish to imagine that this is fully realized in a short time. We stay distracted for a long time. We soon get used to distractions as traveling companions on the path of meditation. But they do not have to dominate. Choosing to say the mantra faithfully and to keep returning to it whenever distractions intervene exercises the freedom we have to pay attention.
It is not a choice in the sense in which we choose a particular brand off the supermarket shelf. It is the choice to commit. The way of the mantra is an act of faith, not a movement of the ego’s power. Within every act of faith there is a declaration of love. Faith prepares the ground for the seed of the mantra to germinate in love. We do not create the miracle of life and growth by ourselves, but we are responsible for its unfolding. Coming to peace of mind and heart—to silence, stillness, and simplicity---requires not the will of a type-A high-achiever, but the unconditional attention, the sustained fidelity of a disciple.
Meditate for Thirty Minutes.... Remember: Sit down. Sit still and upright. Close your eyes lightly. Sit relaxed but alert. Silently, interiorly, begin to say a single word. We recommend the prayer-phrase "Maranatha." Recite it as four syllables of equal length. Listen to it as you say it, gently, but continuously. Do not think or imagine anything—spiritual or otherwise. Thoughts and images will likely come, but let them pass. Just keep returning your attention—with humility and simplicity—to saying your word in faith, from the beginning to the end of your meditation.
After Meditation, from Simone Weil, “Forms of the Implicit Love of God,” WAITING ON GOD (London: Fount/HarperCollins, 1972), pp. 91-92.
There is only one way of never receiving anything but good. It is to know, with our whole soul and not just abstractly, that people who are not animated by pure charity are merely wheels in the mechanism of the order of the world, like inert matter. After that we see that everything comes directly from God. . .All that increases the vital energy in us is like the bread for which Christ thanks the just. All the blows, the wounds and the mutilations are like a stone thrown at us by the hand of Christ. Bread and stone both come from Christ and, penetrating to our inward being, bring Christ into us. Bread and stone are love. We must eat the bread and lay ourselves open to the stone, so that it may sink as deeply as possible into our flesh. If we have any armour that is able to protect our soul from the stones thrown by Christ, we should take it off and cast it away.
Please note:
These readings are meant for your personal use. As you know, the work of our Community relies on the generosity of visitors like yourself. Please consider making a regular donation to the WCCM. (See the "Please Donate!" link at the right of this page.)
If you would like to have these "Weekly Readings" delivered to your email inbox each week, use the "Stay in Touch" box at the top of this page.
This is a comprehensive course intended to help you introduce meditation to beginners. All you need for this is available online here: including the updated edition of 'A Pearl of Great Price' by Laurence Freeman OSB and some audio files. This will make it easier for you to present this course with confidence. You will find additional materials to support this under 'Resources' - 'Materials' on the School of Meditation webpage.
An excerpt from John Main OSB, “From Isolation to Love,” THE WAY OF UNKNOWING (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 44-46.
An excerpt from John Main OSB, “Space to Be,” MOMENT OF CHRIST (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 92-93.
John Main OSB, “Death and Resurrection,” MOMENT OF CHRIST (New York: Continuum, 1998), pp. 68-70. 
