School of Meditation Weekly Teachings

Weekly Teachings 08/05/2011

Introducing Meditation to a Mainly Christian Audience

The following are suggestions for talks for weekly groups. The following points will be food for a series of talks. Restrict your introduction to 15 minutes at the most at your weekly group meeting.

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Weekly Teachings 01/05/2011

The Labyrinth at Chartres

As you enter the great 13th century Cathedral of Chartres through the west door you find yourself walking onto and into the Pilgrim's Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is drawn in black stone on the floor of the nave of the Cathedral under the Rose Window, whose diameter it reflects exactly. During the Middle Ages poor pilgrims, who were unable to go to Jerusalem, would make a symbolic `pilgrimage' on their knees around all the twists and turns of the labyrinth in their own cathedral. 

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Weekly Teachings 24/04/2011

Guidelines for preparing a talk for a group meeting.

The shape of the Christian Meditation meeting follows the following format:

 - A short introductory tape of John Main or Laurence Freeman or a passage from their writings.
 - If this is difficult, as they are of course in English, a short talk needs to be prepared based on your own reading/listening to John Main and Laurence Freeman, lasting 5 to 15 minutes at the most
 - A period of 20 -30 minutes of meditation
 - An opportunity to ask questions or air problems with the practice

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Weekly Teachings 17/04/2011

The importance of the weekly meditation group

The foundations of the World Community for Christian Meditation are the thousands of small groups meeting in homes, parishes, schools, prisons, hospitals in at least 100 countries all round the world. Meeting in a group is an important part of the meditation journey. Firstly, the group is a place of teaching, where the essentials of Christian Meditation as passed on by John Main and Laurence Freeman are taught and its ancient authentic Christian nature is reinforced. 

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Weekly Teachings 10/04/2011

Christian meditation can be done anywhere by anyone

 The hallmark of Christian Meditation is its simplicity. The discipline is simple; there are no complicated techniques to learn; it does not require extensive background information or any expensive equipment or special outfits; it can be done anywhere by anyone.
Let me remind you of the discipline:

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Weekly Teachings 03/04/2011

The Way of the Mantra

It sounds quite incredible, almost unbelievable, to us when we first begin to learn to meditate that the discipline of saying this little word, our mantra, can be a profound spiritual path that gradually transforms our life in a profound way. But it does. Think of the mustard seed that Jesus refers to in the Gospel that grows into a huge tree and the birds of the air come to rest in its branches. The mantra is just the same. 

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Weekly Teachings 28/03/2011

Thoughts, thoughts and once more thoughts

What to do about all those thoughts crowding in when you are longing for interior silence? An image comes to mind: I remember hearing years ago about an advertisement for meditation. On a poster was a picture of an Indian Guru standing, in typical attire and appearance, on his surfboard, perfectly balanced, riding the waves. 

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Weekly Teachings 20/03/2011

Stilling the mind

When we begin to meditate, we soon become aware of the fact that the discipline is simple but not easy.

When we have countered our outer restlessness, it will now try to find a different outlet: if we can’t move physically, we let our thoughts do the walking. We wander about in daydreams, down memory lane, planning, hoping, worrying; internally we are still filled with perpetual noise and movement, the mad whirl of disconnected thoughts. 

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Weekly Teachings 13/03/2011

The Practice

We all know the practice by now:

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. Listen to it as you say it, gently but continuously. Do not think or imagine anything spiritual or otherwise. If thoughts and images come, these are distractions at the time of meditation, so keep returning to simply saying the word. Meditate twenty to thirty minutes each morning and evening.

‘Sit still and upright’ is not as easy as it sounds. 

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Weekly Teachings 06/03/2011

 

The universality of meditation

Meditation is a universal spiritual discipline central to most of the World Religions and Wisdom Traditions. There are many different forms of meditation in these various traditions, all equally valid in their own way. In all the emphasis is on practise and experience rather than theory and knowledge.

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