And John Main says, ‘It is now that we are able to be serious’. To be serious, for him, meant to be looking for and aware of the depth within ourselves, the clarity that we are capable of, and realising the joy and the peace, that are present to us in those depths. And then he says as this deepening of seriousness and joyfulness in our life happens, we will inevitably begin to change some of the things in our life that we recognise to be distracting. He said, it will be very difficult to meditate seriously, every day, if you are spending three or four hours a day watching stuff on TV. This was before the internet, so today he will probably have warned us against browsing mindlessly or constantly checking your phone or your laptop. John Main says if we want to change something in our life, it is not just a matter of the will, because our willpower is notoriously weak. So if we really want to change something, we have to allow this depth of consciousness to strengthen and arise in us and then we will see what we have to do or what we have to change.
( Attention and Love 1 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
