From The Tradition of Meditation, by Laurence Freeman, Meditatio Talks Series 2010 B
The work of meditation changes our life if we take it seriously. When Fr John was introduced to meditation by his teacher, the teacher just said to him, “Of course I can teach you to meditate, Christian or whatever you are. I can teach you to meditate provided you are serious.” And Fr John replied, “What do you mean by serious?” And he said, “Well, that you do it, that you meditate each morning and each evening, and you can come back here once a week and we can talk about it.” But if you don’t do it, you don’t have that fundamental and, as Fr John says, quite moderate seriousness of practice, then we are just spinning our wheels really. That’s the challenge that we find at the heart of this tradition. It’s a challenge actually to put it into practice, to walk the talk. It’s a discipline. And this relationship between the practice of meditation and the kind of life you are living becomes more and more obvious once you do practise it seriously.
Cassian says what you want to be like at the time of prayer, you should try to be like at other times as well. In other words there’s no point in watching six hours of chat shows and Jerry Springer and polluting your mind with gossip, idle talk and clowning around, and then say I ought to meditate now, turn off the television, and do nineteen minutes of meditation. Don’t be surprised if you don’t get enlightened in the first week.
So what you want to be like at the time of meditation, at the time of prayer you have to work at before and after. This is why Fr John says the times of meditation are a preparation for your life, the way you live. And the way you live is a preparation for your meditation. They are in a constant dialogue, a silent effective dialogue. And Cassian says this approach to your moral life, your ascesis, your style of life will lead us to heaven and, he adds, even what is beyond the heavens. What does he mean by that? This will get you to heaven and even to what is beyond the heavens. I think what he’s saying here is that meditation is not as it is taught in a secular context, just about a feel-good factor – lowering your blood pressure, lowering your stress levels, all of which are good and excellent – but it’s more than that.
And it’s even more about what the Buddhists would call the “calm abiding of the mind”, the peaceful, restful state of the mind where at times, the mind is clear, free from care and anxiety about fleshly things, able to be lucid and peaceful and calm and enjoyable, a good meditation we might say. But it’s more than that. That’s heaven, that’s nirvana, and if you approach meditation seriously, it will bring you to heaven. But if you persevere with it, it will take you beyond that, beyond just a changing state of mind, however desirable and enjoyable that state of mind, into something that is unchanging, into the very nature of mind or heart or spirit. So he says let us have a real care for our souls; let’s really love ourselves; let’s really look after ourselves in the deepest sense.
So one of the things we can say about continuous prayer is that it calls for detachment, both in life, emotions, at the material level, and interiorly in our thoughts. It’s a non-controlling, non-possessive relationship. In fact it’s the essence of all loving relationships. If you have problems in your relationships, there’s probably too much attachment there. To learn to love we have to learn to commit ourselves, to give ourselves, at the same time to be detached. We learn this in meditation hands on. Continuous prayer is the fruit of this process of faith.
Thoughts, Cassian says, are “transformed into spiritual and angelic likeness”. What does he mean by that? I think what he means is that you can still continue to live in the world, you can still go to work, raise your family, watch the news, or a little bit of junk TV, you can still hold your opinions and your beliefs. But these thoughts, and that word covers a multitude of things, these thoughts, or movements of the mind we might say, or contents of our mind, become a little more transparent. They are not prejudices any more, they are not obsessions, they are not compulsions, they are not addictions, they are not things we use to batter other people with, they are not occasions for argument and division. We hold them more lightly in their transparency.
It’s not that we’ve become thoughtless people. To be mindful doesn’t mean that you are thoughtless. It doesn’t mean that you’ve become self-centred, just concerned about your own mindfulness, your own enlightenment, your own state of mind. That kind of selfconsciously spiritual-minded person is a real bore. It doesn’t mean that you’ve become angry with the world for distracting you from this great spiritual project of enlightenment that you’ve set yourself. (Everybody’s getting in my way, why do you have to have to come and disturb my beautiful state of mind!) But it means that these things, thoughts, become lighter, more transparent. We can see them, we can spot them especially when they start to become negative, and we see through them.
From The Temple (1633), by George Herbert
Paradise.
I Bless thee, Lord, because I GROW
Among thy trees, which in a ROW
To thee both fruit and order OW.
What open force, or hidden CHARM
Can blast my fruit, or bring me HARM,
While the inclosure is thine ARM.
Inclose me still for fear I START.
Be to me rather sharp and TART,
Then let me want thy hand and ART.
When thou dost greater judgments SPARE,
And with thy knife but prune and PARE,
Ev’n fruitfull trees more fruitful ARE.
Such sharpnes shows the sweetest FREND:
Such cuttings rather heal then REND:
And such beginnings touch their END.
