Ruminatio

Today many people are incapable of living intensely in the present, of feeling what they experience. The old monks developed a method of living completely in the present...a method of meditation they called ruminatio...to chew over. So they took words from scripture into their mouth and kept chewing them over. They repeated them in their hearts, considered and reconsidered them, looked at the word from all sides. The word became flesh in them. It changed them. It gave them something to hold onto in their spiritual unrest and the noisy world. It enabled them to live completely for the moment.

May 2015 (Vol. XXVIII, No. 5)

Dear Friends, In the frenzy of life how do we learn to calm our minds and hearts long enough to embrace silence and open ourselves to encounters of the Spirit? We may think of meditation in relation to a particular religion or spiritual path. But it seems to me that we have much to learn when we embark on a practice of meditation regardless of the nature of our beliefs. We are all seekers of wisdom who long for the touch of the Sacred in our lives. Whether meditation is a gateway into centering prayer or a balm for healing or a threshold into Mystery, it is perhaps worth exploring as part of our unfolding spirituality.

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Sit in meditation, but do not think

Sit in meditation, but do not think. Look only at your mind. You will see thoughts coming into it. Before they can enter, throw these away from your mind until your mind is capable of entire silence.

~ Bhaskar Lele
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When practicing mindful meditation we aren't striving to do anything

Mindfulness is an ancient form of meditation in which one pays attention to the present moment and all that's unfolding in that moment, both within and around one. It's known also as conscious living because the person practicing it is forming an aware and intimate relationship with each moment.

When practicing mindful meditation we aren't striving to do anything, we aren't grasping, struggling, thinking, expecting, or wanting but simply letting whatever is there be there and paying attention to it in a non-judgmental way. We come to terms with reality as it is, bringing all our awareness to it, breathing with it, attending it.

~ from THE DANCE OF THE DISSIDENT DAUGHTER by Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd The Dance Of The Dissident Daughter meditation Buy on Amazon

Our nothingness and helplessness

Our meditation should begin with the realization of our NOTHINGNESS AND HELPLESSNESS in the presence of God... "Finding our heart" and recovering this awareness of our inmost identity implies the recognition that our external, everyday self is to a great extent a mask and a fabrication. It is not our true self. And, indeed, our true self is not easy to find. IT IS HIDDEN IN OBSCURITY AND "NOTHINGNESS" at the center where we are in direct dependence on God.

~ from CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER by Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton Contemplative Prayer meditation Buy on Amazon

Silence

in between
the woodpecker's tat tats...
silence

~ Tom Clausen
Tom Clausen meditation

If compassion never ceases to flow, then that is meditation

If compassion never ceases to flow, then that is meditation. Meditation is not just sitting in the lotus position with eyes closed. Real meditation exists in the midst of the dynamic activity of life.

~ Dae Haeng Se Nim
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The primary act in sacrament as well as in meditation is that of reception

The primary act in sacrament as well as in meditation is that of reception, listening to what is said and intended and opening ourselves to its divine dimensions. Meditative listening requires silence...Never to meditate on God's self-giving without recalling this self-giving to all ("the least of you") is the precondition for avoiding a cleft between my meditation and my daily work in this world.

~ Hans Urs von Balthasar
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Walking mindfully on the Earth

Walking mindfully on the Earth can restore our peace and harmony, and it can restore the Earth's peace and harmony as well. We are children of the Earth. We rely on her for our happiness, and she relies on us also. When we practice walking meditation beautifully, we massage the Earth with our feet and plant seeds of joy and happiness with each step.

~from THE LONG ROAD TURNS TO JOY by Thich Nhat Hanh
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Let our emptiness remain empty

We need to sit still, let our emptiness remain empty, and wait patiently. If we fill the foreground with busy questions, reasons or proposed actions, we will miss the God who is the silent, yet ever present horizon of the world.

~ from All the Days of My Life by Marv and Nancy Hiles
Marv and Nancy Hiles All The Days Of My Life meditation Buy on Amazon

There is no such thing as an experienced meditator

There is no such thing as an experienced meditator. Every breath must be as if it is the first, every step a fresh event. A beginner's mind leads to a sense of gratitude for everything, whether or not the desires of my ego have been granted or life is going smoothly. A grateful heart for the rushing currents as well as for the still pools puts the ego in its place. This attitude that grows out of increased awareness does not come easily in the face of difficulties, but it is worth cultivating over a lifetime.

~ from SITTING STILL by Patricia Hart Clifford
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The way of meditation is open to everyone

The way of meditation is open to everyone because everyone is graced by this spirit of wholeness. Every human being is equal on the path of meditation and every human being is called to completeness.

~ from SELFLESS SELF by Laurence Freeman
Laurence Freeman Selfless Self meditation Buy on Amazon

Ruminatio

Today many people are incapable of living intensely in the present, of feeling what they experience. The old monks developed a method of living completely in the present...a method of meditation they called ruminatio...to chew over. So they took words from scripture into their mouth and kept chewing them over. They repeated them in their hearts, considered and reconsidered them, looked at the word from all sides. The word became flesh in them. It changed them. It gave them something to hold onto in their spiritual unrest and the noisy world. It enabled them to live completely for the moment.

~ from ANGELS OF GRACE by Anselm Gruen
Anselm Gruen Angels Of Grace meditation Buy on Amazon

Firs through a quarter-mile mist

firs through a quarter-mile mist
as if bliss is all that stands
between us

 

~ William Michaelian
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Meet everything through stillness instead of mental noise

To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe.

~ from STILLNESS SPEAKS by Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle Stillness Speaks meditation Buy on Amazon

Meditate deeply

Meditate deeply ... reach the depths of the source. Branching streams cannot compare to this source! Sitting alone in a great silence, even though the heavens turn and the earth is upset, you will not even wink.

~ Nyogen Senzaki, as quoted in 365 PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE SOUL by Dr. Bernie S. Siegel
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Meditate deeply

Meditate deeply ... reach the depths of the source. Branching streams cannot compare to this source! Sitting alone in a great silence, even though the heavens turn and the earth is upset, you will not even wink.

November 1999 (Vol. XII, No. 10)

May the BLESSINGS OF PEACE AND SERENITY be yours in times of silence, prayer, and meditation, dear friends: pauses where we come to know ourselves, others, the osmos, the Heart of all hearts as One inter-related Whole: unity in diversity.

Meditation is a fasting of the heart

MEDITATION does not itself accomplish the tasks of life but provides spaciousness, bringing the great background near, so that whatever we do, rising in the quiet, has force and beauty. In meditation, we take time, sit down, watch, while the silence accumulates -- which is how the spirit gathers to a vessel the soul has prepared ... then, spiritual silence can appear in the midst of any concentrated activity. Meditation is a fasting of the heart in which, for a time, we do not go with our wanting and fear. We cease to attach so strongly to the things of our lives. When the heart fasts and we don't pursue the world, the world begins to come to us.

~ from THE LIGHT INSIDE THE DARK by John Tarrant
John Tarrant The Light Inside The Dark meditation Buy on Amazon

The silent mind

The silent mind, cultivated in many different forms of meditation, is the matrix of intuition. When you are in touch with the stillpoint at the center of your being there is no need to use imagery or verbal exercises to activate intuition. It flows by itself, unimpeded by fears or preoccupations.

~ from AWAKENING INTUITION by Frances Vaughan
Frances Vaughan Awakening Intuition meditation Buy on Amazon

Meditation makes more sense to the broken or humbled parts of us

From the brokenness of our humanity we can learn the healing and transcendent wisdom of self-acceptance and the non-judgmental acceptance of others. Meditation makes more sense to the broken or humbled parts of us than to the well-defended, successful or public poses that form the more assertive parts of our identity. Simple and pure awareness, without judgment or evaluation, such as we practice in meditation, is always compassionate.

~ from WEB OF SILENCE by Laurence Freeman
Laurence Freeman The Web Of Silence meditation Buy on Amazon

Awakening to the Sacred in the world of everyday

The modality of my prayer has changed radically. In place of discursive meditation, I have begun the practice of sitting in silence, making myself a capacity for an outpouring of God's love. ... It is my experience that our awakening to the Sacred in the world of everyday is fed and nurtured by our silent journey to that "space" within where all things are ONE.

~ Moira Toomey Putnam
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Mindfulness is meditation in action

Mindfulness is meditation in action and involves a "be here now" approach that allows life to unfold without the limitation of prejudgment. It means being open to an awareness of the moment as it is and to what the moment could hold. It is a relaxed state of attentiveness to both the inner world of thoughts and feelings and the outer world of actions and perceptions.

~ from MINDING THE BODY, MENDING THE MIND by Joan Borysenko
Joan Borysenko Mending The Mind, Minding The Body meditation Buy on Amazon

Our task in meditation is to allow our unity to be restored

Our task in meditation is to allow our unity to be restored and for our scattered parts to move back into their proper harmonious alignment to the center of our being. To do this we must not scatter ourselves further. We concentrate to move towards our center. When our consciousness truly awakens to that center, in silence, then a power is released which is the power of life, the power of the Spirit. In that power we are reformed, reunited, re-created.

~ from WORD INTO SILENCE by John Main
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There are no activities outside of meditation

"The mountains, the rivers, the whole earth, the entire array of phenomena are all oneself." If you can absorb the essence of this message, there are no activities outside of meditation: you dress in meditation and eat in meditation; you walk, stand, sit, and lie down in meditation; you experience joy, anger, sadness, and happiness in meditation.

~ from ROARING STREAM by Muso Soseki
Muso Soseki Roaring Stream meditation Buy on Amazon

The work of entering the silence of our own true nature

Meditation is the work of entering the silence of our own true nature and the silence of God's true nature.
~ Laurence Freeman
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I believe in the influence of silent and radiant people

I believe in the influence of silent and radiant people and I say to myself that such people are rare. They, nevertheless, give savor to the world. ...Nothing will be lost here so long as such people continue to exist. Let us wish that out of our meditation we might see in ourselves the beginnings of contemplation, which introduces us to the very heart of creation.

~ Marius Grout
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Contemplative life is the putting together of vision and action

Contemplative life is the putting together of vision and action. Vision alone, meditation alone, is not true contemplation. We must put vision into action. Not just monks, but all of us are called to contemplation in this full sense. If we want to live healthy lives, we have to build into our daily life moments of vision, and let our actions be formed by that vision.

~ from THE MUSIC OF SILENCE by David Steindl-Rast
David Steindl-Rast The Music Of Silence meditation Buy on Amazon

Meditation is basically the practice of quieting the mind

Meditation is basically the practice of quieting the mind on deeper and deeper levels until we reach the underlying, subtle consciousness that is the root of all things. But a quiet mind does not mean the absence of thoughts. It means a mind that does not interfere with or distort the natural flow of sensations, feelings, perceptions, images, and thoughts through the open field of our consciousness. A quiet mind is a clear space, a mirror for the entire experience of inner and outer life.

~ from THE SUBTLE SELF by Judith Blackstone
Judith Blackstone The Subtle Self meditation Buy on Amazon

Meditation consists in learning to focus the mind

Meditation consists in learning to focus and to control the mind. When the mind is stilled, then the light of the intellect begins to shine. The mind is ordinarily scattered and dissipated, but gather the mind into one and then the pure light shines in the mirror which is oneself. Speech is the movement by which we go out of ourselves to communicate with another. Meditation takes us within ourselves. It is a process of inward withdrawal, a centering in the place of inner detachment, a staying of the mind upon God.

~ Bede Griffith
Bede Griffith meditation Buy on Amazon

The inner world of contemplation

If we hope to move beyond the superficialities of our culture, we must be willing to go down into the recreating silence, into the inner world of contemplation.

~ Richard Foster
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Bringing ourselves back is the essence of meditation

To live a surrendered life is to be present moment to moment with our experience, to accept our experience without judging it. Or if we judge it, to forgive ourselves for defending, for pushing away. To be with our experience does not mean that we do not space out, detach, disappear emotionally. It means that we become increasingly aware of when we dissociate and gently bring ourselves back. This "bringing ourselves back" is the essence of meditation. To meditate, it is not necessary to stop thinking. But it is necessary to become aware of the thoughts as they happen, to see how they take us out of the silence. To see how they prevent us from being wholly present.

~ from THE SILENCE OF THE HEART by Paul Ferrini
Paul Ferrini The Silence Of The Heart meditation Buy on Amazon

In deepest meditation

In deepest meditation
the mind now utterly still
Truth reveals itself...

~ Nan Merrill
Nan Merrill meditation

Meditation is a fasting of the heart

MEDITATION does not itself accomplish the tasks of life but provides spaciousness, bringing the great background near, so that whatever we do, rising in the quiet, has force and beauty. In meditation, we take time, sit down, watch, while the silence accumulates -- which is how the spirit gathers to a vessel the soul has prepared ... then, spiritual silence can appear in the midst of any concentrated activity. Meditation is a fasting of the heart in which, for a time, we do not go with our wanting and fear. We cease to attach so strongly to the things of our lives. When the heart fasts and we don't pursue the world, the world begins to come to us.

The silent mind

The silent mind, cultivated in many different forms of meditation, is the matrix of intuition. When you are in touch with the stillpoint at the center of your being there is no need to use imagery or verbal exercises to activate intuition. It flows by itself, unimpeded by fears or preoccupations.

Meditation makes more sense to the broken or humbled parts of us

From the brokenness of our humanity we can learn the healing and transcendent wisdom of self-acceptance and the non-judgmental acceptance of others. Meditation makes more sense to the broken or humbled parts of us than to the well-defended, successful or public poses that form the more assertive parts of our identity. Simple and pure awareness, without judgment or evaluation, such as we practice in meditation, is always compassionate.

Awakening to the Sacred in the world of everyday

The modality of my prayer has changed radically. In place of discursive meditation, I have begun the practice of sitting in silence, making myself a capacity for an outpouring of God's love. ... It is my experience that our awakening to the Sacred in the world of everyday is fed and nurtured by our silent journey to that "space" within where all things are ONE.

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