Due to the high demand for the Steps in 4 hours internet meetings are being arranged

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.Due to the high demand for the Steps in 4 hours internet meetings are being arranged

Remember, studying the steps is not the same as taking the Steps.

The Big Book says, "Here are the steps we took" NOT "here are the steps we read and talked about." The AA pioneers proved that action, not knowledge, produced the spiritual awakening that resulted in recovery from alcoholism or addiction.

A Deep Breath of Life.

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.When an act in life counts, there is a source of strength within us that grows to meet the challenge. Some people demonstrate superhuman abil–ities, such as pushing a wrecked car off an injured person. Where do they find the strength? It was within them all the time; the worst brought out the best.
I pray to be big enough to handle
whatever comes before me. 
With Your help, I can and will do anything.
The power of God is within me.
The Grace of God surrounds me.
This meditation is an excerpt from Alan Cohen's meditation book, A Deep Breath of Life.

Don't believe a word I say , do not take what I say as the truth just because I say it or anybody else, for that matter. Check it out for yourself.

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.Don't believe a word I say , do not take what I say as the truth just because I say it or anybody else, for that matter. Check it out for yourself. Try it on for size. Investigate , find out for YOURSELF only use what you have read or heard as a reference point. Find the truth out for yourself . This way it is your TRUTH not someone else's. You will also not be believing a lie or untruth if you always check things for yourself . Do not believe everything you are told or read without checking it out.

Dream Healers epistles, A Journey towards God

Coming to the end of my time in Spain and Portugal.I look back on a time of unequal spiritual growth and understanding.In effect the person I brought to Spain in late September 2010 is not the one I am with today.The Spiritual growth has surprised me as after 30 years in the fellowships and much work in the fellowships and lay charities I thought I had seen everything.Seen everything but experienced nothing.The conversion from a skeptic to a believer has been rapid.The understanding or coming to believe has freed me from some of the burdens of self.The humility of having to do the 12 step program in 4 hours and the discipline and commitment it requires has freed me from a lot of materialistic dross.Each time I partake another layer falls away and I learn something wonderful and new.

My new friends and contacts are as if they are old family friends and I value each highly.The lessons I have learned during the 85 continuous days of meetings are perhaps the most important and not in a co-dependant way as they revealed the true joy and structure of the fellowship.The rich welcome from my friends within Alanon and the grace and courage that they used opened gently the doors to the wider understanding of the grace of God.The true extent of the awakening I have yet to experience the legacy of the steps challenges us all to constantly work with the hopeless and dispossessed of which we have been one.The new challenge I have been asked to participate in is the Traditions in 4 hours.Therefore I look forward to new revelations within my life.
In the next few days I will be travelling up threw Spain and back to the United Kingdom I ask for the grace of God ,my higher power to go and remain with me.The Spiritual lessons of humility tolerance and love are a lasting reminder of the last five wonderful months living a gypsy existence on the road in Southern Spain and 85 wonderful meetings and the convention which has changed my life.DREAMWARRIOR

A Journey towards God

The ferry bumps , lurches  staggering its way across the Bay of Biscay leaving behind a Europe in Crisis.The hotel in Santander reminding me old values of bygone age Victoriana with wi-fi.The town deserted by the three king brigade of festival partygoers shivered in the keen January weather.The deceptive twelve degrees showing on the mini cooper plastic dash as the car sort to shake off its accumulated four months of  Spanish mountain road dust. Failing to take into account the biting northerly breeze reminding me of the 1000 miles of journeying forever northwards again.Four brief months earlier with the weather starting its annual deteration I had travelled this route sick and ill with the accumulated dross of forty years of hard living.Now was the time to take stock and look at my newly found inventory of that four interesting months.I had felt as though I was the recipient of old memories and that the good times what ever they had been were behind me on arriving in Spain this illusion was to persist for sometime.

The shock of a late night drive threw an unknown land was quickly impressed on me by my failure to update my satnav.The drive onto the plains surrounding Madrid  included streaches of unrecognized autopista and roadworks the journey soaked up time with large white mercedes vans  loaming out of tne darknes at breakneck speeds with headlights ablaze throwing the interior into instant illumination.The doubts and lack of planning for the journey invading my tired mind.The reality sharply contrasting from the cosy ideal of scaty armchair planning and a doubt starting in my mind could I given the circumstances place any reliance on my judgement or that of the out of date satnav.The lack of human contact to bounce my ideas of started to cloud my judgement.

INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS AT NEW YEARS FESTIVITIES,I hate, I reject your festivals

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 "Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 23 "Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. 24 "But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5.21)

struggled with the 3rd step until another AA member said to me:

Will = Thoughts 

Lives = Actions 

When I say the 3rd step using these words, things make more sense to me.

CANDIDATE A.A. PRINCIPLES

Abandonment 
Abstinence 
Acceptance 
Activity 
Altruism 
Amendment 
Anonymity 
Clean Thinking 
Compassion 
Confession 
Consideration * 
Constructiveness 
Courage 
Discovery 
Energy 
Faith Forgiveness 
Generosity * 
Good nature 
Health 
Helpfulness * 
High-Mindedness 
Honesty * 
Hope 
Humility * 
Integrity 
Justice 
Kindness * 
Love * 
Meditatation 
Moderation 
Modesty * Open-mindedness 
Optimism 
Patience * 
Prayer 
Perseverance 
Positive-Thinking 
Promptness 
Recovery 
Reflection 
Responsibility 
Restitution 
Self-control 
Self-discovery 
Self-forgetfulness 
Self-Sacrifice * Self -valuation 
Selflessness 
Sensibility * 
Service 
Simplicity 
Sobriety * 
Spirituality 
Straightforwardness 
Surrender 
Tactfulness * 
Tolerance * 
Trust 
Truthfulness 
Understanding * 
Unity .DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder

.PRAYERS OF THE STEPS

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1ST STEP

God, Creative Intelligence, Universal Mind, Spirit of Nature or Spirit of the Universe my name is ______, And I'm a real alcoholic ... and I need your help today.
(pg.. 10-2, 46, & Chp. 3 BB)

2nd STEP

God, I'm standing at the turning point right now. Give me your protection and care as I abandon myself to you and give up my old ways and my old ideas just for today.
AMEN
(p. 59 BB)

3rd STEP

"God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!" (p. 63 BB) God, Take my will and my life. Guide me in my recovery. Show me how to live. AMEN
(the step on p. 59 BB)

4th STEP

WHEN IN DOUBT
"I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But that would be in great measure."
(p.13)

WHEN I AM DISTURBED BY THE CONDUCT (SYMPTOMS) OF OTHERS
"This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."
(p. 67 BB)

God help me to show this person the same tolerance, pity and patience that I would Cheerfully grant a sick friend. This is a sick person, how can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done.
(see above and p. 141 of 12&12)

WHEN I AM AFRAID
"We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be."
(p. 68 BB)

God, relieve me of this fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be. AMEN
(see above)

WHEN I AM AWARE OF MY OWN DEFECTS AND SEEKING GOD'S HELP TO CHANGE
"We asked God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. . . we ask God what we should do about each specific matter."
(p. 69 BB)

God mold my ideals in this particular area of my life and help me to live up to them. What should I do in each specific matter? Guide me God and give me strength to do right. AMEN
(see above)

5th STEP

God I thank you from the bottom of my heart that I know you better. Help me become aware of anything I have omitted discussing with another person. Help me to do what is necessary to walk a free man at last. AMEN
(p. 75 BB)

6th STEP

God help me become willing to let go of all the things to which I still cling. Help me to be ready to let You remove all of these defects, that Your will and purpose may take their place. AMEN
(p. 76 BB)

7th STEP

"I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood Him, to do with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that without Him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away, root and branch."
(p. 13)

"My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen."
(p. 76 BB)

8th STEP

"We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven’t the will to do this, we ask until it comes."
(p. 76 BB)

God help me to become willing to sweep away the debris of self will and self reliant living. Thy will be done for this person as well as for me. AMEN
(see above)

9th STEP

God give me the strength and direction to do the right thing no matter what the consequences may be. Help me to consider others and not harm them in any way. Help me to consult with others before I take any actions that would cause me to be sorry. Help me to not repeat such behaviors. Show me the way of Patience, Tolerance, Kindliness, and Love and help me live the spiritual life. AMEN
(p. 78-80 BB)

10th STEP

God remove the Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear that has cropped up in my life right now. Help me to discuss this with someone immediately and make amends quickly if I have harmed anyone. Help me to cease fight anything and anyone. Show me where I may be helpful to someone else. Help me react sanely; not cocky or afraid. How can I best serve You - Your will, not mine be done. AMEN
(p. 84-5 BB)

"How can I best serve Thee—Thy will (not mine) be done."
(p. 85 BB)

11th STEP

"As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day 'Thy will be done.' "
(p. 87-8 BB)

God, I'm agitated and doubtful right now. Help me to stop and remember that I've made a decision to let You be my God. Give me the right thoughts and actions. God save me from fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions that Your will not mine be done. AMEN
(see above)

The story of a chronic relapsing alcoholic addict

The story of a chronic relapsing alcoholic addict who fell into a hole and how he found his way out of a seemingly hopeless situation

A hopeless chronic relapsing alcoholic addict had fallen into a hole and could not find a way out.

A businessman happened to pass by and heard the alcoholic addict crying out for help in a sincere and despairing appeal, "I cannot go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot! You must help me!" So the businessman gave him a ladder to climb out of the hole with, but the chronic relapser sold it to finance his next spree only to realize afterwards that his hole was now deeper than ever!

A doctor who was walking by heard the alcoholic addict crying out for help, stopping the doctor said, "Here, take these pills, it will relieve your pain." The alcoholic addict took the pills and said thanks, but when the pills ran out, he was still painfully aware that he was stuck in the hole.

A clergyman happened to be strolling by and hearing the alcoholic addict calling out for help. Stopping, he gave the alcoholic addict a Bible, replying, "I'll say a prayer for you." He got down on this knees and prayed for the alcoholic addict, then left. The alcoholic addict was very grateful and thanked the preacher for the Bible which he read, but realized he was still stuck in the hole.

A renowned psychiatrist walked by and heard the alcoholic addict pleading for help. He stopped and said, "How did you find yourself in that hole? Were you born there? Are your parents to blame? Tell me about yourself, it will alleviate your sense of loneliness." So the alcoholic addict talked with the psychiatrist for approximately an hour, then the psychiatrist said he had to leave, but he would come back next week. The alcoholic addict thanked the psychiatrist for his time even though he was still stuck in his hole.

Finally a 'recovered' alcoholic addict happened to be passing by and heard the poor man's cries for  help. Right away, the recovered alcoholic addict jumped into the hole with him. The suffering alcoholic addict said, "Why did you do that? Now we're both stuck here in this god forsaken hole!" But the recovered alcoholic addict said with a twinkle in his eye, "It's okay brother, I've been here before; I know the way out!"

Remarkable results as the Costa del Sol is taken by the steps in 4hours.Hopeless relapsers take to the steps.

Remarkable results as the Costa del Sol is taken by the steps in 4hours.Hopeless relapsers take to the steps.Cameron F takes his message of recovery onto the Costa and Big T takes it to the Algarve.

Twelve Step Program for Big Book Sponsorship

Hear renowned addiction speaker, Chris Raymer talk about the solution, not the problem.

Recorded June 25, 2005, All Addictions Anonymous Conference, Toronto, ON

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions - that our lives had become unmanageable. Take this self-assessment test and find out!
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Download Step 4 guide and worksheets.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Download Steps 8 and 9 guide and worksheets.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. Download our daily program of action guide and worksheets (Steps 10 and 11).
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Download this FREE 12 Step workbook that guides the newcomer through all 12 steps.

The Muckers say A.A. has lost its course.

BACK TO BASICS FOR ADDICTS

"Up there," says James, a slim, muscular Bay Street executive in his early 40s, as he points to a gleaming office tower in Toronto's financial district. "That's where I work. Up on the 50th floor." On a noon-hour stroll through a downtown park, James admits that he is lucky to still hold a job anywhere. For years, he confides quietly, he was addicted to cocaine, a problem he kept concealed from his blue chip employer. At the height of his addiction, he confesses, he routinely blew $1,000 a weekend on the potent white powder. By Monday morning, he was exhausted, often unable to work. But a year ago, after numerous attempts to quit, James turned to a small but growing self-help organization called The Muckers Anonymous Inc. "My cravings went away and never returned," he says. "It was like someone with terminal cancer waking up one day to discover the disease was gone. It was remarkable."

There is, however, nothing remarkable about the Muckers' technique. According to a 52 year old recovered alcoholic named Jim who helped start the Toronto-based group in early 1995, the Muckers rely on intense study of the 57-year -old book Alcoholics Anonymous, known to A.A. adherents as the Big Book, and the Twelve Step approach outlined in the first 103 pages. Nevertheless, the group has become embroiled in a dispute with A.A. and several other self-help groups that resembles a battle between fundamentalists and mainstream Christians. Among other things, those groups say that the Muckers, so named because they frequently muck up the Big Book by underlining key passages and phrases, have a zealous approach to recovery from addiction that excludes anything but the twelve step method. "There's a huge backlash from the established groups," says James.

Last fall, A.A. representatives in Toronto removed the Muckers from their list of approved groups after discovering that their meetings covered various kinds of addictions, rather than just alcoholism. In May, A.A. ousted two members from elected positions as co-ordinators of treatment center meetings because they had been espousing the Muckers' philosophy. Representatives of A.A. are reluctant to comment on the Muckers or to discuss the relative merits of their approaches. "The Big Book hasn't changed," said Ron, a high-ranking official for eastern and central Ontario. "Its worked for almost sixty years."

Some treatment centers have also rejected the Muckers. Alpha House Inc., a rehabilitation facility treating various addictions, has instructed staff and residents to avoid the Muckers. "The bottom line is that Muckers seem to be obsessed with their way being the only way," stated a memo to employees. On the other hand, the Donwood Institute, a well established, Toronto recovery facility, has allowed the Muckers to hold weekly meetings, which Donwood clients can attend. "Some of them found it quite helpful," says Dennis James, vice-president of the Donwood health recovery program.

The Muckers contend that they are maintaining the original traditions of A.A. They charge that A.A. has drifted away from the Big Book and the 12-step approach that its founders, Bill Wilson, a New York City stockbroker, and Bob Smith, a physician from Ohio, developed in the mid-1930s to cope with their own alcoholism. According to the Muckers, many A.A. groups pay lip service to the sanctity of the Big Book but no longer insist that a recovering alcoholic must use it. "A.A.'s message has become broader and diluted," says John, a 35-year- old alcoholic, drug addict and staunch Mucker. "We stick to the original text."

The cornerstone of the Mucker approach is called "booking," in which a member of the group works one-on-one with a recovering alcoholic or addict. They spend up to three hours a day, usually over a two-to-three-week period, studying the Big Book, line by line and phrase by phrase. Among other things, the recovering addict must admit personal failings and weaknesses and make amends to people he has harmed through his addiction. Some Muckers who belonged to A.A. say they became disenchanted by that organization's move away from its original policy of one-on-one therapy in favour of personal or group study. And some longtime A.A. members confirm the trend. "You just don't see a lot of people going through the book one-on-one anymore," said Gord, who has belonged to A.A. for 35 years.

The Muckers have been booking about 100 people a month, according to Jim, and the fellowship now has about 2,000 members, almost all in the Toronto area. Some recently recovered addicts say they have experienced moments of profound spiritual contentment while being booked. "I had this sense of absolute peace," recalls Tory, a film-maker in his mid-30s who was battling alcoholism and heroin addiction. "I couldn't see anything or hear anything. It was almost like the first few seconds of a drug overdose." Since then, Tory says, he has not been tormented by his old cravings. And for that, he is both relieved and grateful.

The root of prayer is interior silence.

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.We begin our prayer by disposing our body. Let it be relaxed and calm, but inwardly alert.

The root of prayer is interior silence. We may think of prayer as thoughts or feelings expressed in words. But this is only one expression. Deep prayer is the laying aside of thoughts. It is the opening of mind and heart, body and feelings - our whole being - to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond words, thoughts, and emotions. We do not resist them or suppress them. We accept them as they are and go beyond them, not by effort, but by letting them all go by. We open our awareness to the Ultimate Mystery whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing - closer than consciousness itself. The Ultimate Mystery is the ground in which our being is rooted, the Source from whom our life emerges at every moment.

We are totally present now with the whole of our being, in complete openness, in deep prayer. The past and future - time itself - are forgotten. We are here in the presence of the Ultimate Mystery. Like the air we breathe, this divine presence is all around us and within us, distinct from us, but never separate from us. We may sense this Presence drawing us from within, as if touching our spirit and embracing it, or carrying us beyond ourselves into pure awareness.

We surrender to the attraction of interior silence, tranquility, and peace. We do not try to feel anything, reflect about anything. Without effort, without trying, we sink into this Presence, letting everything else go. Let love alone speak: the simple desire to he one with the Presence, to forget self, and to rest in the Ultimate Mystery.

This Presence is immense, yet so humble; awe-inspiring, yet so gentle; limitless, yet so intimate, tender and personal. I know that I am known. Everything in my life is transparent in this Presence. It knows everything about me - all my weaknesses, brokenness, sinfulness - and still loves me infinitely. This Presence is healing, strengthening, refreshing - just by its Presence. It is nonjudgmental, self-giving, seeking no reward, boundless in compassion. It is like coming home to a place I should never have left, to an awareness that was somehow always there, but which I did not recognize. I cannot force this awareness, or bring it about. A door opens within me, but from the other side. I seem to have tasted before the mysterious sweetness of this enveloping, permeating Presence. It is both emptiness and fullness at once.

We wait patiently; in silence, openness, and quiet attentiveness; motionless within and without. We surrender to the attraction to be still, to he loved, just to be.

How shallow are all the things that upset and discourage me! I resolve to give up the desires that trigger my tormenting emotions. Having tasted true peace, I can let them all go by. Of course, I shall stumble and fall, for I know my weakness. But I will rise at once, for I know my goal. I know where my home is.

Deliberately dismantle excessive group identification.

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.Extending the effects of Centering Prayer into daily life.
(Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, pp.123-126.)

Centering Prayer is the keystone of a comprehensive commitment to the contemplative dimensions of the Gospel. Two periods a day of twenty to thirty minutes - one in the early morning and one halfway through the day or in the early evening - maintain the reservoir of interior silence at a high level at all times. Those who have more time at their disposal might begin with a brief reading of ten or fifteen minutes from the Gospel. For those who wish to give a full hour in the morning to interior silence, start with ten minutes of Gospel reading and then centre for twenty minutes. Do a slow, meditative walk around the room for five to seven minutes; sit down and do a second period of centring. You still have ten minutes for planning your day, praying for others, or conversing with the Lord.

To find time for a second period later in the day may require special effort. If you have to be available to your family as soon as you walk in the door, you might centre during your lunch hour. Or you might stop on the way home from work and centre in a church or park. If it is impossible to get a second period of prayer in, it is important that you lengthen the first one. There are also a number of other practices that can help maintain your reservoir of interior silence throughout the day and thus extend its effects into ordinary activities.

1. Cultivate a basic acceptance of yourself. Have a genuine compassion for yourself, including all your past history, failings, limitations, and sins. Expect to make many mistakes. But learn from them. To learn from experience is the path to wisdom.

2. Pick a prayer for action. This is a five to nine syllable sentence from scripture that you gradually work into your subconscious by repeating it mentally at times when your mind is relatively free, such as while washing up, doing light chores, walking, driving, waiting, etc. Synchronize it with your heartbeat. Eventually it says itself and thus maintains a link with your reservoir of interior silence throughout the day. If you have a tendency to scrupulosity and feel a compulsion to say the prayer over and over or if frequent repetition brings on a headache or a backache, this practice is not for you.

3. Spend time daily listening to the Word of God in Lectio Divina. Give fifteen minutes or longer every day to the reading of the New Testament or a spiritual book that speaks to your heart.

4. Carry a "Minute Book”. This is a series of short readings, a sentence or two, or at most a paragraph, from your favourite spiritual writers or from your own journal that reminds you of your commitment to Christ and to contemplative prayer. Carry it in your pocket or purse and when you have a stray minute or two, read a few lines.

5. Deliberately dismantle the emotional programming of the false self. Observe the emotions that most upset you and the events that set them off, but without analysing, rationalizing, or justifying your reactions. Name the chief emotion you are feeling and the particular event that triggered it and release the energy that is building up by a strong act of the will such as, "1 give up my desire for (security, esteem, control)! " The effort to dismantle the false self and the daily practice of contemplative prayer are the two engines of your spiritual jet that give you the thrust to get off the ground. The reason that Centering Prayer is not as effective as it could be is that when you emerge from it into the ordinary routines of daily life, your emotional programs start going off again. Upsetting emotions immediately start to drain the reservoir of interior silence that you had established during prayer. On the other hand, if you work at dismantling the energy centres that cause the upsetting emotions, your efforts will extend the good effects of centring into every aspect of daily life.

6. Practice guard of the heart. This is the practice of releasing upsetting emotions into the present moment. This can be done in one of three ways: doing what you are actually doing, turning your attention to some other occupation, or giving the feeling to Christ. The guard of the heart requires the prompt letting go of personal likes or dislikes. When something arises independently of our plans, we spontaneously try to modify it. Our first reaction, however, should be openness to what is actually happening so that if our plans are upset, we are not upset. The fruit of guard of the heart is the habitual willingness to change our plans at a moment's notice. It disposes us to accept painful situations as they arise. Then we can decide what to do with them, modifying, correcting or improving them. In other words, the ordinary events of daily life become our practice. 1 can't emphasize that too much. A monastic structure is not the path to holiness for lay folks. The routine of daily life is. Contemplative prayer is aimed at transforming daily life with its never ending round of ordinary activities.

7. Practice unconditional acceptance of others. This practice is especially powerful in quieting the emotions of the utility appetite: fear, anger, courage, hope, and despair. By accepting other people unconditionally, you discipline the emotions that want to get even with others or to get away from them. You allow people to be who they are with all their idiosyncrasies and with the particular behaviour that is disturbing you. The situation gets more complicated when you feel an obligation to correct someone. If you correct someone when you are upset, you are certain to get nowhere. This arouses the defences of others and gives them a handle for blaming the situation on you. Wait till you have calmed down and then offer correction out of genuine concern for them.
8. Deliberately dismantle excessive group identification. This is the practice of letting go of our cultural conditioning, preconceived ideas, and over identification with the values of our particular group. It also means openness to change in ourselves, openness to spiritual development beyond group loyalties, openness to whatever the future holds.

9. Celebrate the Eucharist regularly. Participate regularly in the mystery of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, the source of Christian transformation.

10. Join a contemplative prayer group. Set up or join a support group that meets weekly to do Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina together and to encourage one another in the commitment to the contemplative dimensions of the Gospel.

Centering Prayer is of the effortless type

Centering Prayer is of the effortless type. That is why it is important to relax, to find the place, the posture, the chair that facilitate this, and gently to close the eyes, for it is estimated that twenty-five percent of our psychic energy is expended in seeing. (p.66-67)

*************

If we have a real relation going with God, then we have a name for him that quite spontaneously comes to mind when we turn our attention to him. And that is, often times, the word that best serves us as our prayer word. It is not infrequent that for a Christian the prayer word is the holy name of Jesus. And it is then, when the prayer word is Jesus,  that the two great traditions, springing from the one source, reunite. Centering Prayer and the Jesus Prayer are once again one, as they were long ago in the hearts of the Fathers of the Desert.

The prayer word, then, might well be a name or a vocative word; yet it need not necessarily be. I know a very beautiful sister for whom the prayer word is "let go." That expresses the whole essence of her relation with her Divine Beloved. It is true that such a prayer word is more than one syllable, it is more than one word. And such a sentence might well lead to a certain amount of intellectual or conceptual activity. We have to take care. As the author of The Cloud of Unknowing has said: "If your mind begins to intellectualise over the meaning and connotations of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its simplicity." We can be quite free in choosing a prayer word that is meaningful to us.

Here is perhaps something of the difference between Eastern techniques and Christian prayer. "Where the Spirit is, there is freedom”. The typical Eastern technique, seeking to achieve something in itself by the very activity of the one performing it, demands absolute fidelity to the technique until the end is attained. For the Christian, prayer is always a response. God initiates the activity and indeed is the source of our response. We, the prayers, move with the Spirit of God. "We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit prays within us. . . ." We are human. We are incarnate. We can and do we methods. But we can use them with the greatest of freedom. And the use of a prayer word is a method most suitable for us as Christians. God has spoken to us. We have received the Revelation. We have received the Word. If God speaks his love to us most totally and eloquently in a human Word that is divine, we can most aptly respond in a human word that is divinised by faith and love in the action of the Holy Spirit.

The mantric type of prayer taught by Father John Main, while retaining this essential Christian note, and in this way appealing to the same, Cassian tradition, yet approaches more closely the Eastern techniques. Indeed, in his writings and talks Father freely acknowledges his dependence on the experience he had at the feet of a Hindu master during his service in the East - an experience that was brought to fullness when he became a Benedictine and came into contact with the teaching of St. John Cassian. Thus, instead of having the meditator choose his or her own meaningful prayer word, Father encourages each to use the word ‘Mar-an-ath-a’, a word chosen for its assonance and because for most Christians it does not have strong conceptual connotations. And this word is to be repeated constantly during the time of prayer. Father concludes his remarks in one article:

As to frequency, you must say the mantra for the entire time of your meditation to the rhythm you find for yourself. You will be tempted to rest on your oars. . . . The way to transcend the temptation is absolute fidelity to the mantra. This is the condition of rooting it in your heart.

This approach is quite different from that of Centering Prayer. As the third rule of Centering Prayer states:

Whenever in the course of the Prayer we become aware of anything else we simply gently return to the Presence by the use of the prayer word.

We do not use the prayer word constantly. It sort of hovers in our mind, somewhat like white sound. In an office or library or bank, we sometimes find quiet background music. It is not there for people to stop and listen to it. Rather, it is there to block out or blur other sounds so we can be more free to attend to our errand. And so the prayer word, recalled at the beginning of our meditation, lies quietly in our consciousness, leaving us free simply to attend to the Lord of our love. We do not make any effort to repeat the prayer word. We certainly do not turn it into an affective ejaculation. Nor do we make an effort not to repeat the word. We certainly do not judge the perfection of our prayer either by the frequency or infrequency with which we use the word. We do not make it the aim of our prayer to decrease the frequency with which we use the word. We simply seek to be wholly present in love to God present to us, and whenever something draws us away from that Presence, we very gently employ the word to return fully to the Holy Presence.

We may indeed find that some days we seem to have to use the word constantly. No matter. This should cause us no distress. We just repeat the prayer word as gently as possible. To begin to get distressed, or to try to use the word forcefully to eliminate thoughts will only take us more out of the Prayer. 'The gentle repetition of the word will, on the other hand, place us ever more deeply and to-tally in the Prayer, the movement into God that goes on underneath the thoughts and surface activity. (p.72-74)

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In Centering Prayer we sink down into the quiet depths, where there is only a simple, peaceful flow from our Source into the Ocean of Infinite Love. What serenity, what tranquillity, what peace; what vitality, what power, what refreshment! But, on the surface, a lot of activity is still going on. Thoughts are still careening along, feelings are being evoked, sounds are hitting our eardrums. And every once in a while, a flashy vessel or a particularly interesting one arrests our attention and we find ourselves surfacing-or perhaps we have fully surfaced and all but climbed aboard the enticing boat before we are aware of having left the peaceful depths.

It is at this point that we use our prayer word. We do not so much turn from the thought or feeling. We do not think (another thought) of letting it go. We simply - with the gentlest repetition of our prayer word, maybe only the faintest recollection of it - return to the Presence. The author of The Cloud says, "It is best when this word is wholly interior, without a definite thought or actual sound." We simply, peacefully sink again into the depths. It is as gentle and effortless as that: a sinking down into the depths. If we but let ourselves go, we have a natural propensity to rest quietly in our Source. And so, throughout our prayer time, the thoughts, the feelings, the sounds, the images continue. We just let them flow along. Our attention is elsewhere. (p.75-76)

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We use the prayer word when we need it and to the extent we need it' and always gently. The thoughts and feelings and images will always be there. But it is only when we become aware of them, when they have drawn our attention away from the depths, from the Beloved, to themselves, that we need to deliberately-but always gently-employ our prayer word to return to the Presence. For the rest, we let the word simply be there. It may repeat itself, faster or slower, stronger or weaker; it may take up the rhythm of our heart or of our breath (though we do not in any way seek to bring this about, or give any attention to either of these), or it may fuzz out and be more of a silent image than an actual sound. No matter! Our attention is to the Presence, known in faith, embraced in love; the word is incidental, a useful means, used when a means is useful.

In prayer we seek God. We do not seek peace, quiet, tranquillity, enlightenment; we do not seek anything for ourselves. We seek to give ourselves, or, rather, we do simply give ourselves, even without attending to ourselves, so whole is our intent upon the one to whom we give: God. He is the all of our prayer. If thoughts and images and feelings careen around in our head and in our heart, little matter. We pay no attention to them. We do not seek to get rid of them any more than we seek to entertain them. As we give ourselves in our loving attention to God, we also give them to him. And let Him do with them what he wants to do with them.

And that is the point of them..... Contemplative prayer does call for a quite different attitude toward thoughts than does active or discursive prayer. Here, in the totality of our gift to God, we simply give him all, even the thoughts and images and feelings that flow through our minds. All are given simply to him to let him do what he wants with them. (p.76-77)

step 11,we can, in a rather complete way, reconstruct the precise method of prayer that the father taught his disciple

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.We tend to think of our own times as being unique in the history of the human family, and in some ways that is certainly true. And yet there is undeniable truth in the words of the Wise Man: ". . . there is nothing new under the sun" (Qo. 1:9).

In recent years, we have seen a significant number of young and not so young Westerners turning to the East. Though the tide seems now to have ebbed, there was for a time a steady flow of pilgrims seeking from gurus, swamis, and roshis some sampling of ancient wisdom. Some actually made the long journey to Benares, Sri Lanka, or Thailand. Others were able to import masters or find them already imported, or in some cases even satisfied themselves with what returning disciples were able to share.

This phenomenon of dropping out of one's own life current, whether it be school or business or religious-community life, and heading toward the East in search of wisdom is not unprecedented. It was very much present in the renewal of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, finding fear-some and dramatic expression in the Crusades but significant peaceful expression in the realms of art, science, and sapiential literature. This was the period when Peter the Venerable translated the Koran, and the writings of many of the Greek Fathers were first made available in Latin, thus directly influencing the evolution of spiritual thinking in Western Europe.

The fourth and fifth centuries also witnessed such a movement. My own patron, Basil - later called "the Great" - and his schoolmate Gregory, the Theologian, threw aside their books, left the prestigious schools of Athens, and went off to find true wisdom among the gerontas (old men) in Syria and Egypt; "old man" is a term of respect used even today among the Greeks to address or speak about a significant spiritual father. St. Jerome might truly be included among these seekers, as well as his friends Paula and Melania, the Elder and the Younger. Among the pilgrims to the East must also be included a brilliant young man from Dalmatia whom the Eastern Christians today call St. John Cassian, the Roman.

John, too, at an early age, laid aside his books and left the lecture halls to go in search of true wisdom. He went first to the Holy Land and lived there for some years in a monastery in Bethlehem (not that of St. Jerome, though he probably met the saint while there). After a time, his insatiable desire pushed him on. With his abbot's permission and the companionship of one of his brother monks, Herman, he set out to learn still more of the spiritual art and the mystical life from the wise old men bidden in the solitudes and caves of Egypt. It was over seven years before he returned to his monastery, only to seek permission to continue his pursuit. He was never again to return to the Holy Land. In time, he was led from the desert to the capital, ordained a priest, and then sent back to the West, where he established two monasteries near Marseilles -one for women and one for men.

Monasticism was beginning to flourish in fifth-century Gaul, and in response to an expressed need, St. John produced two sets or collections of writings. The first, the institutes, recounted the practices of the monks of Egypt and adapted them for use in the colder, Western regions. Because of the extensive use of the institutes by St. Benedict of Nursia and the tradition he drew upon, Cassian's Institutes have had an immense and all-pervading influence on monastic life in the West. In his second collection, St. John included what he considered the most significant teachings he had received in the course of his long pilgrimage. These he presented in the form of Conferences given by various great Fathers of the Desert.

As Cassian himself tells us, one day he and Herman visited the famous Abba Isaac and sought from him a teaching on prayer. The saintly old man obliged, and this teaching has come down to us as the very beautiful and deep "First Conference of Abba Isaac on Prayer." That night, John and his companion fairly floated back to their cell, so uplifted were they by the transcendent teaching of this great Father. But when they awoke in the morning, their feet again solidly planted on Mother Earth, Herman turned to his companion with the important question:

"Yes, but how do you do it?" And the two young monks ran back across the sands to the cell of the elder to pose this question to him. Abba Isaac's "Second Conference" is his response to this question. In it we find the first written expression in the West of that tradition of prayer of which Centering Prayer is a contemporary presentation.

The whole of Abba Isaac's magnificent Conference should certainly be read. But let us here listen to just a few of the words of this wise old man, the ones that most directly relate to our present concern:

I think it will be easy to bring you to the heart of true prayer. . . . The man who knows what questions to ask is on the verge of understanding; the man who is beginning to understand what he does not know is not far from knowledge.

I must give you a formula for contemplation. If you care-fully keep this formula before you, and learn to recollect it at all times, it will help you to mount to contemplation of high truth. Everyone who seeks for continual recollection of God uses this formula for meditation, intent upon driving every other sort of thought from his heart. You cannot keep the formula before you unless you are free from all bodily cares.

The formula was given us by a few of the oldest fathers who remained. They communicated it only to a very few who were athirst for the true way. To maintain an unceasing recollection of God, this formula must be ever before you. The formula is this: "0 God, come to my assistance; 0 Lord, make haste to help me."

Rightly has this verse been selected from the whole Bible to serve this purpose. It suits every mood and temper of human nature, every temptation, every circumstance. It contains an Invocation of God, an humble confession of faith, a reverent watchfulness, a meditation on human frailty1 an act of confidence in God's response, an assurance of his ever-present support~ The man who continually Invokes God as his protector is aware that God is ever at hand.

I repeat: each one of us, whatever his condition in the spiritual life, needs to use this verse.

Perhaps wandering thoughts surge about my soul like boiling water, and I cannot control them, nor can I offer prayer without its being interrupted by silly images. I feel so dry that I am Incapable of spiritual feelings, and many sighs and groans cannot save me from dreariness. I must needs say: "0 God, come to my assistance; 0 Lord, make haste to help me."

The mind should go on grasping this formula until it can cast away the wealth and multiplicity of other thoughts, and restrict itself to the poverty of this single word. And so it will attain with ease that Gospel beatitude which holds first place among the other beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Thus by God's light the mind mounts to the manifold knowledge of God, and thereafter feeds on mysteries loftier and more sacred . . . . And thus it attains that purest of pure prayers to which our earlier conference led, so far as the Lord deigns to grant this favour; the prayer which looks for no visual image, uses neither thoughts nor words; the prayer wherein, like a spark leaping up from a fire, the mind is rapt upward, and, destitute of the aid of the senses or of anything visible or material, pours out its prayer to God...

For the better part of ten centuries, the monastic approach to prayer prevailed, beginning with the first attempts at written transmission, by such men as Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian in the fourth century, until the prevalence of scholastic thinking in the Western Christian community, which in the fourteenth century brought about a divorce between theology and spirituality. For the monk, life was integral. It was all one, and in practice he did not distinguish between reading or study of the Scriptures and prayer, or between meditation and contemplation. There was just one simple movement of response to a God who had spoken, a God who speaks not just in the books of the divinely inspired Scriptures but in the whole of creation and in the depths of one's own being.

At this point let me inject an important aside. It concerns a semantic difficulty. In our recent Western tradition, when we have spoken of "meditation," we have been understood to refer to a discursive type of prayer in which we consciously reflected on some facet of life, particularly some point of the Scriptures, and sought by this means to arouse in ourselves affective responses and resolutions to guide our conduct. At the same time, "contemplation" has signified for us that moment when our response to the revealed truth or reality was simply being present to it - having passed beyond thinking to simple presence.

For our brothers and sisters in the Hindu tradition, the terms have almost the exact inverse meaning: contemplation is a discursive exercise, and meditation usually means a non-conceptual approach. Perhaps one of the most significant indications of the failure of the Western Christian churches to bring their life-giving tradition even to their own is the fact that the terminology that prevails today in the West is not that of the Western tradition (except perhaps among religious and priests, and those mostly of earlier training) but, rather, the terminology brought to us in recent years by the wise men coming from the Asiatic countries. So there is a difficulty today when we speak of these matters. That is one of the reasons why I prefer to use the term "Centering Prayer" rather than "meditation" or "contemplation." "Prayer" emphasizes what is the essential and oftentimes distinctive element: that of an inter-personal response, a relationship flowing out of love, with another Person or Persons. However, I think it might at times be advantageous, when presenting this form of prayer in a popular context, such as a college campus, to speak of it as "Christian meditation"-meditation being understood in the prevailing, Eastern sense.

But let us return to our monastic tradition. In this tradition, when the monks wished to speak in a reflective way of their experience, they employed four words: lectio, rneditatio, oratio, and contemplatio. Lectio, or more commonly the fuller expression Lectio Divina, cannot be adequately expressed in the simple translation of the word as "reading.3' We are in fact speaking of a time when perhaps most of the monks and most of the Christian community could not read. Others, of course, could and did read to their illiterate brothers. The choice source for this lectio always was and always will be the Sacred Texts. Oftentimes, a simple Christian who could not read would manage to memorize extensive portions of Scriptures, especially the Gospels and the Psalter, so that he could constantly hear it, now recited, as it were, by his own memory.

But lectio, in the fuller sense implied here, means the reception of the revelation, by whatever vehicle it may come - the reception of the Word who is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. It may indeed come by way of one's own reading. St. Basil was strongly insistent that all monks learn to read. For us today, our personal time with the Word of Life, with the Sacred Scriptures, is of primary importance. But we also receive this word through the ministry of others, through their reading, and above all, through the Liturgy of the Word. And others will open it out for us in homilies, in instructions, in simple faith - sharing and everyday lived witness. It can also be presented to us, and in fact it has been presented, in art: pictures, frescoes, sculpture, stained glass. The whole Bible can be found in the windows of the cathedral of Chartres. And there were the wonderful mystery plays.

There is also the larger book of revelation: the whole of the work of the Creator, his wonderful creation. All of it speaks of him and of his love for us. Bernard of Clairvaux was fond of saying (to express it in a rather trite translation) that he found God more in the trees and brooks than in the books. Lectio, therefore, is receiving the revelation, by whatever means, to be followed quite naturally by meditatio.

Again, with meditatio - even apart from the semantic difficulty we spoke of above-we have to be careful that our translation be not a betrayal of the truth. In the early monastic tradition, meditation involved primarily a repetition of the word of revelation, or the word of life one received from his spiritual father or from some other source. The word - and here "word" is not to be taken literally as one single word but may be a whole phrase or sentence - was quietly repeated over and over again, even with the lips. Thus the Psalms speak of one meditating with his lips. In time, the repetition would tend to interiorise and simplify the word, as its meaning was assimilated. For during this repetition the mind was not a vacuum. It received the word more and more, entered into it more and more, assimilated it and appropriated it, until it was formed by the word and its whole being was a response to the word.

The Fathers liked to use the image of the cow or other "clean animals who chew the cud." A cow goes out and fills its stomach with grass or other food. Then it settles down quietly and through the process of regurgitation reworks what it has received, moving its lips in the process. Thus it is able to fully assimilate what it has previously consumed and to transform it into rich, creamy milk - a symbol of love filled with the unction of the Holy Spirit. When the received word passes from the lips into the mind and then down into the heart through constant repetition, it produces in the one praying a loving, faith-filled response.

I like very much a distinction made by John Henry Cardinal Newman that I think is very  applicable here: What this meditatio does is to change a notional assentinto a real assent. As we receive the words of revelation into our mind, they are just so many notions or ideas, which we accept m faith. We do believe. '3ut as we assimilate them through meditation, our whole being comes to respond to them. We move to a real assent. Our whole being, above all our heart, says: '~Yes, this is so. This is the reality."

Next-again quite naturally - we turn to oratio, to prayer, to response. When God, the loving Creator and Redeemer, so reveals Himself, and we really hear that revelation, that Word of Life, we respond with confident assent, with expressed need, with gratitude, with love. This response is prayer. And it bursts out more and more constantly as the reality of our assent deepens and we more fully perceive the revelation of Creator and creative Love in all that we encounter.

Our response grows. It is constantly nourished by illuminating grace. There are moments and seasons of special light. And it is at these times, which eventually become all times, that the Reality becomes so real to us that a word or a movement of the heart can no longer adequately respond to it. Our whole being must say "yes." This is contemplatio. It is a gift, a gift of the Light who is God. We can only open to it, in our God-given freedom, and express our desire to receive it by fidelity to lectio, meditatio, and oratio - oratio of the most delicate, open, and receptive type. That is what Centering Prayer is. And that is the method that Abba Isaac taught to the two eager young monks, St. John Cassian and his companion, Herman.

The desert tradition out of which this teaching on prayer of John Cassian, The Cloud of Unknowing, and Centering Prayer evolved is the same as that from which the Jesus Prayer issued. However, while Abba Isaac gave St. John a word from the Psalms: "0 God, come to my assistance; 0 Lord, make haste to help me," the Eastern current derived its source from two passages of the New Testament - that of the blind Bartimeus and that of the publican - to form the well-known prayer: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner." In time, especially under the long domination of the Moslems, the Eastern Christian tradition was enriched or modified by other influences from the East. Thus today the expression "The Jesus Prayer" is a blanket covering a variety of methods. The most highly developed, psychosomatic expression of the Jesus Prayer, presented by Nesophorus of Jerusalem and St. Gregory of Sinai (who actually learned it in Crete and brought it to the Holy Mountain) in the fourteenth century, and by St. Gregory Palamas in the century following, reproduce even to details the dhikr method of the Sufis of the thirteenth century. The Name used by the Sufis, of course, was Allah, while that used by the Orthodox Christians was the Name of Jesus. This dhiikr method in its turn reproduces down to details the nembutsu method of meditation used by Buddhists in the twelfth century. We do not necessarily have to postulate a dependency. It may be that spiritual masters coming out of related cultures evolved similar methods.

Alongside this increasingly complicated method there always continued to be present a very simple and pure practice, especially among the Russians and in the sketes on Mount Athos. We find this most recently with Father Silouan, the humble staretz of the Russian monastery on Mount Athos, who died in 1938, and whose life and works have been made known to the West by his disciple Archimandrite Sophrony. At the end of his long and busy day as dockmaster, the staretz would retire into his office near the abandoned pier, pull his skouphos (monk's hat) down over his eyes and ears, and simply enter into the awesome Presence of God, using the saving Name of Jesus. His practice at this point was the same as that of the Centering Prayer, with the Name of Jesus as his prayer word.

Other spiritual fathers developed other variations in passing on the tradition, coupling the use of the Name with the breathing or the heartbeat, adopting certain postures, and otherwise seeking to bring the mind down into the heart.

In the West, the tradition remained quite pure until it was virtually lost at the time of the Reformation with the suppression of the monasteries and the defensive repressions of the Inquisition. Flowing from the word St. John Cassian received from Abba Isaac, it did not centre on the Name of Jesus but retained a certain suppleness, so that, as the author of The Cloud of Unknowing expressed it, each one practicing the prayer would choose his own prayer word – one that is meaningful to him.

Like the Conferences of Abba Isaac, The Cloud of Unknowing is the word of a spiritual father addressed to a particular disciple. In the case of The Cloud, both the father and the disciple remain unnamed and unknown. We know only that the disciple was still quite young (twenty-four years old) but had nonetheless enjoyed an ongoing relationship with the father. The The Cloud of Unknowing presupposes the oral instruction the father has given. It is undoubtedly for this reason that we do not find precise instructions by the father in the way of prayer, as with Abba Isaac. But repeatedly in the text there is allusion to such precise instruction and repetition of fragments of it. By drawing these scattered texts together we can, in a rather complete way, reconstruct the precise method of prayer that the father taught his disciple:

.Using any word to "conjure up" the divine opens one to self-hypnosis and the possibility of perseverating on the object of meditation

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.Using any word to "conjure up" the divine opens one to self-hypnosis and the possibility of perseverating on the object of meditation, not on the contemplation of Our Lord or the meditation of the virtues or events of His Life.)  An extreme example of the occult power of visualization and mentalization occurred several years ago.  At one New Age workshop given by Robert Munroe where participants were trained to go out of their bodies while they slept, eager students were encouraged to first visualize placing all their distractions and cares into a trunk and then lock the trunk.  This way they would be freed from earthly bonds. Unfortunately, a very beautiful woman also attending the workshop, (then located in a closed sleeping room nearby), reported that during repeated nightmarish attempts to go "out-of-body",  she found herself being locked in a trunk and unable to get out.

Transforming Suffering

DISCLAIMER:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.Transforming Suffering

An Interview with Basil Pennington

By Mary NurrieStearns

Basil Pennington is a Cisterian monk whose worldwide ministry focuses on bringing contemplative practices into the lives of spiritual seekers. He is a spiritual retreat leader, lecturer and author. He is most known for his work in the Centering Prayer movement, which is how I was introduced to his ministry. He resides at St. Joseph's Monastery in Spencer, Massachusetts.

Upon the recommendation of a friend, I read his recent book, Lectio Divina, a description of the meditative practice of praying with the Christian scriptures. I came to understand more deeply how sacred texts can bring us to union with the divine and how contemplating inspired words can ease suffering. Realizing that he had a depth of understanding on suffering, its transformation, and the use of meditative practices in easing suffering, I arranged to interview him by telephone. His spiritual presence and depth of understanding were apparent during the interview and are present in the words that follow.

Personal Transformation: Let's begin with the question: What is suffering?

Basil Pennington: First of all, it is important to distinguish between pain and suffering. As the Buddhists make very clear, suffering comes from wanting something and then not having it or feeling that you can't have it. Pain causes suffering because we think we should not have it. We think we should be free from pain, that we should be filled with pleasure. Suffering is when something is going contrary to what we want. That is why some Buddhist schools say the way to get rid of suffering is to get rid of desire. We Christians believe that we are made for God. St. Augustus says, "Our hearts will not rest until they rest in you, O Lord." There is always going to be desire, but happiness can be found in knowing either we have what we want or we are on the way to getting it. We can want to participate in a certain amount of suffering and pain, and find a deep joy, because we have what we want. For example, when a little child suffers terribly, the mother and father want to be with that child. Even though it will cause them to suffer, they want to be with their child in that suffering

PT: If suffering comes from desire, and there is a difference between pain and suffering, do young children suffer or do they have pain?

Pennington: From a very early age, not to want to have pain is there. Pain is alien to us, so there is probably some suffering, but not the same kind of suffering we have later in life. There is suffering because we instinctively do not want pain. Only somebody more mature can see a value in pain or can transcend pain so that it does not cause them suffering.

Children suffer, but not as much as somebody older who has a reflective consciousness and suffers not only the immediate desire to be away from that pain but also suffers from the frustration of their desires.

PT: Let's go back to the example of the parents wanting to be with the child when the child suffers. The parents want to suffer with their beloved.

Pennington: When you willingly enter into suffering, a lot of the suffering is relieved, even though suffering is very much there, because not wanting the suffering increases the suffering. When Christians speak of suffering we think of the crucified Lord and the tremendous sign of His Love for us. He said, "Greater love does no one have than He lay down his life for his friend." Jesus laid down his life in this graphic and dramatic way as a sign of His love, His concern for us. At one level, He suffered a great deal. Part of him did not want to go through that pain and suffering, and there was suffering because he took on all of our sins and stood before the Father in that sinful state. He suffered, but in the end He said, "Not my will but Thy will be done." Love conquered. The Beloved, His Father, wanted Him to go through this as a sign of love for us, and so He went through it. His love and concern kept overcoming his suffering. He was concerned about his executioners and forgave them, He was concerned about those being executed with him and promised them eternal life, He was concerned about His mother and saw that she was cared for. Even while He, at times, on the cross, prayed, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?," He went on to triumph. In the end He gave a magnificent cry and had such a victory over suffering and death that the centurion said, "This must be the Son of God." Suffering can be very much there, but love constantly overcomes it when one embraces that suffering because she wants the fruit that that suffering can bring about.

PT: Love overcomes the suffering—whose love and the love of what?

Pennington: The persons suffering are less conscious of suffering because their concern is their love; they either want to suffer or are so concerned about something else that they don't notice their suffering. The Buddhist idea is to get rid of all desire so you don't notice the suffering. But love can be so great, going back to the parents who want to be with their child in the suffering, their love is so much with the child, that it would be more suffering for them not to be with the child in the suffering. The question is basically, "What do we want?" If we want to be free from all pain, if we want to be free from anything, and it is there, it begins to cause suffering.

PT: Buddhist precepts say it is our nature to suffer.

Pennington: Christians say suffering is an effect of sin. Because we are all sinners we all have suffering in our lives. Once we are able to completely overcome sin, we will no longer have suffering, or the effects of sin, which is in all our lives, because death itself is an effect of sin.

PT: How is death an effect of sin?

Pennington: The understanding of the Judeo Christian tradition is that God first created humans to live eternally, and because they rebelled against God in some way, part of the punishment was that in time they would die.

PT: For the sake of definition, what is sin?

Pennington: We understand sin as something that is contrary to the will of God, whether His will is expressed in explicit commandments, in the Revelation, or in the way God created things and meant them to function, what we call the Natural Law.

PT: Is there anyone who does not suffer?

Pennington: No, everyone has some suffering. Our Lord took on suffering voluntarily. The rest of us sinners suffer for our sins. We aim toward arriving at a state of complete union and communion with God. The result of that would be we would no longer suffer. In deep meditation we are completely free of suffering but we can't abide in that beautiful state all the time.

PT: What is the best medicine for our suffering?

Pennington: In a way, suffering is a sickness and the best medicine for it is love, although love itself can cause suffering.

PT: Does love transform suffering, is suffering sloughed off?

Pennington: Suffering is caused by desire, so when we change our desires, what was originally suffering can become a sort of joy. When someone you love greatly suffers and you enter into their suffering, their suffering remains, but there is a deep joy in sharing suffering, and that solidarity may ease their suffering. In Christian thinking, we believe that Christ's suffering is redemptive and, to the extent in which we can participate in Christ's suffering, our suffering can become redemptive. In our love for our brothers and sisters we are happy to enter into redemptive suffering.

PT: What are the most prevalent ways that suffering is manifested in our individual lives?

Pennington: Many people equate pain with suffering. Because they are so desirous of being free from all pain, pain immediately causes suffering. In meditation you learn to move to another state of consciousness and you leave pain behind, so you gain a growing freedom from pain. In lovingly going out to others, you forget your own pains and sorrows because you are concerned with theirs. For instance, when you visit a retirement home, you find some people in absolute misery. They are taken up with the aches, pains, and limitations that age has brought upon them. They are miserable and they make everyone who comes near them miserable; nobody wants to be near them. Other people who have as much or more aches and pain are outgoing and loving. They are a joy and people like to be with them. Throughout their lives, they gradually schooled themselves, from meditation perhaps and through outgoing love, to leave their pain and suffering behind. For most people, suffering is experienced through pain or frustrations in love—being lonely, not having the persons they love with them, or not having anybody who is in communion love with them.

PT: I appreciate how you link suffering to desire, especially the desire to be free from pain. I thought suffering came more from a sense of separation from a spiritual self or from God.

Pennington: Separation from God is the essential suffering and we call it hell. Many people don't know that much of the emptiness or longing desire that they suffer from is because they are not in touch with God or whatever name they give Him. Separation is a very real form of suffering in this life. Many, many people suffer because there is nobody in their life. They are not in touch with God, with the inner spirit. They are not in touch with their true selves, and they are not really in touch with anybody else.

PT: When we suffer, whether that suffering comes in the form of physical pain, loss of meaning, or alienation, what can we do?

Pennington: Of ourselves, in a certain sense, we can do nothing. The Lord says, "Without me you can do nothing." But, by the grace of God, and coming directly from Him, or through others who reach out to us, we can begin to open up to reality. The reality is that we are infinitely and tenderly held by the divine. We cease to exist if God does not bring us forth every moment in His creative love. We are united with everybody else in our human nature and in our sharing of a divine nature, so we are never really alone, we have all this union and communion. Getting in touch with that reality is the greatest healing. We can adopt meditative practices which enable us to begin that journey of finding our true inner selves or transcending our separate selves and leave behind some of the pain and suffering. Relief occurs only during the time of meditation until, through meditation and the grace of God, we come to experience the reality beyond our individual selves that then flows over into our lives.

PT: What practices transform suffering?

Pennington: Meditation practices are found in all the major traditions. In our Christian tradition are many forms of meditation. One that is growing in popularity, which goes back to ancient times, is today called "Centering Prayer" and originally called "Prayer in the Heart." It is a simple form of meditation where we turn to God, who is within, and rest with Him. He says, "Come to me you who are heavily burdened, I will refresh you." In this practice we leave everything else and rest with Him within, silently uttering one word of love, such as God, peace, Shalom, to quietly stay with Him. That's a simple and ancient Christian form of meditation which is effective and fairly easy to practice.

The meditation practice of Lectio Divina is somewhat different. It is opening to the experience of God. One of the reasons we leave the words in Latin is because simply translated as "Divine Reading" conveys a false idea. I used to annoy my translators when lecturing in different languages around the world by quoting that old Latin phrase, "Traducta estraditor es," meaning that every translator is a traitor. If you translate a word, you leave so much behind and you pick up other meanings.

Lectio does not mean reading in the sense of printed symbols immediately conveying ideas to the intellect. Lectio is hearing a word—whether you see it on the page, pronounce it yourself, hear somebody else speak it, or recall it from your memory—hearing that word in the here and now being spoken by the one speaking it. In Lectio Divina, God himself is speaking. In the practice of Lectio Divina we read sacred texts which we believe have been inspired by God as a means of communicating with us. Lectio Divina is coming into communication with God and letting Him speak to us now, and reveal Himself to us now, through His inspired word. It is a type of transcendental meditation, at the same time it uses the rational mind to work with the words. In a meditation like Centering Prayer, you leave the rational mind and emotions behind, open yourself to rest in the Divine. St. Thomas Aquinas says, "Where the mind leaves off, the heart goes beyond."

PT: Lectio Divina is the practice of praying the scriptures…

Pennington: I am not comfortable with that expression, because praying is a word that has different meanings to people, but it could be a valid way of saying it if praying is understood the right way.

PT: How do we need to understand prayer?

Pennington: It is being with God in His inspired word, meeting God in His inspired word.

PT: I understand Lectio Divina as allowing the Word to take life in us, to move in us, so that it is a living experience of God in our hearts, not just an intellectual exercise.

Pennington: It is letting God be present to us in His spoken word. You could read my books and know a lot about me and my thoughts but you wouldn't really know me. But if we have lunch together and visit for a while, you still hear my words but now it is a real experience of me and afterward, you know me.

PT: I am quoting from your book, "The simple little practice of each day meeting the Lord in His word and receiving from Him a word of life can indeed transform our lives." How does this practice transform our lives?

Pennington: The actual moment, the time of reception, is transformative in that God is present to us, speaking to us, reforming our minds and our hearts, and bringing us into His understanding. In order to remain as much as possible at that level, and there is only so much we can do, we take some particular word that He has given us at that Lectio session and we carry it with us. We come back to it as much as we can through the day. That word makes Him present with us but also invites us into His way of seeing things.

Maybe a concrete example would be helpful. Sometimes God seems very present, sometimes Lectio really speaks the word to you and you come alive with it. Other days, you listen and listen and it is just words you've heard before, and at the end of Lectio you have to choose a word on your own. One morning I was doing my Lectio and the Lord did not seem to turn up, so I chose the words, "I am the way." I let that word be with me when I was not tending to something else. A few hours later I was walking down the road from the monastery to the guest house, saying, "I am the way," and suddenly I realized, I am just not walking down a road, I am walking "in the way," the way to eternal life. Ever since then, when I walk down a street or a corridor, this comes back to me. I am, the whole of my life, is in the way. That word, at that moment, transformed my consciousness about walking through life. When I got to the guest house, a young fellow was waiting for me. The poor guy had about every problem in the book. I sat there listening to him, and I asked, "Lord, what am I gonna say to this fellow?" The Lord poked me in the ribs and I remembered. I told him about the Lord saying, "I am the way." As I shared that word with this fellow you could almost see the burdens falling off his shoulders. He now had a way to go. The word was a living word for him and it really changed his life. I remember, toward the end of that day, climbing the steps to the church. I was exhausted, and as I climbed up the steps, I said, "Lord, how I am going to get through Vespers? I will sing every note flat." Again, the Lord poked me, and I said, "Oh yes, You are the Way." I went up and sang Vespers and had a great time.

PT: If we look at Lectio Divina as a practice to transform suffering, the word for the day is something to hold onto, a word that guides us when we feel overwhelmed or lost.

Pennington: I am doing an anthology of Aelred and I read a passage this morning where Aelred said, "how sad it is for those who don't know that they can go into the field of scriptures when they seek consolation." He uses the image of Isaiah who, after his mother died, went out to the field in sorrow and in the distance saw his beautiful bride coming. He said, "They can go out into the field of scriptures and lift up their eyes and the Lord will come to them, the beautiful bride will comfort them." In our time of suffering and sorrow we can find consolation and divine love in the scriptures, if we know to go there.

PT: This leads to my next question. I am again quoting your book. You say, "We need to separate ourselves from the enslavement of this world's values. We have to be in the world, we cannot be of the world." How can we be in the world, but not of the world?

Pennington: It is taking the world in two different senses. We live in this world, this creation, but are not of this world, in the sense that we don't accept the materialistic outlook and values. We are invited to see the world the way God sees it, as a wonderful evolving process which has been going on for millions of years. Evolution has reached a high level in us humans who can now, through Grace, be transformed to participate in the divine life. We are destined to pass beyond or transcend the materialistic world to enter into the divine level of being in life and love. The revelation of God through the scriptures reminds us, calls us to, and assures us of the help and the means we need to go beyond this material creation and enter fully into the divine reality.

PT: Talk about the four-stage process of lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio in Lectio Divina.

Pennington: In practice, sometimes we separate these phases, although more naturally this process takes place at the same time and in varying degrees, depending on what's happening in the relationship at the moment. Lectio is primarily opening ourselves to let God speak to us, to be present to us in, through His inspired word. You can do Lectio with Nature too. God speaks to us through everything in Creation—the flowers, the wind, the beautiful child. You can do Lectio in a broad sense through everything, but His inspired word is the vehicle of His communication with us. He says: "I no longer call you servants but friends because I make known to you everything known to me." Lectio is meeting the Lord and letting Him speak to us and invite us into deeper relationship with Him, to realize our call and our destiny.

Meditatio, in the earlier Church tradition, is when we take and carry that word as a way of having the Lord as a presence, walking with us throughout the rest of the day, beginning in the session itself. This particular word speaks to us and we let it drill down into our hearts, into the powerful experience of the presence of God and the transforming call.

Oratio is translated as prayer. Here prayer means the complete response of giving oneself to God, trusting God, who has spoken to us through the Lectio. That word has become alive in Meditatio and our response is prayer, a trusting response to His word.

Contemplatio is when we rest together and nothing more needs to be said or even be thought of. It is being together with God. I learned contemplation when I was four years old, sitting with my grandparents on the porch. They sat there for hours saying nothing. I felt wonderful and I loved to sit with them. I realized later that they were with each other in love and that love embraced their little grandchild. I experienced the Contemplatio of love in that presence of my grandparents. So it's coming just to sit with the Lord in that embrace of refreshing love. You can't love what you don't know, and Lectio is where you get to know that loving.

PT: We are talking about intimacy with God. What is your understanding of God?

Pennington: My understanding flows out of the Catholic expression of the Christian faith, of knowing that Jesus is God incarnate. God became man so that He can bring us into the fullness of the divine life. Jesus is the Son of the Father, and they have in them immense love, they embrace each other in Holy Spirit. I experience God as an immensely loving Father. I am very compassionate and sympathetic with women and others who have a problem with that name of Father, but it has been there for me for over sixty years. Also, I was blessed with a very special father, so it makes it easier for me to use Father. I look to Jesus in the gospel to help me understand this tremendously loving Father. As a monk of the Cisterian tradition, I have been fed by St. Bernard of Clairveau, who spent the last eighteen years of his life commenting on the Song of Songs, the beautiful love song in the Hebrew Bible. Their God is very much the lover, and I have grown to enter into that experience with God as an immense mother, an all-embracing love and creative energy. To enter totally and be completely embraced by divine love has all the richness of the very best experience and understanding we can have of personal love, and yet is so much more. Trying to talk about my concept of God is complex and difficult because it is so rich, and yet in experience it is absolutely simple, it is simply a communion in a totally satisfying love.

PT: I am quoting you, "Herein is the true purpose of our practice, to free ourselves from the empirious domination of our own thoughts, passions and desires, to free the spirit for the things of the Spirit." What are the things of the Spirit? I ask this because I see a relationship to things of the Spirit and the reduction of suffering.

Pennington: The first and most fundamental one is reality. The virtue of humility means acceptance of reality. If we are not in reality, then we can't possibly be in the things of the spirit. The reality is that God is good, all loving and that his creation is good. What immediately follows upon the perception of reality is beauty and goodness, and what follows that is love. We love this immense beauty and we love most of all the author of this goodness and beauty, God himself. These are things of the spirit. It is astounding when we start to reflect that God, the source of all goodness, all truth, all beauty, all life, all love, did, in His enormous love, enter into our struggling evolving human reality and accept our suffering. Suffering is a thing of the spirit, too, for that reason. It has been made a vehicle of love and everything can become something of the spirit when it is informed by love.

PT: We have talked about suffering, particularly as we experience and relate to it in our personal lives. Let's shift to social issues. First, I would like you to talk about suffering in a social context. Then I would like your comments on the war in Kosovo and Yugoslavia. Can we have any impact on suffering in Kosovo and Yugoslavia?

Pennington: We all suffer because of our parents. One element of maturing is realizing that our parents were poor stupid sinners like we are. Even if they did their best, they failed in ways. However, we can never thank them enough because they have given us, with God, the gift of life and being. Along with that comes struggling. If that happens in the individual, it also happens in the social level. The failures of many, or the limitations of many, build up and become our inheritance. Kosovo is an example of that. The suffering in the Balkans, except for the short time that Tito held it in an iron grip, goes back centuries to the time when Islam invaded and conquered parts of the area, leaving this heritage of strife. The willingness to live together and share was never engendered, which is what we have to learn to do everywhere in the world today. They are not the only ones who did that. We did it to the Native Americans, the Scotch Presbyterians did it to the Irish Catholics in North Ireland, and the Jews have done it to the Palestinians in the Holy Land. We can find instances of it all over history.

When you take away people's land, when there is not a willingness to live and work together in some way, inevitably there begins to be a minority group and that minority suffers, like the Native Americans in the United States. At some point that minority revolts or seeks violent means, after decades of non-violent means not getting them anywhere. Sometimes just a few turn to violence, but it involves all the others. Then there is the problem of what the oppressive majority does in the face of that violence. They usually react with even more violence. These days the human community steps in to try to relieve that situation, often making it worse before it makes it better.

It is out of the complex heritage of our poor sinful struggling human family that these situations arise. Sometimes media makes us intensely aware of things going on and sometimes it doesn't. There is less awareness of what is going on in Afghanistan and East Africa. When we hear about violent oppression we are confronted as fellow humans. Those of us who are Christians should be conscious of how Christ suffered and died for every human person. Therefore, these people are precious to Christ and they are precious to us.

PT: Then comes the question, what can I do about it?

Pennington: We believe in the power of prayer. God and Christ have told us that our prayer is effective. "Ask and you shall receive." God, who constantly brings this creation forward in his creative love, is affected by what we ask and seek of Him. Prayer is important because of the deep intersolidarity of the human family and the whole cosmos. Creating deeper peace in ourselves creates a level of peace for the whole human family. By giving up violence in our own attitudes, feelings and spirit, and seeking peace, we can become an instrument of peace. We are just one among billions and that may seem little, but sometimes we have to be content with doing the very little that we can. There is always political action. We have to discern, in each case, the appropriate political action we need to take. Certainly we should try to move our own government toward a less violent attitude. It is extremely difficult, when the situation is occurring, to say what we can immediately do, apart from prayer to try to bring peace. We can do whatever is possible to provide relief for the people suffering. This kind of suffering brings us into strong and painful contact with our limitations.

PT: Is there anything that you want to add about suffering?

Pennington: It is extremely important to have hope. The evolution of human consciousness has gone on for hundreds of thousands of years, and is a powerful movement. Divine Creative Energies, which are pure love, are at the base of this movement. Humanity, in its evolutionary course, has gone through terrible periods, yet has moved on and on. We are at a fairly high level of human consciousness in the rational period we live in. More and more people realize that we have to move to a more integrated level. One of the enormous challenges lying ahead of us is the full equality of men and women and the full integration of the masculine and feminine dimensions of our being. This will make an enormous difference in the way the human family lives and functions. Hopefully, we will be much more peaceful. That integration is a coming together as a human family, a human community. We are most empowered and find the greatest possible security and the fullest happiness in community when we embrace each other as brothers and sisters, as children of the Father.

Each of us needs to live the hope, realizing that we are in this wonderful evolving course. Even if there is suffering and struggle in the course of it, the grain of wheat that falls on the ground comes forth with a hundred grains; it is in process.