Turning to Meditation With A Benedictine. Say The Mantra.

 

One of the many books I'm reading.

Finished. Not finished.

There are three books in this volume. I've finished the first, Word into Silence and have just begun the second.

A quick summary: Say the mantra.

There is no need to read further.

John Main was a Benedictine priest who learned mantra meditation from a Swami in Malaya, as it was then, and took up the practice. He stopped in obedience to his superiors in the order only to start again after finding exactly the same teaching in certain Christian writings, most especially laid out in the teachings of John Cassian, from the early 5th century though he learned it from earlier desert fathers who in turn learned it from those before them. I'm an ex-preacher with two theology degrees but I never encountered Cassian in study or churches. There are many things churches and colleges didn't mention.

The mystical, contemplative traditions in Christianity have cropped up over and over again. Mostly they've been either actively ignored or deliberately suppressed in favour of dogma and narrow conceptions of church, god, humanity, Jesus, control, preserving the status quo. They've been reappearing and been rediscovered more in the last sixty years. Unfortunately they're still mostly ignored, sometimes despised as not proper Christianity as they were by me because I'd been taught to despise and are often drowned out by the noise, dogma and pre-modern, pre-enlightenment beliefs of conservative evangelicalism.

Sixty years ago Thomas Merton's Seeds of Contemplation was published. One of the most important books in the little bit of cultural and contemplative spiritual rediscovery that's happened. The following year Honest to God was published, one of the most important books for the development of progressive Christianity. Sixty years on nothing much has changed in many places. Old dogmas die hard.

As a good evangelical I hated both the contemplative and the progressive teachings. Unfortunately. Being able to read and consider both of them thirty years ago would have saved me no end of difficulty and religious damage from a faith that I wish could have died many years sooner. Then I had only the literal and compulsory agreement. Now there is metaphor and the choice to dismiss whatever insults my soul, as Walt Whitman put it.

John Main ended up founding the World Community for Christian Meditation which continues as one of the groups teaching meditation within Christianity, sometimes to those who are no longer or were never Christians. The form of meditation can be found in many traditions across the world. When words and dogmas fall away the human experience is much the same.

I've been finding him and his successor useful and simple teachers this year. True, I have to translate some things away from concepts that no longer serve me and which harmed me. In my Christian life words and the beliefs surrounding those words often led to harm and an inner prison but I've been learning to deconstruct that old faith, just as many others across the world are doing as part of healing from religious trauma. Some stay in a transformed version of Christianity. Some leave. Whatever is best for the wellbeing of the individual is preferred. It's not as if there's a hell that anyone will be sent to and sometimes religion can be a living hell.

I could learn from Hindus, Buddhists, whoever. Mainly I'm reading the more contemplative Christians simply because I know the vocabulary and learning traditions and faith languages that aren't from my cultural background isn't the most helpful course for now. It's not that one is better or worse than another and I'm sure I'll read more widely as time goes on, without neglecting the joys of reading and learning about all kinds of different subjects, and I do appreciate the dialogue between adherents of different traditions. About the most important things they tend to agree. Doctrine separates. In the experience within silence there is unity.

For now though I will simply say the mantra and see what happens beyond amusement at the extent of my own distraction. I am early on the path, thirty years after I could have been. I am sure I bought this book and another I'm reading, New Seeds of Contemplation, thirty years ago and my narrow Christianity prevented my reading them.

Next year will either be filled with meditation or a decision that it is just a temporary foolishness. I do not mind which. Perhaps it's a useful foolishness though in this time while my body isn't allowing a life as active as I'd wish. It's certainly helping psychologically even though mindfulness wrecked me last year.

For now though. Say the mantra. Be still and know. Or not know.

Time will tell. Or not tell. It doesn't much matter as long as I seek to fully live.

It used to matter when a believed there was only one right way and that we'd all face judgement on whether we followed it.

Now is freedom, not imposition. Not on myself. And definitely not on anyone else. No evangelism here. Find what works for you. All this might not even work for me!

Now is a way, knowing there are potentially infinite other ways including joyful atheistic ways far even from saying you're spiritual but not religious, a phrase that on its own means very little at all. Much like words including god and Christianity. Almost meaningless words on their own.

Now is being able to rejoice in many of the ways others follow as long as those ways aren't abusive. There are many abusive ways too. Pluralism is not anything goes.

Now is a 300 page book that could almost be three words. Say the mantra.