Father Thomas Keating

I love to read and I spend a lot of time browsing in my favorite book store. It was on one of these browsing excursions many years ago that I just happened across a series of audio cassettes by a man I had never heard of before on the subject of contemplative prayer. The man's name was Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk from St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, CO. At the time I had a meditation practice, Transendental Meditation, which I had been doing for over a decade, but as Ken Wilber has said, "the Judeo/Christian Tradition runs in my DNA", and I was searching for a Christian version of meditation if any such animal even existed. Indeed it does. The cassette tapes were a summary of what is now called Centering Prayer as it is taught by Fr. Keating and described in detail in his book Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospels I purchased the tapes and later the book and listening to them for the first time was one of those wonderful experiences of "coming home". Centering Prayer was the practice I had unconsciously been searching for most of my adult life, and it was delivered to me in a most articulate and compassionate style by a man who now has a special place in my heart. Since that encounter in the book store I have met Fr.. Thomas many times, dined and prayed with him at St. Benedict's, read most of his writings and attended many of his seminars. I once impetuously tried to express by thanks to him with the gift of a sweater which he graciously declined. But I can't think of a living person I am more grateful to and who has played a larger role in my transformation than this special man!

*editor's note

Blogspot only allows so many characters to describe the site and I maxed out before I could properly cite the quotes I used. I couldn't even squeeze in quotation marks. So here they are again, properly cited.

"I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance, to the full, till it overflows."
Jesus of Nazareth
John 10:10b

"Behold, I am doing a new thing! I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. I have called you by your name; you are mine.
Wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy priceless, spiritual wine and milk without money and without price simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing."
Isaiah Son of Amoz
Isaiah 43:20,1 and 55:1

THE VOW: THE CHRIST AND THE BODHISATTVA

"Thus by the virtue collected
Through all that I have done,
May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away!

May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed!

May a rain of food and drink descend
To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger,
And during the eon of famine
May I myself change into food and drink!

May I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all the things they need
And may these be placed close beside them!

Without any sense of loss
I shall give up my body and enjoyments,
As well as my virtues of past, present, future,
For the sake of benefitting all!

By giving up all, sorrow is transcended
And my mind will realize the sorrowless state.
It is best that I now give everything to all beings
In the same way as I shall at death!

Having given this body up
For the pleasure of all living beings,
By killing, abusing, and beating it,
May they always do as they please!

Although they may play with my body,
And make it a source of jest and blame,
Because I have given it up to them,
What is the use of holding it dear?

Therefore I shall let them do anything to it,
As long as it does not cause them harm,
And whenever anyone encounters me,
May it never be meaningless for him!

Whether those who encounter me
Conceive a faithful or an angry thought,
May that always become the source
For fulfilling all their wishes!

May all who say bad things to me
Or cause me any other harm,
And those who mock and insult me
Have the fortune to awaken fully!

May I be Savior of those without one,
A guide for all travellers on the way;
May I be a bridge, a boat, and a ship,
For all who wish to cross the water!

May I be an island for those who seek one,
And a lamp for those desiring light!
May I be a bed for all who wish to rest,
And a slave for all who want a slave!

May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase,
Powerful mantras, and great medicine,
May I become a wish-fulfilling tree,
And a cow of plenty for the world!

Just like space
And the great elements such as earth,
May I always suport the life
Of all the countless creatures!

And until they pass away from pain,
May I also be the source of life
For all the realms of varied beings
That reach unto the ends of space!

Just as the previous Sugatas
Conceived the spirit of enlightenment,
And just as they successively lived
In the Bodhisattva practices,

Likewise for the sake of all that lives
Do I conceive the Spirit of Enlightenment,
And likewise shall I too
Successively follow the practices."

The Christ and the Bodhisattva

TOOLS: BLESSED BE THE LIBRARY

From the title of this blog it will come as no surprise that one of my favorite authors is Ken Wilber. In 1995 he published what is my favorite of his many books, Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. At the time I was living in the country on eight acres of forrest at about 7,000 ft. in the Colorado Rockies. My home was seven miles from the nearest paved road and thirteen miles from the nearest town. In that time the town was still small, but it boasted a modest library with a heritage that went back to the eighteen hundreds. And inside this library was one computer connected to the world wide web, and more importantly the interlibrary loan system that spread across the U.S. and now the world. I was one of those nuts who actually read all of Wilber's notes that accompanied SES and enjoyed them probably as much or more than the actual text itself. An when I say notes, we are talking in the thousands not a hundred or so. From time to time, among these notes would appear a rarely mentioned title covering some small detail of psychology, philosophy, spirituality or any of a number or other esoteric topics. I would hop into my pickup with my labrador and make the half hour drive to the library, this time certain that I had in hand a request the library could not fill. Yet that small rural library never failed me. Without any commentary the librarian simply took my slip of paper and entered the title into her computer and told me I would be receiving a card in the mail when the book arrived. One of life's small pleasures for me at that time was to look inside the front cover of the book as soon as I had it in hand to see how far a voyage it had taken to come to my small town. It was amazing and made me feel more and more grateful for the wonders this institution continued to provide for me. I have never been able to keep up with Wilber's thinking as it seems to morph every year or so, but God bless the library for letting me give my best shot at it!

SACRED TIME

Whenever possible, I take time each summer in August to attend a ten day intensive retreat at St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. A movie director could not have created a more wonderful setting for this Retreat Center that offers a year round schedule of events for those following the practice of Centering Prayer. You sit in your hermatige with a spectacular view of the Elk Range, Snowmass and Capital Peaks both 14,000+ ft. at your doorstep. One of my most memorable times at St. Benedict's was sitting in my cottage in front of the picture window and watching an afternoon thunderstorm build up above the snow capped peaks and finally obscuring my view for the twenty minutes of violence that followed, with strikes of lightening that could be felt in the chest. All this while listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ode To Joy, with my headphones turned all the way up. Very special.

One of the fruits of my meditation that is slowly manifesting in my consciousness is that all time is sacred, not just the hours or days spent in centering prayer or whatever practice you call your own. The eighteenth century Jesuit Jean-Pierre De Caussade wrote beautifully about this in his The Sacrament of the Present Moment. Today a modern day prophet echoes De Caussade in The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Going to Snowmass is a treat I can not always afford myself, but it has helped me in the process of extending the longevity of "quiet mind" that I pursue with my meditation. I offer it for your consideration. A lovelier setting for "quiet mind" I have yet to find.

St. Benedict's Retreat Center

MEDITATION: FINDING YOUR WAY BACK HOME

My first experience with meditation was taking up the practice of TM (Transcendental Meditation) while I was a seminary student in Chicago in the late 70's. My grandmother had sent me some extra money to purchase a typewriter to help me with my school assignments, but instead I used in to pay for the TM class. I can't tell you why I came to that decision other than an intuitive sense that there was something very important going on in the discipline of meditation. At the time I had just been introduced to the now well known book, The Cloud of Unknowing by a Franciscan friend, but no real Christian alternative to TM existed at that time.
So that was my practice for many years. As a result of a trip to the then Soviet Union to study the Christian Orthodox Church I picked up the use of the Jesus Prayer in what would now be termed a form of active prayer as opposed to contemplative meditation. It was many years later while browsing in my favorite bookstore that I chanced across a set of cassette tapes on contemplative prayer by Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk of St. Benedict's Monastery in Snowmass, CO. For me it was truly an experience of "coming home". Christianity is the wisdom tradition I come from and here was a method of meditation brought back to life from The Cloud of Unknowing mentioned above that resonated with the symbols and myths I was so familiar with. So that began a new practice, commonly referred to as Centering Prayer that I have used now for many years. Each of the world's wisdom traditions offer a bounty of alternatives if Centering Prayer does not suit your particular tastes and I affirm them all. This just happens to be the one I decided to adopt for the long walk ahead.
Let me end with some words of Ken Wilber from The Simple Feeling of Being. "This is the beginning of transcendence, of finding your way back home. You realize that you are one with the fabric of the universe, eternally. Your fear of death begins to subside, and you actually begin to feel, in a concrete and palpable way, the open and transparent nature for your own being. Feelings of gratitude and devotion arise in you-devotion to Spirit, in the form of the Christ, or Buddha, or Krishna; or devotion to your actual spiritual master; even devotion in general, and certainly devotion to all other sentient beings. The bodhisattva vow, in whatever form, arises from the depths of your being, and in a very powerful way. You realize you simply have to do whatever you can to help all sentient beings, and for the reason, as Schopenhauer said, that you realize that we all share the same non dual Self or Spirit or Absolute. All of this starts to become obvious-as obvious as rain on the roof. It is real and it is concrete."

I bought this body caliper to keep track of my body fat percentage as a more accurate and kinder measure of my progress with my strength training program. With weightlifting, you can be losing fat while at the same time gaining muscle, so if losing weight is part of the agenda, trips to the scale can be discouraging at times when you are actually making great progress. This model is more accurate that those commonly found in sporting goods stores and I felt it was worth the added expense.

Body Calipers

PHYSICAL PRACTICE

Here is an example in the form of where the rubber meets the road. I have decided to begin a serious program of strength training otherwise know as weight lifting, and I can assure you it involves a sizeable leap of faith on my part to engage in this particular practice. What does lifting weights have to do with spiritual growth?
I had a circular saw that I loved, but no longer used, sold it to a friend and used the money to purchase a starter set of dumbbells. I work out at home primarily because of my inclinations toward being a loner, and the fact that financially it is beyond my means for the time being to join a club. I also have taken on the practice of changing my diet. This adventure has been suprisingly painless and I have noticed almost immediate results. The weight training is another story. I am still learning what a lateral fly is as opposed to a one armed row; how many sets to perform with how many reps per set, and how much weight to use for each exercise. There is a learning curve, but I am making slow progress. I follow Framework 4 on p. 239 in Stuart McRobert's book referenced below. And I keep detailed records in his companion volume which I recommend. In addition, for cardiovascular work I walk usually daily for thirty minutes at a moderately brisk pace. I eat six small meals a day, three of the normal type and three liquid shakes. I try to get a least eight hours of sleep each night, and no longer feel guilty it I get more. As described in the above mentioned weight routine, I work out only twice a week for about forty five minutes to an hour at most. I approached this project with naive nonchalance in the beginning, but now have great respect for anyone who succeeds in pulling off such a major life style change as this involves. I am committed and will persevere, but this is the source of my lament from a previous post; this work is HARD!

Dumbbells

THE ICON: THE THUMBPRINT OF GOD

There are five aspects that comprise the integral map I will be using; quadrants, levels, lines, states, and types. To qualify as an integral map each of these aspects must be addressed concurrently in one way or another. For a novice such as myself, another way of describing the map is the short form; body, mind, and spirit. My task is to develop a practice comprised of certain disciplines (injunctions) that address each area of my life as a vehicle of transformation, enabling me to realize the promise of a fuller and more meaningful life.

To aid the traveler on the integral path it is helpful to have images, charts, graphs and pictures as a means of orienting yourself and plotting the route for the next day's leg of the hike. But the bases that need to be covered are of such growing complexity, two dimensional or even three dimensional depictions are pushed to their limits. I will use them in the future as they have helped me, but we do well to remember that the map is not the terrain. The wind blows, breathes, where it will; and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Another tool that can help us is the icon, with a long history and prominent place among the wisdom traditions of the world. In contrast to the signs and pointing out directions on our map, the icon is the child of symbol. The sign is the straight line on our map. The icon is the voice of the terrain as best as we can depict it in form, with all the power and mystery that we deeply sense we are in the presence of.

And Joseph awoke from his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.

My gift to you is an icon for the integral path,a twenty first centruy madala; the fractal image above. It derives from the Mandelbrot set, a simple mathematical equation; Z=Z2+c, where the = sign includes arrows at the end of each line, making it an iteration; a math problem from your geometry teacher that goes on with out end, literally to infinity, and you fall asleep with your head on the desk. Discovered on March 1, 1980 by Dr. Benoit B. Mandelbrot, it brought with its arrival very concrete consequences, now used by such global giants as Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Virgin and Multicom to mention just a sampling, its most notable application in the field of fractal image compression systems. I could go on and on, but refer you to the reference listed below. Give yourself the present of the video, "Fractals; The Colors of Infinity" and soak up the wonder and enchantment that life holds for those with ears to hear and eyes to see.

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."

Albert Einstein


http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fractals_the_colors_of_infinity/

THE BODY

"I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure."

Eric Liddell
Chariots of Fire

Do you not know that your body is the temple, the very sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who lives within you, whom you have received as a gift from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price, purchased with a preciousness and paid for, made his own. So then, honor God and bring glory to Him in your body.

THE MAP

"Behold the eloquence of the spiral. Consider the internal integrity, the elegant architecture. Everything connects to everything else. In your mind's eye picture the beauty of a sea shell; with your mind's eye listen to its roar. Now imagine a Thanksgiving banquet table. Out from the spiraling cornucopia, the mythical horn of plenty , pours the abundance of harvest. Next, think of the night sky. Look out into the cosmos and imagine Earth's place in it, a little hanger-on following one of the billions of swirling spots in the Milky Way, itself a swirling blob among billions."
Spiral Dynamics.

The maps I will be using on my explorations were given to me as a gift. Maps are scarce these days because the new land is virgin and mostly unexplored and unmapped. I am deeply grateful for these priceless pieces of paper with their crucial signs and directions for my journey. The words "thank you" seem most inadequate. Nevertheless, from deep within my heart, mind and soul, thank you to;