Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Agnus Dei Vol. 6.3 Some Basic Thoughts about Meditation

Some Basic Thoughts about Meditation

How can I live my spiritual practice so that I can see it bearing fruit in my every day life? That is a practical question for those serious about being authentic and honest with the intentions of life, and not just looking for an escape through meditation in an attempt to avoid or deny the difficulties of human existence and the issues of suffering.

This requires a meditation practice of the heart and not just the mind for integrating wholeness throughout the mind-body being that I am. The spiritual practice of meditation requires dedication, energy and commitment. But this is not just a project of the mind in which we strive to think the right thoughts, reject other thoughts and “have faith.” Striving in meditation only increases our problems. Where we have been judgmental, we find that we become even more judgmental of ourselves regarding our spiritual practice. Where we have been cut off from feelings and our own body, striving toward a spiritual goal can heighten a sense of even further separation.

So a meditation practice of the heart helps us in facing, rather than fleeing from, what we may want to avoid or deny: our own greed, self-hatred, anger, fear, pride, self-centeredness. But this heart practice also gives us a hugely valuable tool as a spiritual practice grounded in personal experience, because in faith knowledge or knowing is not intellectual assent but personal experience, knowing from the heart not the head. It is firsthand, not second hand.

Faith is a key component in the spiritual practice of meditation. We sit and do nothing, wasting our precious time, in faith that it is Yeshua/Jesus, the Lamb of God, his Resurrection Life and his own faith that are at work in every aspect of our being. As the Apostle Paul put it in Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live in [the] faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.” Yes, I know that most translations read “I live by faith in the Son of God,” but that seems to be reading into the text that it is my faith. The translators get around the obvious genitive case “of the Son of God” by applying a grammar rule that seems constructed for only a couple of instances in New Testament Greek. But it seems to me that what Paul actually literally meant was that it is indeed Christ’s own faith that is at work in us and by which we live.

See also Philippians 3:9 as another example: “…that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through [the] faith of Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” This is to acknowledge that the faith we may claim as our own is actually a gift from way beyond ourselves. Trusting then that this faith is utterly sufficient for all needs we can then practice meditation with an openness of heart relieved from the burden of our own mental efforts and striving. We can be with our personal experience and direct knowing when we sit in meditation, and be able to face the greed, self-hatred, anger, fear, pride and self-centeredness we otherwise would not be willing to encounter. And the process of healing is at work.

Now when we engage in the spiritual discipline of meditation, we have a way of addressing the war going on within ourselves, the struggle with self regarding addictions, desires, denial, fear of death and isolation. But this is not by forcing ourselves through an act of will, but rather through cultivating a new way of being and relating which lets go of the battle. Facing what is the truth of self is not only an act of courage. It is also an act of compassion, compassion for ourselves. The hard work in practicing this new way of being is facing the truth about ourselves that is uncovered.

To live a life of faith requires us to engage in regular practice of a spiritual discipline such as the Prayer of the Lamb. This is meant to “ripen” us so that we can come face to face with life, be in the present, and be more honest and conscious. Then in meditation a sense of wholeness and abundance can arise within us as we sit, for in that sitting we are open to everything, rejecting nothing. Every possibility is there, nothing questioned, rejected or discredited – emptiness, and also expansion of awareness of and connection with all. Fullness.

Blessings in the Lamb,
Beverly