How to practice contemplative meditation

Give God 20 minutes.

When Father William Meninger left his post in the diocese of Yakima, Washington, in 1963, to join the Trappists of St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, he said to his mother: "Here, Mom. I will never be out again. "

It wasn't exactly like that. One day in 1974 Meninger dusted off an old book in the monastery library, a book that would place him and some of his fellow monks on a completely new road. The book was The Cloud of Unknowing, an anonymous 14th-century manual on contemplative meditation. Meninger says, "I was amazed at the practicality of it."

He began to teach the method to priests retreating to the abbey. “I have to confess,” says Meninger, “that when I started teaching it, because of my training, I didn't think it could be taught to lay people. When I say it now, I'm so embarrassed. I can't believe I was so ignorant and stupid. It didn't take long before I started to realize that this was not just for monks and priests, but for everyone. "

His abbot, Father Thomas Keating, has widely spread the method; through him it has become known as "centering prayer".

Now at St. Benedict Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado, Meninger takes four months a year from his monastic life to travel the world teaching contemplative prayer as presented in The Cloud of Unknowing.

She also had the bright idea of ​​teaching her mother once, while she was on her sick bed. But that's another story.

How did you become a Trappist monk after being a diocesan priest?
I have been very active and successful as a parish priest. I had worked in the diocese of Yakima with Mexican and Native American migrants. I was a vocation director for the diocese, responsible for the Catholic Youth Organization, and somehow I felt I was not doing enough. It was quite difficult, but I loved it. I was not dissatisfied at all, but I felt that I had to do more and I didn't know where I could do it.

In the end it occurred to me: I could have done more without doing anything, so I became a Trappist.

You are credited with the rediscovery of The Cloud of Unknowing in the 70s and then begins what later became known as the centering prayer movement. How did it happen?
Rediscovery is the right word. I trained in a time when contemplative prayer was simply unheard of. I was in a Boston seminary from 1950 to 1958. There were 500 seminarians. We had three full-time spiritual directors, and in eight years I have never heard once
the words "contemplative meditation". I mean it literally.

I have been pastor for six years. Then I entered a monastery, St. Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts. As a novice, I was introduced to the experience of contemplative meditation.

Three years later, my abbot, Father Thomas Keating, told me to make retreats to parish priests who visited our retreat house. It was really a pure accident: I found a copy of The Cloud of Unknowing in our library. I removed the dust and read it. I was amazed to find that it was literally a manual on how to do contemplative meditation.

This was not how I learned it at the monastery. I learned it through the traditional monastic practice of what we call lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio: reading, meditation, emotional prayer and then contemplation.

But then in the book I found a simple method that was teachable. I was just amazed. I immediately started teaching it to the priests who came to retreat. Many of them had gone to the same seminar that I did. The training had not changed a bit: the lack of understanding of contemplation was there from the oldest to the youngest.

I started teaching them what I call "contemplative prayer according to The Cloud of Unknowing", what later became known as "centering prayer". This is how it started.

Can you tell us a bit about The Cloud of Unknowing?
I think it is a masterpiece of spirituality. It is a XNUMXth century book written in Middle English, the language of Chaucer. This is actually what prompted me to choose this book from the library, not because of its content, but because I loved the language. Then I was simply amazed to find out what it contained. Since then we have had any number of translations. What I like most is the William Johnston translation.

In the book an older monk is writing to a novice and instructing him in contemplative meditation. But you can see that it is actually targeting a wider audience.

The third chapter is the heart of the book. The rest is just a comment on chapter 3. The first two lines of this chapter say, “This is what you need to do. Raise your heart to the Lord with a delicate agitation of love, desiring it for his good and not for his gifts. ”The rest of the book disappears.

Another paragraph of chapter 7 says that if you want to take all this desire for God and summarize it in one word, use a simple word of a syllable, such as "God" or "love", and let it be the expression of your love. for God in this contemplative prayer. This is prayer centered, from beginning to end.

Do you prefer to call it centering the prayer or the contemplative prayer?
I don't like "centering prayer" and I have rarely used it. I call it contemplative meditation according to The Cloud of Unknowing. You can't avoid it now: it's called centering prayer. I have given up. But it seems a little tricky.

Do you think people who have never done this kind of prayer are hungry, even though they may not know it?
Hungry for it. Many have already done the readings, the meditation and even the oratio, the affective prayer - prayer with a certain verve, a spiritual intensity that derives from your meditation, which derives from your lectio. But they have never been told that there is a next step. The most common answer I get when I hold a parish-centered prayer seminar is: "Father, we didn't know it, but we were waiting for it."

See this oratio in many different traditions. My understanding is that the oratio is the door of contemplation. You don't want to be in the doorway. You want to go through it.

I have had a lot of experience with this. For example, a Pentecostal pastor was recently retired to our monastery in Snowmass, Colorado. Seventeen years old a shepherd, a truly holy man, had problems and did not know what to do. What he said to me was, "I was telling my wife that I could no longer speak to God. I have spoken to God for 17 years and have led other people."

I immediately recognized what was going on. The man had crossed the threshold and was in the silence of contemplation. He didn't understand it. There was nothing in his tradition that could explain it to him. His church is all praying in tongues, dancing: all this is good. But they forbid you to go further.

The Holy Spirit doesn't pay much attention to that ban and led this man through the door.

How would you start teaching someone like that about contemplative prayer?
This is one of those questions like, “You have two minutes. Tell me all about God. "

Typically, follow the instructions of The Cloud. The words "a sweet mix of love" are important, because this is the oratio. German mystics, women like Hildegard of Bingen and Mechthild of Magdeburg, called it a "violent kidnapping". But when he reached England, it had become "a sweet mix of love".

How do you lift your heart to God with a sweet stirring of love? It means: to perform an act of the will to love God.

Do it only to the extent possible: love God for himself and not for what you get. It was Saint Augustine of Hippo who said - sorry for the chauvinist language - there are three types of men: there are slaves, there are merchants and there are children. A slave will do something out of fear. Someone can come to God, for example, because he is afraid of hell.

The second is the merchant. He will come to God because he has made an agreement with God: "I will do this and you will take me to heaven". Most of us are merchants, he says.

But the third is the contemplative. This is the son. "I will do it because you are worthy of loving." Then raise your heart to God with a sweet agitation of love, desiring it for his good and not for his gifts. I'm not doing it for the comfort or peace I get. I'm not doing it for world peace or to cure Aunt Susie's cancer. All I am doing is simply because God is worth loving.

Can I do it perfectly? No. I'm doing it in the best possible way. That's all I have to do. Then express that love, as chapter 7 says, with a word of prayer. Listen to that word of prayer as an expression of your love for God. I suggest you do it for 20 minutes. Here it is.

What is important in the word of prayer?
The Cloud of Unknowing says, "If you wish, you can make that wish come with a word of prayer." I need it. I assume, however holy it is, that if I need it, surely you need it [laughs]. In fact, I have only spoken to a dozen people, among the thousands I have taught, who don't need a word of prayer. The Cloud says, "This is your defense against abstract thoughts, your defense against distraction, something you can use to beat the sky."

Many people need something to understand. It helps you bury distracting thoughts.

Should you also pray separately for other things, like world peace or Aunt Susie's cancer?
The cloud of ignorance insists a lot on this: that you have to pray. But it also insists that at the time of your contemplative meditation, you don't. You are simply loving God because God is worthy of love. Do you have to pray for the sick, the dead and so on? Of course you do.

Do you think contemplative prayer is more precious than prayer for the needs of others?
Yes. In Chapter 3 The Cloud says: "This form of prayer is more pleasing to God than any other form, and is more good for the church, for the souls of purgatory, for missionaries than for any other form of prayer." she says, "Even though you may not understand why."

Now see, I understand why, so I tell people why. When you pray, when you reach all the capacities you have to love God for no further reason, then you embrace God, who is the God of love.

As you embrace God, you are embracing all that God loves. What does God love? God loves all that God has created. Everything. This means that God's love extends to the maximum limits of an infinite cosmos that we cannot even understand, and God loves every little atom of it because he created it.

You cannot do contemplative prayer and voluntarily, deliberately clinging to the hatred or forgiveness of a single being. It is a clear contradiction. This does not mean that you have totally forgiven every possible infringement. It does mean, however, that you are in the process of doing so.

You act voluntarily to do it because you cannot love God without loving every single human being you have ever faced. You don't have to pray for anyone during your contemplative prayer because you are already embracing them without limitation.

Is it more precious to pray for Aunt Susie or is it more precious to pray for all that God loves - in other words, creation?

Many people probably say, "I could never sit still for so long."
People use a Buddhist expression, "I have a monkey mind." I get it from people who have been introduced to center prayer but not from good teachers, because that's not the problem. I tell people at the beginning of the seminar that I will guarantee that the problem will be solved with a few simple instructions.

The point is that there is no perfect meditation. I've been doing it for 55 years, and am I able to do it without a monkey mind? Absolutely not. I have been distracting thoughts all the time. I know how to deal with them. Successful meditation is a meditation that you have not abandoned. You don't have to be successful, because in reality you won't.

But if I try to love God for the 20 minute period or whatever my time limit is, I'm a total success. You don't have to be successful according to your notions of success. The Cloud of Unknowing says, "Try to love God." Then he says, "OK, if it's too difficult, pretend you're trying to love God." Seriously, I teach it.

If your criteria for success are "peace" or "I get lost in the void", none of these jobs. The only criterion for success is: "Did I try it or did I pretend to try?" If I did, I'm a total success.

What's special in a 20 minute time frame?
When people start for the first time, I suggest trying it for 5 or 10 minutes. There is nothing sacred in about 20 minutes. Less than that, you could be a joke. More than that it could be an excessive burden. Seems to be a happy medium. If people have extraordinary difficulties, they are exhausted by their problems, The Cloud of Unknowing says: “Give up. Lie down before God and shout. "Change your prayer word to" Help ". Seriously, this is what you should do when you're exhausted from trying.

Is there a good place to do contemplative prayer? Can you do it anywhere?
I always say that you can do it anywhere, and I can say it from experience, because I did it in bus depots, on Greyhound buses, on airplanes, in airports. Sometimes people say, "Well, you don't know my situation. I live right in the center, the carts and all the noise pass. "Those places are as good as the quiet of a monastic church. In fact, I'd say the worst place to do this is a Trappist church. The benches are made to make you suffer, not to pray.

The only physical instruction provided by The Cloud of Unknowing is: "Sit comfortably". So, not uncomfortable, nor on your knees. You can easily teach how to absorb noise so that it doesn't interfere. It takes five minutes.

You reach out figuratively to embrace all that noise and carry it inside as part of your prayer. You're not fighting, see? It is becoming part of you.

For example, once in Spencer, there was a young monk who was really having difficulties. I was in charge of the young monks and thought, "This guy needs to get out of the walls."

The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were in Boston at the time. I went to the abbot, Father Thomas, and said, "I want to take Brother Luke to the circus." I told him why and, a good abbot, he said: "Yes, if you think that's what you should do".

Brother Luke and I are gone. We got there early. We were sitting in the middle of a row and all the activity was continuing. There were bands tuning in, and there were elephants elephants, and there were clowns blowing up balloons and people selling popcorn. We sat in the middle of the line and meditated for 45 minutes without any problems.

As long as you're not physically interrupted, I think every place is appropriate. Although, I must admit, if I am traveling in a city, a large city and want to meditate, I will go to the nearest episcopal church. I won't go to a Catholic church because there is too much noise and activity. Go to an episcopal church. There is no one and they have soft benches.

What if you fall asleep?
Do what The Cloud of Unknowing says: Thank God. Because you didn't sit down to fall asleep, but you needed it, and therefore God gave it to you as a gift. All you do is, when you wake up, if your 20 minutes are not over, you go back to your prayer and it was a perfect prayer.

Some say that contemplative prayer is only for monks and nuns and that lay people will rarely have time to sit down and do this.
It's a shame. It is a fact that monasteries are a place where contemplative prayer has been preserved. In reality, however, it has also been preserved by an infinite number of lay people who have not written books on mystical theology.

My mother is one of these. My mother was a contemplative long before she ever heard of me, no matter how I taught contemplative prayer. And she would die and never say a word to anyone. There are countless people who are doing it. It is not limited to monasteries.

How did you find out that your mother was a contemplative?
The very fact that when he died at 92, he had consumed four pairs of rosaries. When she was 85 and very sick, the abbot allowed me to visit her. I decided that I would teach contemplative prayer to my mother. I sat by the bed and held her hand. I explained very gently what it was. He looked at me and said, "Dear, I've been doing it for years." I did not know what to say. But she is no exception.

Do you think that's true for many Catholics?
I really do.

Have you ever heard of God?
I wish I could quit. I was once giving refuge to a Carmelite community. The nuns were coming, one by one, to see me. At one point the door opened and this old woman came in, with a stick, bent over - she couldn't even look up. I found out he was around 95. I waited patiently. As she was limping across the room, I had a feeling that this woman would prophesy. I had never had it before. I thought, "This woman will speak to me on behalf of God." I just waited. She sank painfully into the chair.

She sat there for a minute. Then he looked up and said, “Father, everything is a grace. Everything, everything, everything. "

We sat there for 10 minutes, absorbing it. I have unpacked it ever since. This happened 15 years ago. This is the key to everything.

If you want to say it this way, the worst thing that ever happened was the human being who killed the son of God, and that was the greatest grace of all.