Meditation East And West

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shakuhachi
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Shakuhachi said:
Sound like something St John of the Cross would say. Satan can mess with our thoughts but not our Being.
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It’s something Moojibaba would probably say I listen to his guided meditations. He says he has a Christian background but leaves religious concepts out for the most part. He just tries to get to the heart of staying in your heart.
 
These days I have been fascinated by the research. I am currently reading Living Zen Remindfully: Retraining Subconscious Awareness by James H. Austin, M.D.

Nothing spooky about it. Nothing “New Age”, nothing religious . Just brain science. it gets kind of technical and boring but still fascinating at times.

But his main book, the classic reference is
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262011646/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i2
You can get a used paperback for $6.
 
  1. Isaiah 55:8
    For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
  2. Isaiah 55:9
    For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.
Do we idolize our thoughts? Some seem to think it is our thoughts that protect us from the devil. Could anything be more wrong since it is our thoughts that the devil influences?
 
I am on a similar path with similar feelings. I has caused some alienation for me within community, but I certainly wouldn’t change it.
 
This thread reminded me of a good book that I read a few years ago, and am now rereading, Contemplative Prayer for Today: Christian Meditation, by Ernest E. Larkin, O. Carm. (2007, Medio Media).

As you say, this way of prayer is often misunderstood and viewed with skepticism or suspicion, so I was pleased and encouraged that a Carmelite scholar like the late Father Larkin gave it such a ringing endorsement. Rather than being wary of silent or mantra meditation, as some Catholics are due to the similarities with Eastern non-Christian ways of meditation, he wholeheartedly embraced this way of prayer, and even placed it squarely in his own Carmelite tradition.
 
Another thing is that there is so much to do just with training the mind and its attention. What one does when it is honed is a matter of interpretation and choice. It can be pure Being. It can be emptiness. It can be prayer.
 
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