Christian Meditation in Asia

Meditatio Newsletter - december 2013 1 Registered Charity No. 327173 - I N T E R N AT I O N A L E D I T I O N , Vol. 37, No 4; December 2013 Christian Meditation in Asia John Main Seminar with over 400 participants in Hong Kong, the new Meditation Centre in Indonesia and a day of interfaith dialogue in Malaysia John Main Seminar in Hong Kong Christian Meditation Centre, Indonesia Interfaith Dialogue, Malaysia 2Laurence Freeman 9 News 11Infocus The human birth of wisdom Breaking the Cycle of David Rees writes about in the Christmas Story and the Violence: a Meditatio his pilgrimage into silence training of minds and hearts Seminar in Mexico and stillness This issue This through meditation 2 Meditatio Newsletter - december 2013 A letter from Laurence Freeman, OSB Whenever wisdom guides us it tion not on any impending fear or his often now interrupted in their trans- takes us to an encounter at the heart own sense of loss. His compassion and mission, that capture our imagination of reality. At first the way it leads us can his wisdom both flow from the same and emotions. The family seeking shel- seems a bit off-centre, not what we ex- source and merge in the sharpness ter. A baby born in an animal feeding pected and yet strangely recognizable and generosity of his careful words. trough. Three exotic visitors. Angels. just for being so true and balanced. In Unexpectedly, too, he replies not with Shepherds. A silent mother and pro- this way we see how wisdom is more the sententious moralising that his dis- tective father. Emigration to a safer than common sense. We invariably ciples may even have piously wanted. country. These symbols come together meet this distinction in the wisdom of Instead, he speaks from experience – as a story that bears constant re-tell- the desert monks whose spiritual de- all the more authoritatively because ing and pondering. But at its heart is scendants we are. it was personal experience but experi- this undisputed joy that accompanies When Abba Romanus was dying ence of what he had shared with them birth even in the most difficult circum- his disciples gathered round him and over a lifetime. It was practical wis- stances, and even if only for a moment asked, ‘how should we conduct our- dom, first-hand not remembered from before the cares and fears of life return. selves?’ Its natural enough to want to books or articles. It was personal not With each new life hope is reborn and extract wisdom from those whom we egocentric. And it gave them pause for the world is changed. see to possess it, in the same way that thought and something to think long The Magi came to do homage, lay- thirsty people will squeeze water from ing down their millennia of accumu- a likely source. What were they asking? If you cannot read the lated wisdom before the Word be- Were they saying ‘what are we going to self-authenticating truth come flesh. They did not ask advice, as do when you, our teacher, have gone?’ in a new-born child’s Romanus’ disciples did of their dying Or simply ‘give us some tips we can say master. If you cannot read the self- we got from you as your last words?’ presence there is no point authenticating truth in a new-born Until the heart is truly opened beyond in asking questions about child’s presence there is no point in the grasping of the ego, there is always asking questions about its meaning. some self-centredness in the ques- its meaning. The shepherds, like Mary and Joseph tions of a disciple and even in his way and deeply about – how to avoid the before, were disturbed and scared, by of serving his teacher. great temptation and pitfall of the ide- the own special annunciation from The dying abba’s reply is a mas- alistic mind - sadness and resentment the angel that a momentous event ter’s shrewd and gentle response to at failure. had occurred so near them. They were the mixed motives of his disciples: it * marginal people, untouchable, ex- succeeds in meeting the questioners When a child is safely brought into cluded from normal society. Why, in all where they are at but without com- the world, after months of tests and the lopsidedness of wisdom, should promising his own integrity. Jesus re- the parental struggle with fears that they be the first to hear the news that plied to all tricky questions in this way. can never be rationalised away, there would for the rest of time penetrate Romanus says simply (and at first sight erupts a very rare kind of joy. A joy that the minds, hearts and social organiza- in an off-centre way): ‘I do not think is entirely contained in the event. Yet it tion of the ‘whole people’? that I have ever told one of you to do is without – as yet – any possessiveness * something without having first made or any projection of hopes born from So the Christmas story, in its charm the decision not to get angry if what our own failures onto the new life that and terror, enters the memory of the I have said were not done. And so we has so far known only success, having human race. If we find it dull or dead have lived in peace all our days.’ simply succeeded in being born. This we are reading it with dead eyes, as The brilliance of his mind and the primal joy of new life is at the heart of a past event or as a relic of a dying gentleness of his wisdom here is worth the Christmas story. religion. The connection with the in- reflecting on. We see, even on his Religion is more concerned with terior birth of wisdom has been lost. deathbed, how clear, fresh and calm symbols than dogma. And so, in the The story touches awake the deepest is his mind. His reply is focused on Christmas season it is a set of symbols, concerns and hopes embedded in the those who are asking him the ques- passed down the centuries though human mind. Listening to it clarifies Meditatio Newsletter - december 2013 3 the mind and releases its twin rivers of a new era of human self-awareness it ized by a variety of scientific approach- wisdom and compassion. From his first is that so many people now are seek- es. The most prominent of these came silence Jesus awakens us to the meaning out the training that meditation in the cultural revolution of the sixties ing of this simple, irreducible human- once offered to a few. We also know with Transcendental Meditation – from ness. that children, at their own level of the Hindu tradition ‘secularized’ and As Romanus taught in his last words, awareness, can and like to meditate. In given a kind of scientific explanation. becoming (truly) human is a life-time’s Sydney a few weeks ago I listened to Most recently, Mindfulness Training, as training. This is the essential meaning Cardinal Pell, one of the Pope Francis’s pioneered by Jon Kabat-Zing and oth- of our lives, just to be wholly human. inner group of reforming Cardinals, ers has brought ‘meditation’ into the Within it, though, there are many other speak to a large gathering of teach- institutional mainstream with medi- kinds of training we do – learning to walk and talk, to read and write and pass exams, to handle emotions and desires, to make and repair commit- ments and to play our multi-faceted role in life with changing job descrip- tions. All these secondary trainings en- hance or improve us. We need all the help we can get to master these trainings. But the essential training is not to improve but simply to be our selves. Isn’t this why the story of Jesus begins with seeing him as a baby that can do nothing except be himself. The paradox is that this symbol of a totally dependent and helpless infant eventually becomes the great meta- phor of human maturity at its peak. ‘Unless you become like a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of God.’ This doesn’t mean what it says – remain dependent and helpless. Yet it ers that he had invited me to speak to cal and commercial credibility. As TM means exactly what it says. about meditation. He was urging them secularized dhyana Hindu meditation, This becomes absurdly and obvi- to build meditation integrally into the Mindfulness secularized sattipatthana ously clear as soon as we have begun children’s education. A few days later one of the Buddha’s eightfold path. to develop the training of the mind, he did the same talking with a group Many would say Buddhism needs less including the heart, that we call medi- of his priests about clerical spiritual- ‘secularisation’ than other religions be- tation. This used to be seen as a high- ity. The contemplative dimension of cause it has a fundamentally rationalis- level, late-entry practice for a few peo- religion was clearly back, at least in his tic basis and is therefore already closer ple who had preserved the necessary vision, at the centre of the church’s life. to the spirit of the western scientific passion for truth and freedom of will And when this happens, when the off- method. In both these movements re- to embrace it. The mainline Church centredness of wisdom is rebalanced, ligious wisdom is kept outside the evi- thought contemplation was reserved everything looks different, clearer and dence-based results of the technique.

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