Christian Centering Prayer Archives

November 28, 2017 By Admin

Zen Buddhist Emptiness and Christian Centering Prayer

Recently Ken McLeod presented “Freedom of Choice” as a way to differentiate forms of spiritual materialism and emotional escapism from serious Buddhist practice. He noted The Heart Sutra negations. There is no attainment for bodhisattvas as they pursue the perfection of wisdom. Ultimately, everything is empty. He refers to the illusion of choice as a hindrance to freedom. The more options we have the greater energies, angst, and preferences we experience. These are ways out of serious, dedicated meditation. When we become safely lost in our soothing practice, we may tend to withdraw from the challenges of everyday life in our chaotic world. Pursuit of preferred options and alternatives may soothe us but it also limits our mind training – purified attention and concentration on one thing in the here and now of presence. Having less options on our personal spiritual paths will ensure that we encounter the painful realities of our own emotional lives. If we succeed in this encounter, we may experience healing. What we need is Suzuki Roshi’s “way-seeking mind.” In such ways the Zen meditation may provide direct experiences of emptiness.

David Frenette’s book, The Path of Centering Prayer, notes many details on this practice. Perfected practice in Centering Prayer may open up greater divine love and allow experiences of emptiness. To maintain open curiosity for readers, I will use the words higher power to replace references to god/God. Centering prayer is part of the long, honored Christian mystical tradition. Simplicity is its core, and this simplicity allows greater and greater connection to higher power. It is the presence of higher power as we sit that influences us positively. Higher power presence allows for a life of improved unity and togetherness with all. Centering prayer as a daily practice opens us up to positive attitudes about process and allows deeper internal experience. Gentle receptivity of radical acceptance may open up thoughts, emotions even behaviors; when we experience these as interferences, simply go back to effortless, calm breathing and a selected sacred word. Focus on these as your meditation deepens. If we are successful, we will experience a deep connection to higher power and ultimate emptiness of it all. As our skills improve, we will notice sacred experiences in the words we use, in our breath, and in our spirit. A loving friendship with higher power and self and others may emerge over time. We will use Thomas Keating’s instructions. Recognize he is a priest and a psychologist.

Now we will practice Thomas Keating’s Centering Prayer process on higher power and emptiness. For even more simplicity I have modified a few steps.

Sit quietly with your eyes closed.
Hold an intention to contact higher power and to practice regularly.
Practice counts; there is no perfect way to do this. Just keep practicing.
Select a sacred word (mantra) as your symbol of your spiritual connection with higher power.
As you calm and deepen your breath, say your sacred word over and over again.
When thoughts, emotions, pain, suffering, even behaviors interfere with your practice simply DO NOT engage in story-lines and bring attention back gently to breath and word. Repeat this process over and over again.
Work to let go of your stream of consciousness. Let go of past and future. Stay in the present.
Maintain a friendly, loving attitude to whatever comes up to distract you. Continue to breathe and say your sacred word.
Let go of your false self by misidentifying with ego-self, family, groups, ethnic and racial roots. Be one!
Continue to practice by just be a human being with compassion and love. Let the higher power do its work for you. As you meditate deepen, deepen and deepen.

For more information refer to Keating, T. (1986, 2006). Open-Mind, Open-Heart. St.Benedict’s Monastery/Continuum Books. Frenette, D. (2017). The Path of Centering Prayer. Sounds True. McLeod, K. (2017). “Freedom of Choice.” Tricycle Community. Retrieved 9-21-17. Bourgeault, C. (2016). The Heart of Centering Prayer… Boston,MA: Shambhala Publications.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Taoist Meditation on Healing Colors of Light In Taoist views the four seasons (five if you include “Indian Summer”) are strongly associated with emotional moods and bodily energies. Healing colored light is also part of this viewpoint. For each of the colors we use, follow the process noted below. Sit quietly and breathe calmly. Circle […]

Cognitive Defusion in Mindfulness Psychotherapy A well-meaning therapist might ask: What is cognitive defusion. Well this practice, as used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is beyond cognitive restructuring of cognitive distortions and automatic negative thoughts ( I call “Red Ants”). The practice concretely de-literalizes the personal truth and meaning of unhelpful, repetitive thoughts and words. […]

Intervention Skills to Calm Your Anxiety It is estimated that approximately 40,000,000 American suffer from an anxiety disorders, especially generalize anxiety and panic disorder. Sometimes general “talk therapy” fails to help improve your condition; you may need cognitive-behavioral therapy with research-based mindfulness skills or dialectical behavior therapy. CBT, MBSR, ACT and DBT are the evidence-based, […]

Chronic Pain and Doing Body Scanning Although doing body scans cannot fully relieve your pain, it may help you manage it better. If your pain is serious and chronic you need to work with a qualified pain management professional, who will use both psychological and medical interventions. Note that a recent issue of Consumer Reports reviewed […]

Quintiliani’s Brief Life Experience Screening Years ago, when I received a rather large number of managed care referrals for adolescent “treatment failures” and their families, I soon realized that typical screening, assessment and therapy was NOT working well. I tried so, so hard to reach these young people – all experiencing extreme psychological suffering with […]

Very “SAD” Facts about the Addictions Field A recent issue of the Addictions Professional presented very disturbing news about how clinicians in the field are doing. NOT WELL! Addictions clinicians treat people with addictions but mainly people with co-occurring disorders – addictions with trauma, depression, anxiety and/or eating disorders. Often there is also a co-occurring medical […]

Trauma Therapy: Basics from Some Expert Clinicians For many years trauma therapist have used many approaches in their psychotherapy. Most of these approaches lack strong empirical support for outcomes, and are often the “favorites” of these therapists. One might wonder what benefits therapists derive from using approaches that are not evidence-based. If an intervention fails […]

Insights – Vipassana Mediation There will be future, more advanced vipassana meditations posted on the site. For now, however, we will end this series with a final post about the insights often experienced via vipassana meditation. We learn via experience about impermanence, suffering and its causes, no-self, emptiness and many other things – or, perhaps, […]

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

Yoga Nidra and Your Inner Peace Yoga Nidra will allow you to relax like you may never have relaxed before. Follow these modified instructions for your best relaxed state. If at any time during Yoga Nidra you feel uncomfortable, simply stop and breathe in a manner that restores equilibrium. Although this uncomfortable outcome is highly […]

Using Meditation, Yoga and Breathing… You can Anchor your Choice Making A key outcome of serious practice is that you now reduce auto-pilot reactivity to people, places, things, emotions, sensations, craving, and memories and at the same time notice your mind CAN BE in charge of your brain-body reactions. Yes, regular daily mindfulness practice allows […]

Brain Habits – Helpful Vs Unhelpful Nora Volkow, MD, Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse ( video below) has noted that people suffering from addictions may experience some dysfunction in in brain areas related to personal motivation, reward recognition, and inhibitory controls. Neuroscientists have utilized various brain imaging techniques to document this possibility in addicted individuals. These […]

Concentration, Contentment, and Loving Kindness I have written various entries on concentration meditations in prior posts. Yes, concentration meditation is beyond pure mindfulness meditation. Here I will present briefly two other forms of meditation that are quite intentional and also beyond mindfulness: contentment and loving kindness meditations. Let’s begin with intentional meditation of contentment. Contentment […]

The Principles of Nature and Natural Healing This is an advanced post on Eastern views of healing. From ancient shamanic traditions all the way to today’s AMA approved procedures in energy medicine, healers have been trying to discover and integrate the foundations of nature into healing. This reality exists from shamanic rituals all the way […]

Building Emotional Resilience On a personal note, right now I am suffering. Its April 15th and I have a terrible viral infection (sore throat, chest congestion, and fever). I feel weak and miserable. Perhaps all that frigid air we endured in New England this Winter also kept infectious “stuff” under control for a while. However, […]

Money and Electronic “Friends” Are They Real ? The Sutta Nipata (4.15, Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) noted “Seeing people floundering like fish in small puddles, competing with one another…fear came into me. The world was entirely without substance….Wanting a haven for myself, I saw nothing that wasn’t laid claim to. Seeing nothing in the end but […]

The Reality of Experience What is deep mindfulness? Deep mindfulness is the concentrated awareness of all experiences, preferably without evaluating as pleasant or unpleasant. Deep mindfulness is pure awareness as it becomes part of personal consciousness. We humans, however, are always evaluating our experiences and phenomena as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant – often getting hooked […]

Tibetan Tantric Meditation on Selflessness Mahamudra meditations tend to unify emptiness and bliss, and represent many core principles of Tibetan Buddhism. Nagarjuna’s text on The Middle Way played an important and influential role in these practices. Selflessness of persons and selflessness of phenomena are highly represented in noted meditation practices. Therefore,, this can be considered […]

Self-Reality Checks Are Needed in Your Mindful Clinical Practice It is highly important for helpers working in the co-occurring conditions field to become keenly aware of their own realities in practice and life that impact clinical effectiveness. Below I have listed four areas that show up in clinical surveys and added four more that I […]

Psychodynamics of Alliance – Therapeutic Relationship Enhancement This post includes basic considerations, processes, and clinical skills necessary for developing a strongly positive clinical alliance and therapeutic relationship in therapy. Here the alliance is required for any substantial change in psychotherapy, and the therapeutic relationship rides the quality of the initial alliance to expand and inter-penetrate […]