Meditation, Contemplative Prayer, Just Being Still....whatever you want to call it

So, let’s talk about contemplation, meditation, prayer, whatever you wish to call it. 

I have been practicing contemplative prayer for ten years now, but it has been an off and on habit.  In other words, I cannot really call it a habit. For any of you out there who have done it or tried to do it, you know what I am talking about.  Now, after reading quite a bit of Richard Rohr’s work on contemplative meditative prayer and specifically this quote, I feel that I have to completely dedicate myself to a full 20 minutes of this daily:

“I invite you to set aside time for contemplative practice in this New Year. People ask me, "How long should I pray?" I say, "As long as it takes you to get to an emotional and mental yes!" Many find that they need two periods of twenty minutes a day to come to such surrender. Perhaps it is early in the morning, before your brain has a chance to begin its list-making and judgments. Or, it could be in the evening, which might include an examination of consciousness, looking for the God-encounters during your day. Maybe it is taking moments throughout the day to pause, breathe, be still and recognize how you have returned from yes and back to various kinds of no.”

And then I realized, after committing myself to this last year, that as I went through the year I was as fickle as the moon, waxing and waning in this habit consistently.  One of the reasons is because I have no place, no SPACE that is dedicated to prayer.  The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn has written a beautiful book about finding meditation space in your home.  It could be called the breathing room or breathing corner, but it must be dedicated ONLY as a space of prayer and contemplation.  So, when I get back home to Michigan, I am going to set one up in my home and begin this practice daily.  I already do it 2-3 times per week now, but I feel like it must be a total daily practice, if it will have a true beneficial effect. 

Here is a great article on how meditation affects your brain.  And you can call it whatever you like, I just happen to like the term meditation.

http://lifehacker.com/what-happens-to-the-brain-when-you-meditate-and-how-it-1202533314

I’ve been told that you really can begin with just a minute, two minutes per day.  Me, I will begin with 10 and work my way up to 20 per day from there.  One more quote from Richard Rohr on why this is important in the spiritual life:

“I try to teach people an entirely new way of knowing the world, a way of knowing that has the power to move them beyond mere ideology and dualistic thinking; we call it contemplation. Mature religion will always lead us to some form of prayer, meditation, or contemplation to balance out our daily calculating mind. Believe me, it is major surgery, and you must practice it for years to begin to rewire your egocentric responses. Contemplation is work, so much so that most give up after their first futile attempts. But the goal is not success at all, only the practice itself. The only people who pray well are those who keep trying to pray.

Such seeing—and that is what it is—gives us the capacity to be happy and happily alone, rooted in God, comfortable with paradox and mystery, and largely immune to mass consciousness and its false promises. It is called wisdom seeing, and it is the job of elders to pass this on to the next generation.”

And here is Dr. Andrew Weil’s most recent take on this subject too, but for reducing inflammation in the body:

“Reprogramming Inflammation with Meditation
We know that over time chronic, imperceptible, low-level inflammation can contribute to serious, age-related diseases including heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. A new study from the University of Wisconsin shows that meditation can actually affect the genes that cause inflammation. Researchers measured the effects of a day of intensive mindfulness meditation in a group of experienced mediators and compared them with those of quiet, non-meditative activities by a group of untrained volunteers. After eight hours of meditation, the researchers found altered levels of gene-regulating compounds and reduced activity levels of the pro-inflammatory genes in the experienced meditators. These changes were correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation, the investigators explained. They reported that these findings are the first to show that mediation can inhibit production of proteins by some genes that cause inflammation and noted that at the study's outset there were no differences in the genes tested in both groups. They also reported that the positive changes were seen in genes that are the targets of anti-inflammatory and pain killing drugs.”

How I plan to do this is to begin with this every single morning for 10 to 20 minutes, then I hope to find another spot during the day as well.  I focus on the meaning of God in my life, I pray for those I care about, I also pray for those who cause me trouble in my life.  It is just as important to pray for your friends as it is for your enemies.  Love is not real if it is not for everyone. 

Goals:

I hope to change.  Period.

I hope to become a more focused person.

I hope to become more loving, kinder, stronger in my faith and purer in my actions.

Lofty goals.  Yes.  But that’s OK.