A major criticism I have with contemporary attempt to reconstruct a viable and revitalised Christian meditation tradition is the widespread failure to re-evaluate the appropriateness of Neo-Platonic baggage from the Middle Ages and other cultural imports we've accumulated over the ages.
I applaud the revisiting of history, to look for fragments of useful techniques in the writings of our Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant predecessors, but really, where is the deep theological reflection in all this activity? I don't see much, just a lot of romanticism going on. Its high time Christian meditators spent some energy moving beyond methodology to a more robust theology of meditation. Yes, theological reflection has to flow out of experience, and not out of abstraction, but I don't see much flowing at all yet. Just a cherry-picking of archaic techniques.
I challenge Protestants in particular, since their meditation tradition is even more anaemic than the rest. It's fine for emerging church leaders to host an alternative labyrinth worship service occasionally, or take up lectio divina for personal devotion, but have you forgotten your Bibles? You who claim to be so strong in this area! Where are your reflections on what the Bible actually says about meditation. Have you even looked? Don't just ape others, bring your own tradition to bear on casting the meditation tradition forward.
But I won't let the Catholics go unchallenged either. Can't you offer something more than the two options of joining a monastery or a John Main group? The problem of the first option should be readily apparent for the lay person. The problem with the second is, while I am again open to looking at eastern techniques, importing an Aramaic translation of "Come Lord" into a Hindu mantra technique does not automatically make it Christian. Focus and attitude is all important, and I see a lot of pluralistic wishy-washiness in what you're doing.
The reality is, there is not much in the way of a viable Christian Meditation tradition today. All we have are fragments of the past, a few monks and a few lay experimentors. So we need to begin again, to dig deep. Yes, cast our nets wide and see what we can find of interest in our past. Yes, see what unpaid bills of the church that new religious movements may be bringing to our attention. But lets exercise discernment and insight too. Let's see if we can begin to trade up our tradition into something with more Spiritual vitality. Why not meditate on it?
Curious Christian 
Hello Matt,
I was wondering if you are familiar with Father Thomas Keating’s “Centering Prayer” ?
http://www.centeringprayer.com/newsltrs/winter04_05/centering_prayer.htm
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Yes, thanks for the link. I’ve come across the Contemplative Outreach site before and have decided to include it in my side bar.
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Matt,
Whereas “mystic” religions seek to empty the mind or center into a deep self-consciousness, Paul exhorts us to SET OUR MIND. This makes all the difference in Christian meditation. Although we see real biological change in the brain as Tibetan monks or Franciscan nuns are in deep meditation, this does not prove that they had an experience with the Living God. It does prove, however, that humans are “hard-wired” to sense and seek for a Spiritual Being. I believe there are “shortcuts” to actually engaging in communication with God and they are nothing more than deceptions. Christians intentionally practice the spiritual discipline of meditation as a pathway to hearing the Holy Spirit- it is deliberate. Setting our minds to meditate on the “whatsoever things are true, etc.” list of Phil. 4 is a safe way to experience the presence and voice of God.
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Alan
I appreciate your cautions. Sometimes Christian meditators can be very caviller in the way they engage with the mystic teachings of other religions, and consequently leave themselves wide open to syncretism. I agree that the phenomenological similarity between the Christian nun’s experience and the Tibetan monk’s experiences does not necessarily imply direct theological equivalence of what is actually going on.
However, the assertion that that Eastern meditation is all about emptying the mind and Christian meditation is all about fixing or filling the mind, and that this “makes all the difference” is misleading. I’ve heard it argued many times before but it just doesn’t stack up. It doesn’t account for all the data, and in fact, can distract people from recognising genuine differences that have nothing to do with this. I know a lot of counter-cult apologists heavily buy into this emptying / filling dichotomy but i really wish they’d check out more primary sources and avoid being so self-referential in their writings. To detail my objections:
Firstly, as a person who actually practiced Zen Meditation before becoming a Christian, I can say from personal experience and extensive reading of meditation masters that it’s not so much about emptying the mind as stilling it. You can never empty all thoughts or cease mental processes completely. Zen Masters are quite clear on this. A common analogy used is waves on the ocean. You let the mind waves settle by letting distracting thoughts pass through, acknowledging them maybe by saying “oh, this hard floor makes me uncomfortable”, but not grasping onto them. There is never any suggestion that you need to get rid of the water so to speak. You need to understand that when meditators refer to ’emptiness’ or ‘void’ there are semantic issues at stake and they often don’t mean what you think they mean. Zen masters in particular rail about the limitations of language to convey the essence of their teachings. So be careful ’emptiness’ does not always mean ’emptiness’ as you know it.
Secondly, there are a range of ‘mystic’ techniques which actually involve an outward focus or “filling” of the mind. In Buddhist ‘mindfulness’ practice the focus can be external. Also, note the Zen ‘Ways’ such as matial arts or caligraphy. You need to understand that pantheists see the inner / outer language you are using as a false dichotomy. You need to be wary of filtering eastern teachings through a western neoplatonist or cartesian worldview. Furthermore, there are a range of techniques practiced by the Tibetan monks you mention and also Bhakti Yogis that very much involve “fixing” the mind on a deity and filling your mind full of images. I wont go into neo-shamantic vision quests in detail but you get the idea I hope.
Thirdly, what is wrong with emptying your mind of distractions? Jesus often went up a mountain or found a lonely place just for this reason. I must say, once I’ve emptied my mind of work stresses and screaming kids I feel a lot more ready to pray. It doesn’t automatically imply your letting demons in. Sometimes it means letting your demons go!
This brings us to the nub of the issue. Its not whether you’re filling or emptying your mind that makes all the difference. The distinction is a bit of a beat up that doesn’t stand up to closer scrutiny. The real distinction is between what precisely you are fixing your mind on (because not everything you fix it on is wise) and what precisely you are emptying it of (because not everything you empty it of is wise).
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Matt,
Point taken that emptying or centering of the mind is still very much object oriented. The exception may be in this postmodern age when meditation and certain Yoga principles are only used as relaxation techniques and not as religious pathways to spiritual enlightenment.
To continue on the topic of the dichotomy of “all the difference”, I would say that for the disciple of Christ, “our demons” or distractions are more and more removed from our minds the more we utilized our redeemed imagination to fix our gaze on Christ (Heb. 11). Nowhere do I see a Biblical model of a self-effort to remove them. Maybe its naive to let the Creator of my mind remove my distractions, but He did command us to cast our cares on Him. Also, our brain orientation may affect what we actually cast or submit more to the Holy Spirit’s influence. For example, the right brain person will intuitively sense the trans-empiracle more than the left/rational brain oriented person, and these intuitions may or may not be the actual voice of God. Transversely, the left brain person will fight his better judgment to convince himself of a genuine mystical experience. This self-understanding of what kind of soul we carry can help us preclude certain distractions, but again, not by some self-effort to do so but by an intentional submission of the mind or the emotions, whichever the case may require.
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Ok, I think we’re getting into some more interesting territory here and there are a few points I’d like to make in response.
Firstly, I would assert that the dissociation of relaxation techniques from religious pathways to spiritual enlightenment was actually an emergent phenomenon of the Modernist era. I’m thinking Mesmer (1734-1815) and Freud (1877-1939) for starters and would draw your attention to the wikipedia blurb on hypnotism for a quick recap on the history. What I see occurring in the Post-Modern era is a different trend altogether – a rejection of the Cartesian dichotomy between “the sacred” and “the secular”. Rather than killing off spirituality, the success of materialism has actually created a demand for it. I think it’s fairer to describe the re-contextualization of yoga and meditation for consumer culture as a “secularization of spirituality”. Sociologically it should be viewed through the framework of folk spirituality rather than high religion – theology is not at the centre – but it’s not completely divorced from spiritual yearnings. Anyway, I’ve gotten a little off the track. The reason why I bring this up is, do you really think the proverbial “look into my eyes” or “follow the swinging watch” doesn’t involve an object orientation just because it’s not religious and has a more mundane intent? And even the most secularized forms of yoga involve a focus on the body to cultivate mental discipline. I don’t see an exception. Again I’d say the issue is not if there’s a focus, it’s who or what is the focus.
Secondly, I think self-effort is a slippery concept that we need to nail down a little and it may be best to start with an analogy involving a slightly different altered state of consciousness called sleep. How do you go to sleep? Is it through self-effort? Can you force yourself to sleep by sheer willpower? You can’t! In fact the more you stress about it and try to force yourself the less likely you are to achieve it. All you can do is create the conditions under which it is more likely to occur and let go. Meditation is like that too. Different, but not entirely so. You don’t focus on “achieving” anything through self-effort. You just fix your gaze on whatever you chosen focus happens to be (again: for Christians I think the “who” is the important matter), and let other distractions slip away. To try to force out other distractions is actually to cling to them. It’s for this reason that I actually think Christianity has a lot of explanatory power that alternative religions sometimes lack. To me there seems to be an inherent contradiction in trying to transcend the self through self-effort. This is where I have a real problem with the Theravadan ideal of the Arhat. Grace is required if you really want to transcend self-centredness.
But that doesn’t mean the self is entirely removed from the process just ‘coz grace is involved. Anyway enough on that, it’s late.
As for the bible (always important), I agree that you won’t find much in the way of proscriptive passages on this subject but I believe there are plenty of descriptive passages. I’ll list just one, Genesis 24:63 – “He [Jacob] went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching.” No technique proscribed here, but clearly a description of someone trying to get away from distractions (and failing).
Anyway, I think you hit the nail on the head with the importance of intentional submission. Agree totally, that’s a core issue. The measure of any spiritual discipline should be whether it cultivates faith, hope and love in the practitioner. And submission and the cultivation of faith are inextricably linked.
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OMG, this is juicy!
This is another thing that Ken Wilber will prove helpful in clearing up. I have to go, but I will be back later to go into this in depth. For now, Matt, pick up a copy of “One Taste”. It is Ken’s journals for the year 1997. While that may not sound very informative, it actually is, because he does alot of expounding in his journals, and also connects it with time, space and humans in his life. It’s beautiful. One of the things he talks alot about is the differences between the meditative states. The one that most people are familiar with is the “emptiness” one. He uses that word, and loves that word, but also recognises that it is not helpful for some people. The state after “emptiness” is actually “fullness”, and this is where the Incarnation meets PanENtheism is going to help us. This is where it all connects, I think.
Later.
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Yes, A new meditation for a new day. A new spirituality for a new reality.
Wilber’s insights about interpreting states depending on the stage one is at is very enlightening.
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