Three Methods of Christian Meditation

Contributed by Fr. Tom Ryan

What does the word “meditate” mean for you?  Oftentimes when we use this word, it indicates that we’re going to reflect at-length and in-depth about something. 

“Which of these two jobs would you like to take?” someone may ask us. To which we may respond: “Give me some time to meditate about this, and then I’ll get back to you, okay?” 

However, when “meditation” is used to refer to a form of prayer, it has quite a different meaning.  The form of prayer referred to by the term “meditation” is based upon the conviction that, in addition to the mind and imagination (with which we ordinarily communicate with God), we are endowed with what the Christian tradition calls a “mystical heart.” 

And what’s that? Well, it is a faculty which makes it possible for us to be aware of the Divine Presence within; to grasp and intuit God’s presence and being, though in a dark manner, apart from all images and concepts.

The Christian monastic tradition developed a progressive way of awakening this mystical heart and coming to an experiential awareness of God. This form of prayer is referred to as contemplative. And it’s different from mental prayer, in which we engage our minds more fully in prayer through analysis or reflection, such as in reading and reflecting on a passage of scripture. 

In mental prayer our thoughts by and large stir the heart with emergent feelings of gratitude, fear, sorrow or joy which we express to God (affective prayer). Then when the heart has poured itself out, silence grows between the words, and we simply sit in the silence, resting in God’s presence and open to God’s love (contemplative prayer). One could say that it is this communion with the Divine which is the longing of our hearts.

About 50 years ago when an increasing number of people in Western culture began turning to Eastern forms of contemplation, western Christian monastics were motivated to dig into their own treasure chest to meet this pronounced interest in and hunger for more contemplative forms of prayer. 

And in that time frame, three forms of it have developed with an increasing number of practitioners: 1) Christian Meditation 2) Centering Prayer 3) Christian Insight Meditation. Let's take a brief look at each of them. 

Christian Meditation 

In 1974, the Benedictine John Main opened a Christian meditation center at Ealing Abbey in England. While in the English foreign service in India, he had learned to meditate from a Hindu swami. Later, when he became a Benedictine monk, he began to discover the rich resources in his own tradition for meditative prayer.

 In 1977, John Main and his colleague Laurence Freeman were invited by the bishop of Montreal to come and establish a Christian Meditation Center in the heart of the city. By the time John Main died in 1982, it had already become a key resource center for a growing international movement among lay members of the Christian churches. In 1991, the international center moved to London, England, as the World Community of Christian Meditation under the leadership of Laurence Freeman, OSB. Today, it has meditation groups in 120 countries, and its international retreat center is located in Bonnevaux, France.  

Centering Prayer 

In 1975, three Trappist monks at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, MA,—William Menninger, Basil Pennington, and Thomas Keating—began bringing together the scattered teachings on contemplative prayer and sharing this tradition with others in retreats.

Whereas John Main called his packaging of the tradition “Christian meditation,” the Trappist monks decided in favor of the title “centering prayer,” borrowing a reference from their brother Trappist Thomas Merton, who spoke frequently of attaining the experience of God by going to one’s center and passing through it into the center of God. But both Trappists and Benedictines were working with the same primary resource material in the tradition.

Today, we might think of Christian Meditation and Centering Prayer as two “schools” in the recovery of Christian contemplative prayer, something intended for all those initiated into Christian faith. 

Christian Insight/Vipassana Meditation 

In 1987, Mary Jo Meadow, with Carmelites Kevin Culligan and Daniel Chowning, out of a desire to foster mutual understanding among religious faiths through shared spiritual practice and dialogue, began to lead Silence and Awareness meditation retreats, based on the teachings of St. John of the Cross and Vipassana (Insight) meditation practice in Theravadan Buddhism (https://www.resecum.org/).

Operating under the title of RES (Resources for Ecumenical Spirituality), classes and workshops in Mindfulness and Loving Kindness (dhama), as well as Buddhist-Christian insight meditation retreats involving both quiet sitting and walking meditation, are offered with this goal in mind:  

“Mindfulness meditation helps us empty our roles, voluntary experiences, and the other ‘trappings’ of ordinary daily life to be available to growth.  It makes us receptive to the healing and self-knowledge that mystics taught as necessary spiritual growth - and to eventually ‘see’ through to Ultimate Reality.”

The Practice 

Both Christian Meditation and Centering prayer use a sacred word or phrase (mantra) drawn from the context of Christian faith to both stabilize the mind and express our intention to open and surrender to God's presence in our inmost being.  While the Christian Meditation school of practice teaches continuous repetition with faith and love of a sacred word (e.g. maranatha, Aramaic for “Come, Lord”) as an anchor and pointer for the active mind, Centering Prayer proposes only occasional use of a mantra as needed to maintain one’s intention of faith and love toward God. 

 And as for Christian Insight Meditation, rather than focusing on a sacred word, this third school of practice enters meditation by cultivating awareness of the breath and experience of being. The underlying conviction: The abundant life is divine union, which includes the capacity to use all things as stepping stones to God. In short, to pray always and practice the loving presence of God. 

All three schools encourage daily practice, the first two recommending ideally 20-30 minutes in both morning and evening.  In learning to meditate, it is advisable to work with only one method and become solidly grounded in it, for it is better to dig a deep well and strike water than to dig several shallow holes. 

In short, contemplative prayer is a process of interior transformation, a relationship initiated by God and leading, if we consent, to divine union. And in the classical tradition of yoga, the postures and breathing exercises were employed precisely to prepare one to then sit with a relaxed, calm body, quiet mind and open heart, praying one's mantra with faith and love so as to “soak” in the Divine Presence. 

So if meditation/contemplative prayer (raja yoga) is not an integral part of your hatha yoga practice, one might say that you’re missing the best part!