Tuesday, April 8, 2008

heart of silence

"Whatever one may think of the value of communal celebration with all kinds of song and self-expression--and these certainly have their place--the kind of prayer we here speak of as properly 'monastic' (though it may also fit into the life of any lay person who is attracted to it) is a prayer of silence, simplicity, contemplative and meditative unity, a deep personal integration in an attentive, watchful listening of 'the heart.' The response such prayer call forth is not usually one of jubilation or audible witness: it is a wordless and total surrender of the heart of silence."


(CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER, page 29-30)

[Note: this is today's AM WITH MERTON post from Wayne Burns. Thank you, Wayne.]

6 comments:

  1. Hi Beth,
    I call it contempraytation. (to myself)
    I hope you are having a great weekend.
    Peace
    Sean

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for stopping by, Sean.
    I'm doing OK, hope you are contemprayting!
    Beth

    ReplyDelete
  3. at a loss for words
    for this post....
    xcept


    constrasts w/
    sudden satori

    ReplyDelete
  4. Interesting words, Marc.

    This whole business of "enlightenment" seems to be popular these days, and its curious to me that Merton never really makes too much of a big deal about it, other than to continually refer to silence, solitude, and surrender in the heart.

    I am reading now (after some coersion), "Eat, Pray, Love", and a friend and I are not quite sure what to make of the author (Elizabeth Gilbert)'s description of a unitive experience.

    Maybe we, in the West, are not geared that way. Maybe we're missing something. I don't know.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This subject (enlightenment) came up w/friend (Bob, Prairie Sores Bob) Sunday. His zen master has not received the "big bang" only mini-enlightenments. His teachers told him not to worry about it: but it apparently troubles him (and Bob to some extent).

    Not to make a big deal out of enlightenment is very zen paradoxically.

    I had a mini-satori recently: which I don't know how to describe. Maybe I got it because I'd given up on being a buddhist.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That sounds right to me, Marc - insights (enlightenments?) happen when we aren't specifically looking or reaching or trying for them.

    ReplyDelete

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