Contemplative Practices
... to correctly diagnose disease, or find a cure. A motor run too hard, too long, is likely to experience catastrophic failure. A child who never learns to sit quietly in class is less-likely to learn from the teacher’s wisdom for how to be successful in current and later life, in the best sense. A person who does not know how to center their own soul in a rigorously restful and attentive way is more likely to be undone by the swirling chaotic energies of this world in which we live.
Such quiescence and centering is vital to a truly healthy spirituality. Learning to focus one’s soul contemplatively can go a long way toward seeing truthfully in this world, living rightly in one’s personal life, relating faithfully amidst community. In fact, experience has shown that meditation and living mindfully, can help with everything from vocationally-related stress and chronic pain, to the development of wise leadership skills and pragmatically healthy decision-making. Contemplative practice helps clear out the clutter that keeps us from hearing God and experiencing holiness.
Many people convince themselves that they are just not the kind of people who can sit still. Sometimes, potential is never reached because people believe a lie that they can never be anything more than they already are, that God is impotent to transform their way of being in the world. Then, these people live accordingly, slowly, into hopelessness, doubt, and a too-small-life.
Take a look at the practices lifted up in the links on the left side of this page. Try them on for size. See if they might, indeed, become the seeds to a more spacious, healthier, empowering transformation of how you live, lead, and understand yourself to be in this world.
A microscope, unfocused, is not likely...
mindfulness based stress reduction
mindfulness (60 Minutes segment)
monk in the world: free e-course
monk in the world meditation: silence
notes from a week in the woods
oboedire:
a site for attentive spiritual formation
open your heart guided imagery meditation
practicing spirituality with Thomas Merton (e-course)
... prayer for a mobile lifestyle
tree of contemplative practices
visio divina: focusing on G_d, community, ourselves
visio divina pdf download link
vocational ministry reflection on labyrinth
what to do if you can't find your passion
"Y" sticks contemplative idea for group or individuals
audio prilgrimage w/ Thich Nhat Hanh
beach-combing as spiritual practice
spiritual nomad finds sacred space
bell sound meditation (arthur zajonc)
benedict's rule: instruments of good works
can meditation help control mindless eating?
contemplative example of manual labor
center for contemplative mind in society
contemplation -- one definition
contemplative mind - centering
contemplative mind - contemplation
contemplative mind - meditation
contemplative studies in university setting
daily bearings (bubble meditations)
doing nothing as spiritual care
"dreaming creation" contemplative photo project
explorefaith.org- a place to meditate
40: I gave myself some time away
five-minute refresh meditation
gravity glue: a contemplative practice in
art, environment, stillness & play
great bell chant (end of suffering)
growing still prayer -- Br. D S-R
inside passages: wilderness retreats
just breathe: mindfulness for children
listening to God -- an exercise
meditations cultivating joy, kindness, gratitude
meditate with:
- art
- music
- poetry
- reading
mindfulness practice meditation
(links continued in next column)