Why Centering Prayer?
Jacob Boheme
I’ve been a student of meditation since the 1980’s. Back then it was through my work in mental health and people with chronic pain. I immersed myself in meditation courses, mostly by practitioners of Buddhism. Little did I know back then, the interior adventure I was embarking on.
My leaning in the 80’s and 90’s was in the sciences so it is of no surprise that my first regular meditation practice was through the lineage of Ramana Maharishi and self-enquiry. We were encouraged to ask, who am I? Good question! I am – me. Aren’t I? It was then asking who is the ‘me’ asking the question. This led your awareness to fall on awareness itself, or witnessing consciousness, and rest there. Except the mind couldn’t rest there, it is not its function. So off it goes again following an arc that goes from subject (me) to object (something else). This was all very insightful and led to expansive experiences to realize how small the ‘me’ or small self is. I was grateful for all the knowledge and experience this offered.
I came to the Christian contemplative path through a timely encounter with the forgiving love of Christ. In deep humility and gratitude, it was now my task to offer this forgiveness to everyone, always. Lived authentically I knew this would not be easy. How was I going to re-bind myself over and over to His Loving Presence. I knew I needed a practice to remain faithful to the path of forgiving “not seven but seventy times seven”. For years I tried many practices. Adoration, chanting, Christian Meditation, guided meditations. Nothing stuck. I finally read The Heart of Centering Prayer, by Cynthia Bourgeault. I began the practice and it was like hopping into a comfortable bed. I could rest inside the practice.
Why Centering Prayer? The key was in the practice not-a- focus on something, but in letting go. It didn’t ask me to repeat a mantra, say particular prayers, focus on anything except letting go. I also knew intuitively at a neurophysiological level this is what I needed. The sacred word was used only as a windscreen wiper to clean the screen and remember my intention to open myself fully and wholly. What I was letting go into had already claimed me. The Love, wisdom and staying power of Christ. Some say Centering prayer is practising kenosis, as lived by Christ in a 20 minute window.
Why, if I have faith and Love of God, do I need to sit daily in this style of meditation or prayer anyway. Because I admit and know, I am not perfect. Innocently and ignorantly, I have been harmed and I have done and do harm. In the language of GI Gurdjieff, this is the cost of my own arising. I don’t know how to love or really what love is. Love is beyond my understanding, and yet I so desperately want to love and be loved. I liken it to offering an empty bowl to be filled by the divine. Out of reverence and respect I want the bowl to be clean and polished. ‘Purify my heart Oh Lord’. God knows how to do that. I simply need to turn up in silence and humility and let go into a God’s transformative loving presence.
One of the fruits has been a deeper trust in the unfolding of life as it is, in all its shades of colour and darkness. To bring more of a loving gaze and presence to everyone and everything, always. I fall and get up, fall and get up everyday. God has no problem with the falling and uses the raw materials of my imperfections to bring new life in ways that are often surprising and intimately loving. And so I pray with Saint Paul “ that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)
Beth O’Neil Centering Prayer Practitioner with Contemplative Outreach WA