Heart of Creation: Meditation - A Way of Setting God Free in the World

By John Main

A teaching on contemplative prayer from one of the most influential spiritual writers of the 20th century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canterbury Press
• Release date: Sep 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781848254060

Book preview

The Art of Unlearning

At our community in Montreal I suggest to people that to try to come to terms with learning to meditate, they attend about ten weekly sessions of our Monday evening introductory group. When we approach most new experiences, we approach them carefully, because we have to learn something. But in meditation, the greater part of what we have to do is to unlearn. What we have to do is to surrender all the false images that we have of ourselves and of God. Meditation has always been understood, in the tradition, as an art. It is the art of all arts. And it is helpful to look at it like this, because it reminds us that we are undertaking the process of learning to be at one with our art. If you have ever seen a great violinist playing, the violinist and the violin become one in the exercise of the art; and as we look at it, it seems absolutely effortless. Whenever I myself have heard Isaac Stern or Yehudi Menuhin playing, in watching them I have been quite certain that I could do it just as well, it looks so easy. But of course the facility that the great artists have at being at one with their art comes from their practice, their daily practice. An artist of the eminence of Yehudi Menuhin even now practises for four hours every day.

Meditation and learning to meditate is a gradual process, and the most important element in it is the practice. We must meditate every day. As you know, to meditate is itself absolute simplicity. Sit down – the only essential rule of posture is that your spine is as upright (not stiff) as it can be – and sit still. To begin with you must really work hard at sitting still (just don’t move!) and then close your eyes gently, and begin to say your word. The word I recommend to you is maranatha. Four equally-stressed syllables; ma ra na tha.

We cannot approach meditation hoping that we are going to be experts, proficient within a week or two (or within a year or two). What we require is the regular practice of meditating every morning and evening and a constant commitment to the practice. You can read all the books in the world about playing the flute, but until you pick up a flute and start to play, you will not really have begun. Once you understand that meditation is an art, you begin to understand that the practice of it is much more important than all the speculation about it. And so, we slowly come to understand that to learn to meditate we need discipline: the discipline of sitting down and sitting still and of saying our word, our mantra, from the beginning of our meditation until the end. This is a difficult thing to understand when you begin. We want to follow our thoughts, to come to new insights. Being religious people we may want to praise God, to say some prayer. But when you meditate you must transcend all thoughts and all words, and be silent, still and humble in the depths of your own