Month: September 2018

Gertrude Stein, the American writer, was not being pretentious when she wrote, ‘A rose is a rose is a rose.’ She was trying to emphasise the essence of the rose, to make us look beyond the label. The trouble today is that we use words such as love, peace, God and so on without reflecting on their true meaning. Words have become facts, but words are also symbols pointing the way to deeper meanings. Words can also fail one. In one of his poems, Pope John Paul 11 writes:

Sometimes it happens in conversation: we stand
Facing truth, and lack the words,
Have no gesture, no sign,
And yet, we feel, no words, no gesture
Or sign would convey the whole image
That we must enter alone and face like Jacob.

Those who inculcate silent repetition and reflection on a particular text into their practice of meditation can find the underlying mystery of the words begins to penetrate their life. Those who say the Psalms daily, for example, find that certain lines resonate deeply with their experience:

As one whom his mother comforts.
My heart is ready, O my God.
Then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom.

If we stop short at the surface meaning of the words we shall never experience them as living words, but if we truly meditate upon them we shall, in the words of John Rowlands Pritchard, begin ‘to hear the words of secret silence’.

One can spend a lot of money learning various forms of meditation and one can even pay to gain a diploma in meditation. Meditation has become a market product! I believe, however, that the teaching of meditation should be free. For those thinking they would like to learn about meditation I recommend Mindfulness by Tessa Watt, which is straightforward, simple and practical.

For many the practice begins with something so simple — sitting still and listening. If you are in a park or a garden, just sit still for even fifteen minutes and listen to the sounds around you and the silence within yourself. In our noise-bound society to achieve even this is something of a marvel! Then slowly begin to breathe in and out consciously: breathe in, pause; breathe out, pause. So simple.