Category: Spiritual Exercises
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Meditation as Disciplined Non-Thinking
A Brunton passage elucidated. Substack latest.
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Two Worries about Meditation
One Christian friend worries that his meditation practice might lead him in a Buddhist direction, in particular toward an acceptance of the three marks of phenomenal existence: anicca, anatta, dukkha. He shouldn't worry. Those doctrines in their full-strength Pali form are dubious if not demonstrably untenable. As such, they cannot be veridical deliverances of any…
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Two Types of Contemplative
Those of the first type try to see into eternity by piercing the veil of space and time. They attempt to look beyond this world. The mystics and religious contemplatives are of this type. A second type is content to view the world of space, time, and matter under the aspect of eternity. Not a…
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A Part-Time Monk’s Solution to Suggestibility
Substack latest.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson on Prayer
From his magnificent essay, "Self Reliance": Prayer that craves a particular commodity, — anything less than all good, — is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works…
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Suffering Pleasure
We suffer pain, but we also suffer pleasure. Fundamentally, to suffer is to be passive, to be patient rather than agent, to be acted upon, to be in the thrall of another, to be at the mercy of what is not oneself. Excessive pleasure and pain should both be avoided as one avoids heteronomy, the…
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Why Live a Long Time?
Soul-making in this vale takes a long time.
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Are You an Old Soul?
Don't be put off by the New Age-y vibe of this article. There are real insights here, and the internal links are worth following out.
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Purgation of Memory and Purgatory of Memory
The manuals of mysticism enjoin the purgation of memory. But not all such purgation is good. Vexing memories of folly and excess, of time-wastage and wrong-doing, are an earthly purgatory which the purgation of memory, if it could be achieved, would eliminate. Prosecute the purgation of memory but not to the detriment of memory's purgatory.
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The Philosopher Prays for Light, not Loot
We are grateful for this quotidian bread, Lord, but it is not for it that we pray. Grant us the panem supersubstantialis, the bread supersubstantial, that nourishes the mind and heart. It is for this bread that we must beg, unable as we are to secure it by our own powers. The daily bread that nourishes…
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The ‘Summons’ of Meditation
This has happened often. I go to the black mat to begin my session. I go there and assume the cross-legged posture. My purpose is to enter mental quiet and elevate my mind to the highest. But a petty thought obtrudes. I begin to enact or realize this 'centrifugal' thought by attending to it. But…
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Lent and Media Dreck
Lent is a good time for a plenary news fast, or, if you can't quite manage that, a time to moderate your intake of media dreck. It suffices to be aware of the overall drift of events as the Left pursues its pernicious purposes; there is no necessity of recording every particular outrage. And this…
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Bernanos on Prayer
Georges Bernanos has the protagonist of his The Diary of a Country Priest (Image Books, 1954, pp. 81-82, tr. P. Morris, orig. publ. 1937) write the following into his journal: The usual notion of prayer is so absurd. How can those who know nothing about it, who pray little or not at all, dare…
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Prayer
Because we are spiritual beings, we pray. Because we cannot be lamps unto ourselves, we need to.