Category: Spiritual Exercises
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Channing on Fenelon
Comments on the Character and Works of Fenelon (Submitted by Dave Bagwill) . . . a very common error of exalted minds. He applied too rigorous and unvarying a standard to the multitude. He leaned to the error of expecting the strength of manhood in the child, the harvest in seed-time. On this subject, above…
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The Epicurean Cure
Here is Epicurus as quoted by Pierre Hadot in a book I highly recommend, Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Blackwell 1995, p. 87): We must concern ourselves with the healing of our own lives. He proposes a TETRAPHARMAKOS, a four-fold healing formula: God presents no fears, death no worries. And…
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Of Death and Detachment
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Preparation for Death, p. 11: My Lord, since Thou hast given me light to know that what the world esteems is all mere vapour and folly, give me strength to detach myself from it before death detaches me. I find it very interesting that 'detach' is being used in two very different…
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A Philosopher’s Prayer
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…
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The Monastery Sign
The sign reads, 'Peace.' It neglects to say that the desert is a place of unseen warfare. The desert fathers of old believed in demons because of their experiences in quest of the "narrow gate" that only few find. They sought to perfect themselves and so became involved as combatants in il combattimento spirituale. They felt…
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Grace
Is it possible to take grace seriously these days? Well, I just arose from a good session on the black mat. For a few moments I touched upon interior silence and experienced its bliss. This is nothing I conjured up from my own resources. But if I say I was granted this blissful silence by…
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Aspiration Date
We each have an expiration date on which we will draw and expel our last breath. And there was a day on which we first drew breath. But more significant than either is one's spiritual aspiration date, the date, if it comes at all, on which one awakens to the Quest.
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A Goal of Meditation
To bring the soul into the field of awareness and not merely believe in it like the religionist or reason about it like the philosopher.
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Notes After a Meditation Session
The discursive mind loves the dust it kicks up. We love distraction, diversion, dissipation, and diremption, even as we sense their nullity and the need to attain interior silence. This is one reason why meditation is so hard. We love to ride the wild horse of the mind. It is much easier than swimming upstream…
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2017 ‘Big Unplug’ Begins Today
I'll be offline and incommunicado for the month of July. The plan is for normal operations to resume on or about 1 August. I ask my valued correspondents to refrain from sending me any links to events of the day or commentary thereon. I am going on a 'news fast' which is even more salutary…
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Care of Soul and Body
Care for your soul as if you will die tomorrow; care for your body as if it will last indefinitely. (The formulation is mine; the thought is borrowed from Evagrios Pontikos.)
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Don’t Harbor the Negative
When negative thoughts drift into port, note them, but don't let them drop anchor. Let them drift out again.
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Continence
The Catholic Church is in sad shape. Have you heard a good sermon lately? I could do better off the top of my head, and I am a very poor public speaker. Here are some notes for a sermon I will never give, unless this weblog is my pulpit. Remind people of the importance of…
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Brunton Quotes Muhammad
"Contemplation for an hour is better than formal worship for sixty years." (Paul Brunton, Notebooks vol. 15, Part I, p. 171, #16) Brunton gives no source. Whatever the source, and whether or not Muhammad said it, it is true. Aquinas would agree. The ultimate goal of human existence for the doctor angelicus is the visio…
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Proper Equilibrium
Paul Brunton, Notebooks, vol. 15, Part II, p. 76, #316: He will maintain a proper equilibrium between being aware of what is happening in the world, remaining in touch with it, and being imperturbable towards it, inwardly unaffected and inwardly detached from it. Small is the number of those who can appreciate this as an…