The core of meditation practice is sitting in stillness and silence at least once a day, preferably twice a day for 20 minutes or more if possible.

As many people know, the essence of practice is to strengthen the ability to be aware of what is happening in the mind and body for sustained periods of time.

What is very important is to be aware of this simple truth. Some people will find their mind will quiet down fairly readily. Many others will find the mind keeps chattering away with one thought and distraction after another.

Do not be too concerned if you find yourself in the latter category as compared with those in the first. Most of us are in the second group.

In general there is a two part process. The first is to allow your interior experience to be your interior experience without judging whether you are “doing it right” or “doing it badly.”

It is this suspension of judgement and all the usual benchmarks about what is supposed to be happening that is the unique luxury of silent meditation.

This first part of the process allows you to simply notice…”there is tension, there are racing thoughts, there is anger, there is boredom, there is anxiety, or- there are repetitive thoughts going round and round like a dog chasing its tail.” It is enough to allow your experience to be what it is. It is enough to make simple notes: “there is impatience, there is patience, there is judgement, or-there is no judgement. There is calm, there is stress.”

This first part is called “bare attention.” Bare Attention is a simple observing and reporting process.

In the subsequent stages of meditation practice there is an application of active effort to supplant anger with compassion, fear with courage and calm, doubt with faith and conviction, sloth and torpor with an energetic, clear mind etc.

But in the early stages all you need to do is to sit and be silent for a reasonable amount of time, without trying to get to some imagined place of deep meditative peace, rapture, or vision.

It is not that one does not want to get to some very peaceful places and develop some penetrating and liberating insights. It is just that often there is no straight line to get there.

And, you cannot force progress to occur.

Neither do I wish to repeat a common modern, and very fashionable error, that one can reach states of deep peace by making an “effortless effort”

It is just that for most of us the key is to learn how to make the most skillful kind of effort.

This will help. What do you think should be happening? What is happening? What do you think should not be happening? What is happening?

Keep noticing the difference between what you think should be happening and what is happening. Keep noticing the difference between what you think should not be happening and what is happening.

And remember, nobody anywhere really knows much about this life and universe.

Not me, not you, not the most brilliant scientists, not the most devout pilgrims, popes or lamas.

At best all we have is some important clues which are, unfortunately, tangled up with many confusing errors, dreams, and allegories. More on this next week.

Peace,

Will Raymond Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” host of MeditationPractice.com

will@meditationpractice.com  774-232-0884

Many people who are new to meditation have the good fortune of going to an afternoon workshop or week-end retreat. The presenter is inspiring. The place of the workshop or retreat is conducive to meditation. There is a nice vibe among the group of people gathered there. There is no internet, TV, and everybody has turned off their cell phones.

People are sitting in meditation 2 or 3 times a day or more.

At least some of the people are experiencing more peace in their meditation than they have in the past and in their minds they make fresh commitments to sit once or twice a day when they get back home.

But when they get home the business of life, work, family, responsibilities, and the old familiar bad habits of procrastination, inertia, over-eating, etc kick in again, and the determination to meditate every day crumbles.

If you realize this has happened, then perhaps you can also realize this is a chance to practice being patient with yourself and to slowly gear up to start again.

Having a regular place in your home where you have your chair or cushion will help.

Either returning to books you once found to be important, or finding some new ones will also help you remember the spiritual goals you have and to benefit from the inspiring truths and stories of modern or ancient writers.

If there is a local meditation group or meditation center in your area, making the effort to get back there will also help.

But all of these are not as important as having a meditation teacher who you can really talk to about what is going on in your life and how you can get back to at least occasional practice. The fact that they are further along both in knowledge, discipline, and meditative experience will be inspiring enough to relight the fires of motivation.

The living example of their life and witness, and the strangely penetrating insights in their observations, will remind you of the benefits to be gained by consistent practice and study.

If you do not have a teacher, or if the teacher you have has disappointed you or betrayed your trust, then see if you can make a search to find a new teacher, or an interim person you can meet with until you find a new person to work with.

Be patient with yourself. But see if you can make small choices and take small steps to go on another work-shop or week-end retreat. See if you can return to those books from ancient or modern times that tell the stories of great saints and prophets who make heroic efforts to create more peace and wisdom in this beautiful but painfully troubled world.

See if you can spend time with noble friends or teachers whose care and example will help you get started again.

Be patient and look carefully to see what small choices and what small steps you can make. See if you can find again the willingness and the inspiration to sit in stillness and silence and to observe the stream of moments with a simple, innocent curiosity and an open heart.

Those who learn to stay in the present for sustained periods of time without drifting off in one distraction or another will find their mind and body calming, and settling into deeper states of peace. This prize is worth the winning.

Remember, we are trying to save the species, we are trying to save the planet, one person at a time. Remember we are trying to build new societies that are stable and more just and peaceful than the ones we live in now.

And your work and your efforts with practice are very, very important in this mission.

All the best,

Will Raymond Author of The Simple Path of Holiness and host of MeditationPractice.com

will@meditationpractice.com   774-232-0884

Another way to support the development of daily practice is to find a meditation group where you can sit with others once a week or so in a clear and disciplined format.

Many people who are just starting out find it possible to sit more still and be more silent, and to sit for longer periods of time, when they sit with a group of other people.

If you are associated with a specific faith tradition such as Catholic Centering Prayer, Vipassana Buddhism, Zen, Raja Yoga, or an Eckhart Tolle Group, there may be a local group near where you live.

One of the great strengths of Buddhist traditions such as Vipassana, Zen and Tibetan Buddhism is that affluent members will often finance a very attractive meditation center such as Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, or Boundless Way, or Shambhala. Such centers often have daily sittings which are available to the public at no charge. There are also week-end and week long retreats available for those who wish to join in.

Also, Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist Priest, co-founded Contemplative Outreach which has many small groups around the country. The Trappists, Carmelites, and Franciscans and other Catholic Monasteries have their Third Orders, which are associations that lay people can join and many of these groups have their own meditation and discussion groups.

The Bede Griffith Sangha in England has groups that support Bede Griffith’s unique blend of Catholic and Hindu practice and study.

If you share the specific views of any of these groups, then you may find they are close match for your needs and interests. However, even if you do share their specific views on most matters of belief, you may not really fit into what is happening at these places.

Regrettably, there are often cliques in such places. You may be allowed to join the in-circle or you may not. Also, the leaders or teachers of these facilities usually have their own special brand of dysfunction or insensitivity and it may be unwise to spend too much time around them.

And, if you are really not quite in lock step with any official religion or form of meditation practice, the challenge of finding a local group can be even more formidable. This may be the case if you simply have more questions or doubts than the local sitting group or meditation teacher is willing to listen to or respond to.

In either case there is another option available.

You can see if you can form a small meditation group with those friends, family members, or neighbors you feel you can get along with and have civil discussions even if there are noticeable differences in beliefs.

Once a week, or twice a month, or once a month you can get together in someone’s living room or a quiet room at your local church or community center.

You can sit for 20 minutes or longer if you are able. Those who may be more experienced can lead a discussion afterwards or you can listen to tapes or watch a video by some teacher you respect. This is another way to stimulate intelligent discussion.

Finding or starting a small sitting group will help inspire the individual members of that group to sit more consistently on their own in the times in between gatherings.

Are you a member of a local meditation center, are you a member of a local sitting group in someone’s living room, or are you trying to start such a group? Please let me know the successes and challenges of your efforts.

My hope is there will be greater and greater numbers of small circles of people meeting in one another’s homes as they search to find or develop a spirituality that is meaningful and authentic for them. Some of these small circles may grow and bloom into new churches or retreat centers.

As society continues to fragment under the avalanche of technological advances, as religious fanatics continue to give spirituality a terrible name, as the loneliness and alienation continues to deepen in societies overwhelmed by advertisements, consumerism, rabidly juvenile sexuality, divorce, and nationalism, it will be more and more important for small groups of people to sit together in silence to clear their mind and open their heart.

Let me know what you are finding.

Let me know what you are seeking to build.

Will Raymond Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” host of MeditationPractice.com

will@meditationpractice.com    774-232-0884

This is the 4th of July week-end when America celebrates Independence Day.

Is it wrong to celebrate the birth of a nation and the victories that led to the birth of that nation?

Is it wrong to wave flags in a patriotic way?

It all depends on the degree and tone of that celebration. If you are celebrating the shared story of a people’s coming together and the heroic deeds of perilous struggles against oppressors that is one thing.

But if one is allowing themselves to be swept up into a mood of nationalistic fervor where they believe one country has a special destiny and is somehow more important or greater than other nations, then this is a grave sacrilege and error.

The leading classes of a country have a need to manufacture some reason why young men and women should go to war to defend their interests. They can’t very well say “We do not want the young men and women of our upper classes to go and fight, so you sons and daughters of the poor must go and fight to protect the safety and privileges of the affluent and the corporations.”

The leading classes can’t very well say, “We have made terrible mistakes that have led to this war that could have been prevented with more rational and ethical actions. Now that these terrible mistakes have been made we need the sons and daughters of the poor and the working class to go and fight to protect the nation and the interests of the rich.”

The leading classes must distract the young men and women of the poor and working class from seeing how greedy and exploitative the ruling classes are at home and around the world. The leading classes must give the young men and women of the poor and working class a “great cause” to fight for so they will be whipped into a frenzy and join up.

So the leaders wrap themselves in a flag and whip up nationalist fervor about the great threat to the nation and this is enough to hypnotize tens of millions of people into supporting just about any crime overseas imaginable.

And if the young men and women of the poor and working class refuse to sign up, the leading classes threaten them with prison. They threaten their masculinity, or their femininity, of those who refuse to fight by labeling them as “cowards,” and anyone who criticizes the war as “a traitor.” Look at the jail sentences handed down to anyone who criticized America’s involvement in World War I.

As with the Gulf of Tonkin in 1965, so too with the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in 2003, the US government is completely willing to lie to the American people about why a war has to be fought and who started it.

None of this is to imply there may never be reasons why a nation needs to be prepared to defend their country and send its best and bravest off to fight. None of this is to imply that there are not truly evil people around the world who are vicious, mad dogs who need to be stopped, to use Malcolm X’s phrase, “By any means necessary.”

But before you or your young peopel go off to fight, make sure you are not being lied to. Make sure the sons and daughters of the senators and congress people who declared war are the first to fight and are on the front lines in the fight. Make sure you know what the fight is really all about.

Do not be hypnotized by flags or marching bands or stirring speeches.

Do not turn a blind eye to the fact that the sons and daughters of government leaders and the rich go off to expensive colleges, while the sons and daughters of the poor go off to fight and bleed on foreign soil and to try to kill the sons and daughters of the poor in a country they know nothing about.

Read books like Tim Wieners “Legacy of Ashes” which is a history of the CIA.

When you see the tragic mixture of gross incompetence and ruthless, cynical violence of the American CIA in dozens of countries around the world, you will be better informed as to who the true enemy is. No doubt a history of the KGB will be just as enlightening.

Meditation is about learning to see through the lies we tell ourselves and the lies that others tell us. Meditation is about learning to see through the illusions we weave for ourselves and the illusions and lies others try to get us to buy into.

Learn how to see through the lies of nations and psychosis of nationalism.

When you see a flag of America, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Russia, India, Japan, Viet-Nam, North Korea, and China and most other countries look closely. You will see the blood of millions of innocents dripping from the flag. This will help you see the true nature of flags and nations.

This will help you and your young people make better decisions about who to fight and why, and how to fight them.

This will change the course of nations one person at a time.

Will Raymond The Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” and host of MeditationPractice.com.

will@meditationpractice.com   774-232-0884

One of the best ways to support the goal of practicing on a daily basis is to set aside a place as the “Chapel in your home.”

The general idea is to create a place in your home however modest your home and however modest this small chapel may be.

It might be as simple as a place in your bedroom where you place the cushion you sit on or the chair your sit in. If you are a Christian, Hindu, Buddhist ,or New Age devotee, you can add a painting or statue that you find evokes a sense of profound meaning or beauty. If you are a Jew or a Muslim, you might wish to choose to place a quote from the Torah or Quran on the wall that you feel sums up your faith and hope. If you are an atheist, perhaps there is painting or photograph that captures the beauty of nature or the mystery of the cosmos. Having a book nearby or playing music that inspires is another feature to weave into this sacred place of yours.

Some may wish to also have a bell they ring at the start and end of practice.

Or a candle or incense holder.

If you have a larger home and can set aside a room or have a small building on your property that you can convert to a chapel, then that is fortunate. You can create a sacred space where you and your friends, family members, and neighbors can gather for practice. Or you can use it as a hermitage on your property, a place where you go for solitude and silence.

The idea is to have the intention to set aside a place where you can sit for however much time you have that morning or evening. A place that is your place where you go for only one purpose. A place you can go to declare your intention, however weary you may be that day, to open your heart and mind to deeper compassion, insight, and wisdom in the context of the faith or secular tradition you have chosen.

Having this place, making it beautiful, however modest or grand this place may be, will allow you to practice more consistently. Hopefully, over time you will sit for at least a few minutes, maybe longer, every day or at least the vast majority of days. Maybe you will be able to sit for 2-3 sessions per day as you really gain a sense of the value of meditation and progress deeper into practice and the opening of the heart and mind.

The painting or statue, the artwork and accoutrements, the quote from scripture, whatever of these things you choose, will become more and more meaningful to you as you immerse yourself into the routine and revered images of faith, ethics, and practice.

In our very hectic and fast paced lives, with multiple electronic devices and streams of media it is important to step back from all of this for times of silence and solitude and the search for deeper peace and meaning.

Having a place in your home that is your place will make it all the more likely you will find, borrow, or steal some time from other priorities as you seek to establish a daily practice.

For some meditation is punctuated by high and profound experiences. For most of us, certainly for me, the awakening is a far more gradual process and requires a great deal of patience as we seek to learn whatever lesson is the next lesson to learn.

Small steps work well. A few small steady steps every day, work very, very well.

However tedious and unproductive some sessions, or years, may be; there will be times when you realize how far you have come. It is not that you must resign yourself to only ordinary signs and experiences of life and try to pretend that these are somehow more important than you first thought.

It is that you will begin to see deeper and more profound levels of meaning in what previously seemed to be very simple and ordinary signs and experiences.

You will see the image of the chapel as a metaphor for the infinite house of existence.

The person sitting in the chapel will see a doorway that leads to the chapel within the person.

Person, chapel, universal life and universe…different, but not so different.

If you have a moment send in a photo of the chapel in your home.

All the best.

Will Raymond Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” and host of meditation practice.com

will@meditationpractice.com  774-232-0884

This week-end in Boston there is a rather bizarre ceremony at the main Cathedral.

Some of John Paul II’s blood will be on display.

To say that it is a somewhat barbaric superstition would be an understatement.

But the bigger problem for Catholic credibility it this: John Paul II should never have been canonized in the first place. It is not that he did not do many good and positive things in his career as a priest. He did.

But he also was directly involved with the cover-up of the rape of 8 seminarians, and other abuses, by Father Maciel the head of the Legionaries of Christ from 1998-2004. The guilt of Father Maciel was finally established by Cardinal Ratzinger a few weeks before John Paul II died. But Cardinal Ratzinger and John Paul II and others allowed the cover up to continue for six years after it was first brought to his attention in 1998. They simply had no regard for the pain the delay caused to the seminarians who had come forward seeking justice. Many conservative Catholics attacked the seminarians for their actions. One can only wonder how that made them feel.

For the full story please see “Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II”, by Jason Berry and Gerald Renner. The problems are superbly documented by these senior and well regarded journalists.

Furthermore most of the Cardinals such as Cardinal Law of Boston who covered up sex abuse by priests for decades were appointed by John Paul II.

As early as the 1980’s the Vatican was informed of wide spread sexual abuse in American Catholic parishes. Cardinal Law and John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger who later became Pope Benedict 16th were all informed of the systemic and chronic nature of these problems.

It was only the victims and their lawyers and some forthright judges and journalists who brought the full scope of these horrors to public attention.

John Paul II created at atmosphere  amopng Bishops and Cardinals were the cover up of sexual abuse of children by priests and nuns and monks was acceptable. The reputation of the church, the money of the church, and the careers of Bishops and Cardinals and Popes were more important than the safety of children.

It was a tragedy and a scandal of historic proportions when men as intelligent as Cardinal Law, Pope John Paul II, and Cardinal Ratzinger succumbed to the temptation to sweep these kinds of crimes under the rug.

The idea that John Paul II should be considered a saint is merely another kick in the face to the victims of child abuse during his papacy. The idea that the current Pope Francis could have finished the process of canonizing this deeply flawed man is an indication he simply does not have the integrity to be in the job he has, however much better he may be than his predecessor.

The fact that Cardinal O’Malley of Boston is perpetrating this ongoing hypocrisy with the garish spectacle of people worshipping the blood of John Paul II is simply revolting. Sadly it is proof that he too has not learned the lessons of the sex abuse scandal despite the significant and honorable work he has done to compensate victims in his Archdiocese.

The fact that conservative Catholics around the world are ignoring that John Paul II was deeply involved with the cover-up of sexual abuse shows the advanced stages of decay within the church have not been arrested.

Is there no limit to the indifference of Conservative Catholics to the pain and suffering of victims of sex-abuse in the Catholic church? 

For all these reasons it is not appropriate to refer to John Paul II as Saint John Paul II.

If you are speaking to others who do speak of this former Pope as Saint John Paul II, it is best to discuss with them the reasons why this is unwise.

If you are in a church or monastery setting where the celebrant refers to this former Pope as Saint John Paul II you will need to determine if there is a way to communicate the reasons this is not appropriate. An alternative choice is to communicate to the people involved that you can no longer participate in the life of a community where such sacrileges occur.

It is simple. John Paul II had many admirable traits and did many honorable things. But his conduct in the Father Maciel case in particular and the sexual abuse scandal in general is more than enough proof, he is no saint.

Will Raymond  Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” Host of MeditationPractice.com

774-232-0884  will@meditationpractice.com

My father passed away many years ago. I was 23 when he died and had only seen him 2 times in the preceding nine years.

I and my two brothers and two sisters all went out to be with him at the end. I cannot speak for my siblings, but I can say there were some meaningful moments of reconciliation for me. I assume there were some for them as well.

Still, there was little in the way of tears for me. I simply did not know him very well. Nor did I think much about him one way or the other. Earlier in life I had hated him with a passion, well at least with as much passionate hatred as a young person was capable of. He was a bully. The fact that he was not able to support our family very well added a lot of stress to our mother’s life as did the way he treated her in general. The fact that our mother’s life was so hard was most of the reason I hated him. Poverty and alcoholism are not a very creative mix. My mother’s own alcoholism, her struggles with anxiety, and a nervous breakdown from the stress, all of these factors added to the struggles of her middle years.

Living in a dilapidated house, driving old, constantly breaking down cars, wearing the cheapest clothes and in general never really having much in the way of fun family times, it simply was not a very happy household. When I was thirteen they were divorced. After a year or two of relative involvement by him in my life, he married a woman and moved to the Chicago area. After that I only saw him a couple of times over the next decade before he died.

Living through a very painful disease in my teen years, stumbling towards my own problems with drugs and alcohol, struggling with many aspects of high school, not charting an intelligent education and a career plan, this was my experience after he was gone. I did not know how much I had missed until I became a father myself.

When I saw how much I gave to my son, or tried to give, I began to realize how much I had missed out on.

But all of these memories are from many years ago. I will be 61 in July. It has been 37+ years since he died. Most of the anger has been washed away.

And there are some happy memories such as the time he came to 1 or 2 football games, and a high school play I had a leading role in. There were other times when he would call on the phone. My mother and brother, our household of three at the time, would give the sign to say they were not there. So I spoke with him, once in particular that I remember, and was glad for that. I did not know it at the time, but I was glad for the attention and for the emotional contact. He came as close as he could, and actually came pretty close, to making an apology for being a poor father.

I can only imagine the guilt he must have felt at times for the way he treated his family, and the fact that he was a 1000 miles away during all the holiday times our family gathered.

But as I have said, all of this was many, many years ago.

The many years of meditation, my own long term recovery from alcohol and drugs, various efforts with therapy, some high grade successes as a father myself have allowed me to move on.

I know if he were alive now, he and I would really enjoy discussing a wide range of subjects and ideas.

This is a consolation to me, one I am grateful for.

Whatever your experience of your father may be, peace to you this Father’s Day 2014.

For those whose fathers have passed on may the positive memories continues to bloom, and the difficult ones recede.

For those whose fathers still live, may your peace, or your efforts to build peace, bear good fruit.

For those who are fathers now, may you learn from your mistakes and savor your successes.

Will Raymond Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” Host of MeditationPractice.com

will@meditationpractice.com    774-232-0884

Last week I offered some general notes about how members of different religious or spiritual traditions practice Confession. Please see that post for background information.

This week I want to focus on those who practice Confession in the context of a belief in God. Later in this series I can talk about Confession for those who do not and for those who are not sure what to believe.

Whether a person who believes in God also believes in judgement after death or not, the key question is the same. Are they living in right relationship with God or not?

In short the choices we make in terms of beliefs, thoughts, and actions are of great importance. For those who believe in God every thought, choice, and action is either moving them into deeper communion with God or further away.

If one has entertained vicious and self-centered thoughts, or behaved in a greedy or an evil manner, they can return to the path of righteousness by following the practice of Confession and Atonement called for in their tradition.

The act of breaking out of one’s denial and hypocrisy and admitting small or grievous breaches of the chosen moral law is humbling and disruptive but nevertheless very beneficial. One is freed from the disfiguring pretense they are more moral or righteous than they actually are.

The next steps of turning to God with humility, making a sincere act of contrition, and asking for pardon are equally effective at deflating the diseased and inflamed ego. Making a sincere commitment to change one’s ways and following through on those commitments to the best of one’s ability is another vital part of this process. It is also an essential part of the process of building character and maturity.

All of these practices refine the sensitivities of the believer. They are able to perceive God’s ways and living presence in ways they previously could not. Even if they fall again, which sadly is likely, the process can be repeated assuming one is not mocking or trying to con God with some lifeless or mechanical pretense.

Gaining this greater sensitivity has the following effect:

They come to know a more intimate blending of their life with God’s living presence within them.

In short they are falling deeper in love with their beloved. Both the giving and receiving of that love are more delicate, sustaining, and beautiful.

Their relationships with mortals are also enriched and more fulfilling.

For those who do not believe in God, the details of and experiences of this process are different but no less profound. For those who are not sure what to believe, their efforts with these practices will help them to decide one way or the other whether God does or does not exist.

What do you believe is the difference between a moral and an immoral life?

What code or set of laws do you rely upon to help you decide what is permissible behavior?

When you do something selfish or greedy or cruel how do you repair the damage to your self, to others, and to all who live?

Please let me know what you think. Let me know what you find.

Will Raymond Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness”, Host of Meditationpractice.com

774-232-0884  will@meditationpractice.com

Will

Everyone has seen movies where a person goes into a confessional booth in a Catholic church and the priest is on the other side of a screen. Very possibly this is the image most people have of what confession is.

But this is only one model or format used for confession. Confession is very different in many Protestant churches. For example, in many Protestant denominations there is no need for a minister to be involved, nor is the minister deemed to have any ability to forgive sin. A person confesses their sins or character defects directly to God and asks for pardon.

12 step programs offer another variation on confession. As part of their 5th step a person can speak to any person they trust whether that person is a lay person, or even an ex-convict without official religious or psychological training of any kind. They then confess the exact nature of their character defects to that person, themselves, and to their “higher power” .

In Buddhist monasteries on a very consistent basis, the monks confess their infractions of the monastic rule to one another in a group setting.

The traditional Jewish observance of Yom Kippur calls for a 25 hour fast as part of the process used by believers as they prepare to confess to God the times they broke the various commandments.

No doubt other traditions have their own myriad variations on how they view sin, or character defects, and how they confess and atone for the times they have transgressed the customs and norms of the traditions.

What I feel is important is that you look into different forms or models of confession to find one that seems true and good for you. Those who do not believe in God will approach this work in ways that are different than those who do.

Yet the work remains to be the same.

What moral compass will you use to distinguish between what is right and wrong?

When you reflect honestly that you have harmed, or wished harm on someone else, what do you do with the results of that reflection?

Do you honestly admit you were wrong and apologize to the person involved, when it is reasonable and reasonably possible to do so? Or, do you stubbornly refuse to admit you did anything wrong or to apologize when it is clear to everyone else that an apology is in order?

When you make an apology is it some half-assed attempt that means you are not really taking any responsibility for what you did, or is it a full and open apology without condition or equivocation?

How you answer these questions and work with these issues will have more to do with you reaching enlightenment or not reaching enlightenment than any other single issue.

Before you can know the truth of this life, you must be willing to face and admit in what ways you have let yourself and others down by how you acted or treated them.

Facing these truths is a humbling experience.

Confessing this truth to God, or to a trusted mentor or both, is also a humbling experience.

When direct amends can be made, without causing further harm to the injured person, this process continues to deepen the sense of awkwardness and humility.

Look closely at how you feel when you engage these practices with an open heart and a very, sincere spirit. But certainly step back from some morbid obssessiveness or excessively rigid code of rules.

Look closely at how you feel when you realize you have hurt yourself or someone else.

If you believe in God, then use the process of confessing to God, either through a priest or directly, to clarify your understanding of the nature of God and your relationship to this “higher power.”

See how you feel as you do this.

If you do not believe in God, then see how your interior experience of life changes and how the gates to the castles of insight and wisdom swing open for you when you engage this and related practices.

People search for esoteric doctrines or special practices and these efforts have their value.

But most miss that real progress with meditation is simpler than they may have heard.

When you are wrong admit it. Good skills with mindfulness will make it more possible to clearly see when this is the case.

When you do something hurtful make amends to the person you have harmed when it is possible to do so without causing further harm.

Make a sincere effort to change offending habits and thought patterns.

Repeat the process when you need to because you probably will need to time and time again until one day you learn to really change your ways.

But then one day you will realize that fundamental change has come into your life.

One day you will realize you are closer to the goal of perfect peace and wisdom than you ever really expected was possible.

All the best.

Will Raymond  Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness”  Host of MeditationPractice.com.

will@meditationpractice.com 774-232-0884

“Who do you love in this world with whom you have little or no conflict?” This is the third question of the Simple Path that I have been writing about for the past five weeks. Please see at least 2 or 3 of the preceeding posts for background.

It is simple. To access the deeper states of peace available in silent meditation one has to learn how to wash away all the resentments, anger, and harsh judgments of others.

For almost all of us this is a very difficult aspect of practice. This is particularly true of those who are the victims of emotional or physical violence or who are victims of political repression, raw greed, and economic violence.

Still, to break free from the endless cycles of the anger, fear, alienation, restless aching hunger, and confusion most of us experience on a regular basis, we need to learn to forgive the unforgiveable and to love the unloveable.

The problem is that many people feel they can’t or do not want to do such a difficult task. They are just too angry at someone in their personal life who has hurt them, or is currently hurting them badly. Or they are just too angry at some group of politicians, or those people they describe as “welfare parasites” or “corporate criminals” or “media scumbags” or whoever is seen as “the enemy” or “the bad hated ones.”

The secret to this practice is this: do not try to forgive those you cannot forgive. Do not try to force yourself to love those you cannot love. Just know that you do not want to forgive or love them. Just be more and more aware of what it feels like, in your body and in your mind, to resent or hate them.

Just know that someday you want to learn how to forgive those who by all ordinary reckoning deserve neither love nor forgiveness.

Come back and heal the relationship with yourself by being more gentle and patient as you try to forgive yourself for any poor choices you have made.

Come back to the relationship you have with those you love the most and with whom you have little or no conflict. See what it feels like to enhance the quality of love you give to them.

If you believe in God or the holy spirit or universal energy of life, come back to that relationship and see what you can do to open your heart and mind to the deepening communion with this mysterious “holy other.” If you do not believe in God, then see how you can deepen your sense of connection with all who live or your appreciation for the mystery of life and existence.

These practices will begin to heal and enrich the core of your personality.

These practices will give you new skills with love, respect, vulnerability, honesty, listening, and generosity. These skills will generate deeper experiences of love and communion.

During times of meditation the breath will slow and become very silken as you breathe in and out. During times of meditation any knots in your neck or stomach will loosen noticeably and then for at least a while be gone completely.

These deeper states of peace will clear your heart and mind by degree. Over time you will gain a more visceral sense of how anger, resentment, violent thoughts, acts, and the harsh judgment of others, are among the chief forces destroying the nations of the world.

You will come to know that love and forgiveness are not just some nice sounding words for Sunday morning. You will come to know the urgency of love in small things and in great things and in all things.

Over time forgiving the unforgiveable, and loving the unloveable, will simply be part of the work you will have learned to do and to teach to others.

Those who believe in God will engage this practice in different ways than will those who do not. But the core practice is very similar.

Very little of this is easy. Very little of this is quick. Be patient with yourself as you will likely experience many setbacks with anger and harsh judgment.

Peace,

Will Raymond  Author of “The Simple Path of Holiness” Host of MeditationPractice.com

will@meditationpractice.com   774-232-0884