Which Face of Spirit has your tradition and your practice focused on?
As the practitioner, how has this particular focus helped you on your path? What other approaches could you engage for seeking the other faces? How would attention to the other faces enhance or detract from your current practice? Do you find yourself pulled to one particular way of communing with Spirit and/or resistant to another?
About the Three Faces of Spirit: we can contemplate, think, and know about Spirit in the 3rd-person; we relate, dwell, and commune with Spirit in a 2nd-person relationship, and we meditate, feel and know ourselves as Spirit in a 1st-person apprehension of our source and substance.
My Christian/Catholic childhood gave me, I now realize, a wonderful training in 2nd-person practices of communing with Spirit/God. Returning to this tradition in recent years, by studying Fr. Thomas Keating's work, has deepened my awareness of the beauty and value of these practices. In particular, I am grateful to have been exposed to his teachings on Lectio Divina, or divine reading (of scripture). In this 4 part practice, one (or a small group) listens/reads a brief passage followed by silence, then one reflects or chews on perhaps a single word or phrase from that quotation with more silence, then one prays/talks to God about whatever comes forward, followed by more silence, and finally, one rests in silence (inner and outer). I have been moved and surprised many times by what has emerged for me.
In these and other Christian practices, one encounters one's own willingness to consent and to surrender, and to feel love.
And Fr. Thomas' Centering Prayer method continues as my core meditation practice. However, contrary to its name, I find this a God/Spirit as first person practice, rather than second. This is especially true when I borrow a bit of Big Mind practice and call upon the Controller to restrict the myriad voices so I may access non-grasping, non-seeking Big Mind. Even when I simply rely on my sacred word when I become aware that I am engaged in thoughts, (not a mantra), I experience this as a first-person practice.
These two practices have enabled me to admit/see value in my Christian tradition that is relevant as I tread an integral path. Alone, they are not enough but they are deep.
I want to add to the above described practice of Lectio Divina that the selected passage is re-read with each new part of the practice. I also want to express my current ambivalence about Lectio focused on the Bible, despite earlier positive experiences. After a hiatus, I am trying again, wondering if an AQAL way of parsing the passage yields a new level of insight in the second part of the practice. Or is trying to wring new depth from the Bible a level-relevant/restricted enterprise?
Best practices are the accumulated wisdom of years, decades or even centuries of human experience. Often the result of pain and suffering, these prescriptions tend to follow a simple and practical formula: do this to avoid that. Doctors wash their hands after examining a patient, to prevent the spread of disease. Runners tie their shoelaces, to avoid tripping and falling on their face. Employers check references before extending 350-029 a job offer. These best practices remind us how to approach a particular task, and why we should favor one tactic to another. What then are traditions? According to the dictionary, traditions are beliefs or customs that have been handed down from one generation to the next, by word of mouth or practice. We can define traditions more precisely by comparing 350-040 them to the concept of best practices: A tradition is a best practie for which the rationale has been lost, obscured or forgotten (or which had no rationale to begin with). Traditions remind us how to act, but not why to act. They imply that we should repeat what has been done before, simply because it was 352-001 done before. It is a perfectly valid approach—if circumstances never evolve, communication never distorts the message, and memories never fade.
As someone with Jewish background who is exploring the mystical and non-dual aspects of Judaism, this practice was difficult, particularly the the 2nd person exercise, which seemed to form a significant part of the 1st person exercise as well. Perhaps the problem is a deep seated distrust of images stemming from the tradition (see the 2nd Commandment) combined with my own experiences of formlessness- or perhaps I'm just a classic sufferer of boomeritis . . .
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Thoughts on 'God/Spirit as 1st and 2nd Person' Practices in the...
Posted November 23rd, 2008 by Anita BoydMy Christian/Catholic childhood gave me, I now realize, a wonderful training in 2nd-person practices of communing with Spirit/God. Returning to this tradition in recent years, by studying Fr. Thomas Keating's work, has deepened my awareness of the beauty and value of these practices. In particular, I am grateful to have been exposed to his teachings on Lectio Divina, or divine reading (of scripture). In this 4 part practice, one (or a small group) listens/reads a brief passage followed by silence, then one reflects or chews on perhaps a single word or phrase from that quotation with more silence, then one prays/talks to God about whatever comes forward, followed by more silence, and finally, one rests in silence (inner and outer). I have been moved and surprised many times by what has emerged for me.
In these and other Christian practices, one encounters one's own willingness to consent and to surrender, and to feel love.
And Fr. Thomas' Centering Prayer method continues as my core meditation practice. However, contrary to its name, I find this a God/Spirit as first person practice, rather than second. This is especially true when I borrow a bit of Big Mind practice and call upon the Controller to restrict the myriad voices so I may access non-grasping, non-seeking Big Mind. Even when I simply rely on my sacred word when I become aware that I am engaged in thoughts, (not a mantra), I experience this as a first-person practice.
These two practices have enabled me to admit/see value in my Christian tradition that is relevant as I tread an integral path. Alone, they are not enough but they are deep.
Anita Boyd