Oct 17, 2008

Meditation for dummies

Bradley Moore has posted a very honest and funny look at his attempts to try contemplative prayer.

My mentor, Dr. Payne, suggested that I start meditating. He mentioned it one day as he calmly observed me work myself into a lather over the usual career frustrations and corporate political struggles. He made it sound so easy and fun. And I said, “Well, yes, that might help calm me down.” But I was also secretly thinking to myself how meditating would make me sound extremely hard-core spiritual. You know, the way everyone thinks that Buddhists are so much more spiritual than Christians, just because they meditate? I imagined telling my friends and associates how I have started practicing meditation. “Sorry, John - can we make the breakfast meeting at 8:30 instead of 7:00? You see, I have a very strict discipline of meditating between 7 and 7:45.” “Oh…uh, sure,” John replies, suddenly feeling spiritually inferior, grasping in his pocket for his rosary beads as he begins to doubt the validity of his meager prayer life....Read More