Father Laurence Freeman OSB, meditation as a way to personal and social transformation

My guest today is Father Laurence Freeman OSB, a Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Monte Olivetto Maggiore in Italy.  Fr Laurence was educated by the Benedictines and studied English Literature at Oxford University. He is the Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) an inclusive contemplative  community based in Bonnevaux. 
Fr Laurence is a prolific author. His books include: Light within, the Selfless Self, Your Daily Practice, Jesus: the Teacher Within, First Sight: The Experience of Faith, Web of Silence and Good Work: Meditation for Personal and Organizational Transformation. He has collaborated with the Dalai Lama on many dialogues and on the ground breaking book The Good Heart. In addition to his work for the contemplative renewal of Christianity he leads dialogues and peace initiatives, seeing meditation as opening the common ground of all humanity.
To Fr Laurence meditation is central because it is foundational, because it is a daily practice for him. He recommends that people meditate twice a day, morning and evening, which has a transformative effect upon our sense of time and, and our way of living. At his center they meditate four times a day. Many people, when they I first began, feel that they don't have time to meditate. But  the time that you give to the meditation comes back. And one has to be patient.
And the interesting discovery is that when we enter solitude, for example, in the time of meditation, and we leave images and conversations with ourselves behind then we find ourselves more and more deeply in this solitude. And the curious and wonderful discovery is  that accepting your uniqueness is also the means to much deeper and richer sense of relationship to others. Solitude is the cure for loneliness. Loneliness is a failed solitude. It's the failure or the inability to really be oneself and accept oneself in one's uniqueness.
God does not allow evil to happen. But God is in the suffering of those who are subjected to that evil. God is omnipresent. God is around a being and God is presence. There is this very challenging and almost terrible saying of Jesus. He says, God is like the sun that shines on good and bad or on the ungrateful and the wicked.
God is being and God is your being. In the silence, in the stillness of meditation, you are being with God, God is being with you, but not in a way that you can psychologize. 
My guest next week will be Dr Jessica Eccles MB, ChB, Dip(French), MA, MSc, MRCPsych, PhD, PGCert HE, Clinical Senior Lecturer and MQ Arthritis Research UK Fellow. We shall talk about philosophy of mind and brain-body interactions and the relationship between joint hypermobility, autonomic dysfunction and psychiatric symptoms

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
meditation,life, suffering, solitude, people, god, reality, ego, practice, silence, world, understand, non-dualistic, mind, mantra
SPEAKERS
Speaker 2 (82%), Speaker 1 (17%) 
1
Speaker 1
0:02
This is Pushing Boundaries, a podcast about pioneering research, breakthrough discoveries and unconventional ideas. I'm your host, Dr. Thomas R Verny. My guest today is father Lawrence Freeman OSB a Benedictine monk of the congregation of Mount Olive, Viet doe Maggiore in Italy. Father Lawrence studied English Literature at Oxford University. He is the director of the world community for Christian meditation, an inclusive, contemplative community based in France. 

0:59
1
Speaker 1
The  world community for Christian meditation is a center for peace, where meditation is practiced and taught as a way to personal and social transformation. Father Lawrence is a prolific author. His books include light within the selfless self, your daily practice, Jesus, the teacher was in fifth sight, the experience of faith, web of silence, and good work meditation for personal and organizational transformation. He has collaborated with the Dalai Lama on the groundbreaking book, The Good Heart. in addition to his work for the contemplative renewal of Christianity, he leads dialogues and peace initiatives, seeing meditation as opening the common ground of our humanity. He was awarded the Order of Canada, in recognition of his work for interfaith dialogue. And the promotion of world peace His Daily Wisdom, quarterly spiritual letter, other regular teachings online, and his retreats and conferences are sources of inspiration for many worldwide. Welcome, Father Lawrence.

2:35
Thank you, Thomas.
1
Speaker 1
2:36
I'm so happy that you were able to join us? Am I correct in assuming that 
meditation is central to your teaching?

2:48
Yes, it's central and foundational.
1
Speaker 1
2:52
Could you explain what you understand by that term, and how you teach and practice it, please?
2
Speaker 2
3:00
I would call it central because it is foundational, because it is a daily practice for me. And we teach it as a daily practice. We'd recommend that people meditate twice a day, morning and evening, which has a transformative effect upon our sense of time and, and our way of living. Here in the, in my center here, my life here and the community, Bond vo In fact, we meditate four times a day. And many people, of course, as I did when I first began, feel that I don't have time to meditate. But the discovery that's really quite life changing is that when you meditate, you have more time, the time that you give to the meditation comes back. I wouldn't say 100 fold, but it comes back. And you've got of course, you approach the business of living and one's own inner life in a more peaceful way. Of course, it takes time to develop that, that practice. And one has to be patient. By I suppose one of the central principles or discoveries of my life, is that meditation creates community.

4:28
And that's a mysterious fact. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that.
2
Speaker 2
4:37
And why it creates community I think is a very important question for our, our time and our future. And meditation creates community among those who meditate, but it also is a support to meditation. So in a sense, you could say We always meditate in our community, and the community supports us and may introduce us to the meditation practice and then supports us on over the whole journey of meditation. So that's my basic, life and work. And over many years now, my work has been to share this gift of meditation widely in different ways, but especially by meditating together with people, but also through writing and through talking, but it's, it's really a very simple practice. And it is transmitted, I think, in a very simple way, when we meditate together. Anyway, I don't want to go on. But that's what I mean by central foundation.
1
Speaker 1
6:05
I understand. So in terms of community, I have always thought of meditation as being like singularly alone, kind of a thing, you know, that you go and sit in a cave or something, and meditate by yourself, right? But you are speaking of a community, so don't the other people kind of distract you they are breathing, they are coughing, their movements. How do you
2
Speaker 2
6:36
that can happens, that can happen, of course, and that's why we we also recommend and develop a certain discipline or protocol, you know, when you meditate together, you there's a sort of beginning and the end of the meditation with with a bell or a gong. During that time, everybody tries to sit still and as quietly as possible. So and there are some people who will say they prefer to meditate on their own and others who say that they prefer to meditate with others, because it's supportive. I think both are true in the sense that and I think maybe we have to understand the, the, the idea of solitude. Solitude is not only about being separated from other people, physically. It's solid in a cave or wherever, in Hermitage, some people are more solitary than others in that sense, and they like to be on their own more but, but solitude itself, certainly in the monastic wisdom, is not just about being withdrawn from company. It's about the discovery, and the acceptance of your uniqueness. 
And the interesting discovery  is that when we enter that solitude, for example, in the time of meditation, and we embrace our own uniqueness, for example, by leaving images and conversations with ourselves behind or fantasy world or problem solving, mind as we leave that aside, which is how I understand meditation, then we find ourselves more and more deeply in this solitude. And the curious and wonderful discovery is this solitude, accepting your uniqueness is also the means to much deeper and richer sense of relationship to others. And in that sense, very important leave for our time, which is a time for many people, a time of loneliness, and isolation. Solitude is the cure for loneliness. And we could say that loneliness and of course you can be lonely in a crowd. Loneliness is a failed solitude. It's the failure or the inability to really be oneself and accept oneself in one's uniqueness. Does that make sense?
1
Speaker 1
9:46
Yes, yes. And it's a lot to digest because it's very wise and really quite deep. That would be a nice sentence to meditate upon actually no solid feud is the cure for loneliness. I think that's very interesting. I shall certainly think about that more later on. But speaking of what to meditate on you, you recommend a mantra, I believe, which is ma ra na sa? Am I correct on that? And you like the idea of it having four syllables? Can you tell me why?
2
Speaker 2
10:29
Well, the purpose of the mantra, which is a meditation word, or in the religious, wisdom, traditions, it's usually a sacred word or a sacred phrase, maybe from Scripture, the mantra, and we can refine this, this method of meditation, universally expressed in different ways, but essentially the same practice in in all the major religious and spiritual traditions. So the purpose of the mantra is not to give you something to think about. Quite the reverse. It is, the purpose of it is to lay aside your thoughts. Now, when I was first introduced in meditation, I was in my first year at university, and I went to visit my, my teacher, John Lane. And, and I remember very vividly, it was a turning point in my life. In one of our conversations, about my, my problems and issues, he introduced me to meditation in a very simple way, in a very few words, and this is what he said, When you meditate, you sit down, you sit still, you breathe, normally, you close your eyes. And then you begin to repeat a word, Mantra, continuously, faithfully during the time of the meditation. And when you get distracted from this worker, this practice of saying the mantra, listening to the mantra, when you get distracted, and you find yourself daydreaming, or falling asleep, or fantasizing or chewing over your problems and anxieties. As soon as you realize that's happened, you drop the thought. And you return to the mantra. So we could say, then that meditation is not what you think, in both senses of the phrase, and the mantra allows us to lay aside our thoughts, this, this expression, that meditation is the laying aside your thoughts is actually a famous saying of an ancient Christian monk from the, the second century. So that's now choosing the mantra is important, because you want to stick ideally, to stay with the same word or the same phrase, continuously during the meditation and also from day to day. And the effect of this is that the mantra over time, gently, but very effectively, with regular practice, takes you as it were, from the head to the heart. 
Or, you could also say, integrates or harmonizes, those centers of consciousness, our head and our heart. And by heart, I don't mean just our emotional center. The heart, in the mystical tradition, is the spiritual point. Think the mathematical definition of a point is that it has position but no magnitude. So it's a it's a center point of integration. And this is it's in the heart then that we find our essential, essential wholeness is in the heart that we discover. The solitude we were talking about, that as solitude as a basis of relationship. So and of course, in the, in the, in the many traditions the heart is, a point of infinite space, and consciousness expands and beyond normal, ego, egoistic levels of self concern and desire and fear and so on. 
So the mantra has this gift very gently and naturally, taking us into this point. of wholeness, center, and taking us on a journey that, of course, is the journey of life and journey without without boundaries. And the mantra that we recommend, yes, it really is the word Maranatha. Or an author is not the only word you could choose. But it's ideal in many ways. First of all, in the Christian tradition, it means Come, Lord is the oldest Christian prayer. in Aramaic language that Jesus spoke. We find it in the early scriptures. And it was a sort of a password or sacred word for the early in the in the early tradition. But it also is fairly universal, because the syllables that you find in MA Ra, na, da, what the Indian tradition calls, seed syllables, and the syllables that have a calming effect on the mind. And the four syllables also means that you can say the mantra in rhythm with your breath, for example. Now, as you meditate, the breath becomes slower. And you find that you're saying the mantra more gently and subtly, and listening to it. And eventually, it may lead you into silence, complete silence. 
But by silence, I don't mean just feeling quiet and calm, which is a good thing. But it by silence, we I would mean a place without thought, or self reflection, but at the same time of being awake. So dementia, takes us from this first level of monkey mind where we're jumping all around all the time, it takes us to a deeper level of consciousness, which you could call the hard disk of our psyche, where everything is recorded, where we have, for example, you know, memories and unfinished feelings. And the problems that we have sort of pushed away, so that the mantra takes us through that meditation takes us through that level, as a healing process. I'm not saying you may not also need other forms of healing. 
But this is a very meditation in this sense, we could say it's a very therapeutic practice, then it leads you to a third level, this is a very rough, rough map, but it takes you to a third level, which you could call the heart, the brick wall of the ego. And this is a feeling of separateness. I mean, you tell me what you feel about this, but the ego develops early in life. And it's necessary to have a healthy ego in order to just separate and make relationships of our own, to have a, we don't collapse into other people. And we learn to move on and so on. But at the same time, the ego can be a place of great woundedness and defensiveness, we can become locked into our ego, and we don't know how to get out of it. So there's another level then in this work of meditation that that works on this feeling of separateness. 
Wonder of the early, early books on Christian meditation calls it the naked awareness of the self, just the naked awareness of the self. And then we have to just continue meditating at that, in that place, when we reach that level. But now we're probably meditating more gently or more subtly and more deeply. And then in, in moments, and progressively, the wall, the bricks in the wall of the ego fall out. And it's then that we see that there is something beyond the ego, we could call it the spirit, or the self. And this is where we really enter into into transcendence, but it's in a kind of embodied transcendence. It's not being spaced out. It's being at the same time grounded in our own reality and reality itself. So anyway, that's quite a long answer to your question. But those are sort of the stages that the mantra can take us through.
1
Speaker 1
20:07
Thank you. Thank you for that. So, you know, as a person who tries to understand things from a scientific standpoint, I totally resonate with what you said about the heart. I don't know whether you're familiar with my new book, The Embodied Mind, have you?
2
Speaker 2
20:27
I haven't read it. But I have heard about it. And I love the concept. I think it's a yes, please go.
1
Speaker 1
20:39
So I think we are we are on the same wavelength. As far as that is concerned. What I would like to understand and I think that many people who are listening to this might want to understand is how, not thinking, laying aside our thoughts, as you said. emptying your mind, can help you to go deeper? How does that? How does that happen? Why does that happen?
2
Speaker 2
21:11
Well, how does it happen? I don't know. Okay. How is how do we explain it? I mean, one way of explaining it, I could certainly say it happens. I think one for one thing we have to we have to say that the level at which this is processed this journey is unfolding through the practice of meditation is a level of essentially of a non dualistic mind or consciousness. This is very hard for us to speak about, of course, because the non dualistic mind takes us beyond language and image image into a direct experience of reality, being of truth, and it's not only in the meditation, of course, but one of the fruits of the practice of meditation is that we find that we're living, as you would say, with an embodied mind. But we're living in daily life, with a with a more direct feeling of contact, and participation in the flow of reality. Rather than working with models of reality, or our projections of reality. So by laying aside our thoughts, and imagination, thoughts, words and images, in the time of meditation, we are, in effect, withdrawing our projections and our version of reality, the version of reality that we construct, automatically, involuntarily, in our, in our, in our minds and, and feelings and imagination. 
And, as we as we do this work of silence, for example, in the Katha Upanishad, there's this beautiful passage, where it says Happy is the person who has found their work, happy person who has found the work of silence, and happier yet is the person who knows that silence is work. And I think that's helpful. Because it it reminds us that meditation is much more than just relaxation. Many people identify meditation and mindfulness as if they were the same thing. Well, any Buddhist I think, will will, my Buddhist friends would say that mindfulness techniques is essentially part of a bigger, a bigger pattern and is usually understood today and and the purpose of these mindfulness methods or techniques is to prepare us for meditation. And in meditation, we are taking the attention of ourselves. And that's the most difficult thing in the world for us to do. To take the attention of ourselves because we keep reverting it's like a spring keeps taking us back to self, self consciousness and self for now. essence. So, but we learn through the, through the time developing the muscle of attention, in meditation, what are the real Fantastic fruits of, of being free from this self fixation which keeps us focused on ourselves. So, so how it works, I think is that we, it teach it shows us and, and trains us little by little daily practice to do to be open to this journey that we make when we as we take the attention off ourselves. And that journey opens us up to have a much deeper fuller and richer experience of reality or not even the experience of reality, but the  feeling of participation in reality. And that, as I said, has as at its root, this non dualistic non objectifying level of heart of consciousness, simple consciousness, like a child.
1
Speaker 1
26:20
I have, I have watched your interview on Buddha at the Gas Pump. It is a great title. And I was struck by you saying we don't glorify suffering, nor do we deny its meaning. That's wisdom. Have I got that right?

26:41
It sounds right. Yes.
1
Speaker 1
26:44
I think I wrote it down. So I think it's pretty accurate. Yes. Okay. So, I wonder what you mean by wisdom, like, why is neither glorifying suffering nor denying it, meaning wisdom?
2
Speaker 2
27:03
Well, I was thinking about this recently, as far as I was reading some sayings of the Buddha nature in his life. When he was he describes his body as being I think he described his body as being held together by bits of string, and he was falling apart. And he was rather like Prince Philip, Queen's husband when he retired from public life, and he was in his 90s. And he said, somebody said to him also, so you're stepping down from your duties? He said, Yes, because I couldn't stand up any longer.

27:50
Right, very good.
2
Speaker 2
27:52
So anyway, the Buddha was in the state. And he was in great pain at the end. But so I think we think we could say that he was in pain, he was suffering. But he wasn't absorbed in the suffering. He wasn't overwhelmed by it. He accepted it in the same way that Christ accepted the suffering, of his passion and death. So suffering exists, certainly. And it's a fantasy to think, I think that we would ever be totally free from suffering. However, it's possible to accept suffering. And also to see that it is part of the journey of life and actually even brings certain graces or benefits, which teach us I mean, I'm sure we've all had the experience of going through a time of great suffering. And we may think, I'm not going to make it this is, couldn't get worse than this. And then you do with the help of, of, of your friends with with love, and with meditation, you you, you come through it, and then later you look back on it, and say, you might say, Thank God that's over. But you might also say, I'm grateful for it. It taught me and I've, I think I've could say that times in my own life. I think I've met many people who have really surprised me, as they described experiences, unbelievable suffering. They look back at a certain point and they say it I'm so grateful that I, I had this, because of what I've learned. A woman once who was, has a very, very painful, last few months of her life, before the pain was able to be controlled, but she wasn't in pain. And she said to me, it has been a terrible year. But I'm grateful for it, because it has taught me so much. So suffering is a fact of life, and we should avoid all the suffering we can avoid. But what we can't avoid, we should learn humbly to accept and allow it to teach us or to work its way through us. And what I think it leads us into is wisdom. Wisdom is an understanding, born of the reconciliation of opposites. And it reveals the way into deeper reality is always through paradox, where you think this is an impossible situation, I can't possibly reconcile these two things. You could say, you know, I'm young, I've got a young family, and I'm got a terminal illness. And this, and this is this is impossible. But you can also then learn that there is, in most paradoxical way, a joy in that, or not, because you're dying, but because of what it's teaching you about the love you have for your family, and so on. So their life is full of unique manifestations of this, this essential truth, I think that suffering, suffering, when it's accepted, teaches us to see things in their wholeness and to integrate contradictions.
1
Speaker 1
32:14
Well, I think a lot of people, including myself, struggle, struggle with this, this this concept of suffering. And I'm really not trying to argue with you on this, I'm just trying to understand it, please. So, like, what you say, is fine for people who survive the suffering. But what about all those people who die in suffering? How will they benefit from that suffering in any way?
2
Speaker 2
32:52
Well don't think there's a there's an answer, easy answer to that

33:08
Well, a difficult answer, then. Well,
2
Speaker 2
33:13
I think that I've been with people who have been dying, and we did not want to leave this life and leave their family and loved ones. But when they realized that this was happening, they did not deny it. Or they and they let go of the anger and the resistance and as they did that, and because they were surrounded, you know with people who are loving them they they found a peace a peace and and that piece I don't say in every on every deathbed, but that piece is like an energy that communicates itself to others. And I found this you know, for example, with my teacher was John main was dying and the young age when I was with him in his sacrum, I felt very peaceful because he was he just radiated generated this peaceful energy. When I left the room, I felt a lot of sadness, a lot of turbulence. So there's a definite kind of Andrew pieces and energy. It's not something negative. It's not. It's not just a relaxation, it's an energy of reconciled harmony and being. The other thing I would say is that when we see someone suffering, we may not be seeing everything that is happening within them. And they may on the surface appear very turbulent, very unhappy very, very much in a struggle. But at a deeper level to which they have gone. They are, as it were in on the the ocean bed, and they they are in a place of stability and peace. I once spoke with a man who hadn't had a near death experience when he was drowning. And he said, you know, as a typical description of the near death experience, he saw the light attracting him and welcoming him and he was a he was he said, I was so happy. So relieved, you know, I was I was going home. And he said, My life passed before my eyes. But he said, it wasn't like a judgment. He said, the light was not judging me. And I was not judging myself, I just could see what my life has been like and mistakes I've made and so on, but without guilt, or resentment. And then he said he was just so happy to be going into this light. And then, of course, he didn't go into the light. He came back and he realized that he had more work to do. And, but when he, as he spoke to us, as he told me about this, I thought, What did he look like, under the water? When he was drowning, you must have been flailing around, desperately trying to get air and whatever. And so even suffering exists, I think it can be very intense and overwhelming at certain levels. But there are levels beyond suffering as well.
1
Speaker 1
37:07
So when you look at the history of the world, let's say just the last 100 years, okay. And you look at the Armenian Genocide, you look at the Holocaust, you look at what's happening in Ukraine every day. The millions of of refugees in South America, Syria, North Africa. I have do you? How do you keep your faith in a good and benevolent God? When He allows he or she it allows these kinds of things to happen every day?
2
Speaker 2
37:58
Well, I don't think there's a pragmatic answer to that. I mean, it would be ridiculous to say yes, but good comes out of this. Ridiculous. But I was in Auschwitz, the first time I went to Auschwitz. And I was, I was numbed. And I was walking around with my friend and I suddenly heard I was saying in my head, I don't believe this, I don't believe. And then we we went into a little room, which was under the nightmare operating theater of Dr. Mangle. And it was a little cell. And there was a where they would keep prisoners before they kill them or
1
Speaker 1
38:57
experiment on them. Or, or experiment on them. Yeah. So.
2
Speaker 2
39:06
So we went into this room, and it had this absolute stillness, and silence there. And it was a place of Well, I just think there's almost no there are no words really to describe it. And in fact, I felt that at the hole of Auschwitz. It's a place of silence. And anything you say is, in a way going to betray the truth. But anyway, in this little cell, I noticed that in the corner of the one of the walls, I think there was a Polish Catholic soldier had been put in, I think, and he had drawn on the wall, a little picture of Christ on the cross and That was no doubt, comfto him and an expression of his faith. And, but I mean, it's not an answer to the question of evil, but it does confront the nature of evil. And for me, it was, my simple answer to that question is, God does not allow evil to happen. But God is in the suffering of those who are subjected to that evil. Now she was a young Jewish woman, you know, in Amsterdam, who died in Dachau, I think, and she was rounded up with the Jews sent off on the transportation. But before that happened, she was three and she was running between the different holding camps in, in Amsterdam. And during that awful time, she was she was not a religious person. And she was quite a strong and sensual woman, young woman. And but during that time, she was keeping an amazing diary, which was one of the great spiritual documents of our time, I think. And she said that she described it as like a well, or a huge space opening up inside of her. And she couldn't understand what this was and how to name it. And eventually, she said, Well, maybe I just better call it God. And she is in this space. And she, she lives and she, she helps the people running with messages and help from one camp to another. And she would be overwhelmed as you as she walked through the street, and she would see a flower growing on the side of the road. And she would be filled with this bliss and joy, the beauty of the world. So, again, and she brought she  described one conversation she had with some of the fellow Jews, who were being held and lives about to end really. And they were expressing such anger and hatred against the German soldiers who were holding them. And just filled with understandably, you know, filled with anger, and hatred. And as she said, something like don't waste your energy on this. Don't hate them. Because that's only going to make it worse for you. And they said, What do you say, and we've got to love them. And she said, Well, okay, maybe, something like that. So she didn't have easy answers, but I think in her description of her experience, of finding God in a non denominational and non theological way almost, she was living, living this reality, that God is omnipresent. God is around a being and God is presence. In, everything, and there is this very challenging and almost terrible saying of Jesus. He says, God is like the sun that shines on good and bad or `to the ungrateful and the wicked. So I don't that's no easy answer. Definitely.
1
Speaker 1
44:44
So in your in your life up to now. Have you ever had a moment where when you doubted the that God exists.
2
Speaker 2
45:05
I think when I was growing up as a child I was I was quite religious, brought up in a Catholic, Irish Catholic family and I was looking back, I'm grateful for that, because it gave me a language and a foundation. Let you know, when I entered into adolescence, I drifted away from it, I found it didn't really answer my question. So I would say I forgot God then. And the symbols, the rituals, the language, of my religious upbringing disappeared. And so I just wasn't thinking about God, or I was, I was looking for meaning and truth and dealing with the hardships of life. But, and I was perplexed and made mistakes, and but I think I, I didn't think about God. And I think to be honest, it was with meditation, and suffering and meditation. I, I began, gradually to sort of re engage or reconnect, not so much with the idea of God, but with the presence of God, which is a nameless presence. And but I began to be aware of that nameless presence more strongly. And I would say, it's not something you doubt, because it's, it's just something that grows stronger. 
There are certainly times where, you know, I felt very alone or in, in very good times a great loss or pain. And I don't think of God as some button, you can press that will make all that go away instantly. And I, you know, I also don't think of prayer is primarily as getting you out of those difficult situations. I think meditation  is pure prayer, not in the sense that you are asking for anything, or asking God to change His mind. But pure prayer in the sense that you learn to be in meditation. And then you, you realize, that God is being and God is your being. And so in the silence, in the stillness of meditation, you are being with God, God is being with you, but not in a way that you can psychologize so much or imagined so much. I mean, of course, the great mystics write very beautifully about this experience using metaphors and sometimes erotic imagery to describe it, but it's not something that can easily be put into words course. But then I think this, this pure prayer also helps you to understand there are other practices and other helps in life that can nourish and assist you dealing with the search for truth and, and dealing with difficult times. But I like the expression of Meister Eckhart he was a 12th century. Mystic, Christian mystic, very, very attractive to Buddhists today, as well. And most Eckhart has a sentence that says, I pray to God, to rid me of God. And what he's saying, I think is, God is not what you think. So there was another great paradox, district teacher St. Gregory Nyssa, who said, every image of God is an idol. So I don't struggle with doubt, of course, sometimes. The Divine In life and energy is a reality. That is, it's not any, anything that you can really take a selfie with, you know?
1
Speaker 1
50:14
Well, thank you, perhaps. that would be a good place to stop. I think you have given me, us a lot to think about. And it has been very enlightening. And just very rewarding. Being able to converse with you, I thank you so much for being our guest. And before we close, I want to tell our listeners that you have a website wccm.com.org.

50:56
Oh, okay. so.com. Yeah.
1
Speaker 1
51:00
That org. Okay, thank you for correcting that. And it's the website where people can watch over 300 hours of talks, retreats, led meditations and major events with new titles added every month. Have I got that? Right?
2
Speaker 2
51:16
Absolutely. Right. Well, you're very good marketeer. Thank you.
1
Speaker 1
51:21
No, not at all. Not at all. No, no, I'm much more interested in ideas than marketing.
2
Speaker 2
51:28
I wish i i wish that they'd been more of a conversation. I felt like I've spoken to anyone going into meditation half an hour. So I'll make up for all this talking. But well, I'm very grateful for your invitation
1
Speaker 1
51:43
anytime, anytime you wish to have a conversation. I'm available. And I just want to say that for the future. My guest next week will be Dr. Jessica Atlas. We shall talk about philosophy of mind and brain body interactions and the relationship between joint hypermobility, autonomic dysfunction and psychiatric symptoms. A very, very interesting doctor from the UK. And I'm sure that you will, you will enjoy her talk. So in the meantime, Brother Lawrence, thank you so much again, and until we meet again. Take care. Bye bye.

52:27
Thank you, Thomas. Bye