A reader of this blog recently wrote this question to me:
I’ve read and listened to Fr. Thomas Keating quite a bit but am still a little confused regarding where my mind is supposed to be during my Centering Prayer practice. I understand that we are to use the sacred word as a symbol of intention to accept the presence and action of God, however, I get tripped up over where my awareness is supposed to rest. Am I supposed to sit with open awareness AND with the sense that God is present or am I supposed to sit with open awareness and just allow God to interject his presence if/when he so chooses? Granted, it’s not terribly difficult to “realize” God’s presence in any given context, but it is still considered “thinking” in the Centering Prayer world.
Thanks for your question. I think it’s a question many people might wonder about. Your question reminds me of a classic Peanuts comic where Linus tells Lucy that he has become obsessed with awareness of his tongue.
Wondering where to rest our awareness during prayerful silence is kind of like poor Linus being aware of his tongue. It became a hamster-wheel of self-consciousness, with no easy-to-find way to get off the wheel. In the Peanuts comic, Linus tries to deal with his tongue-awareness by talking it over with his sister; Lucy, discovering that now she is equally self-conscious about her tongue, tries to deal with it through aggression. Neither of these strategies seem to work very well.
The only real answer, for Linus and Lucy as well as all of us self-conscious centering prayer practitioners, is to gently settle into a kind of self-forgetfulness. I wish I had a snappy suggestion about how to do that, but I’m afraid for most of us, trying to be self-forgetful is like trying to fall asleep when insomnia has us in its grip. Paradoxically, we can only reach our goal by letting go of any attempt to reach it.
Centering Prayer and Awareness of God
The reader asks: should a person seek to cultivate a kind of “dual awareness” of both the presence of God and the open awareness of objectless silence, or simply rest one’s awareness on the openness, trusting that God will “interject” God’s presence according to God’s design?
Strictly speaking, the practice of Centering Prayer involves neither of these scenarios. Thinking about God, feeling something that we interpret as God, or any other kind of cognitive experience of God is, strictly speaking, just another thought. And the practice of Centering Prayer is a practice of surrendering all thoughts — even thoughts about God.
The theology of Centering Prayer holds that the Holy Spirit rests and works in our hearts, without us having to be consciously aware of that divine presence. God does not require us to think about God, or feel God, or in any other way to experience God, in order for God to love us and work for our healing and transformation. While there is nothing wrong with a conscious experience of God, feeling of God, or thoughts about God, during the practice of Centering Prayer such thoughts, feelings and experiences are gently set aside. Why? Because the process of being non-attached to our thoughts — even apparently good or holy thoughts — is in itself a gesture of consenting to God’s action within us. (For the purposes of Centering Prayer, thoughts, feelings, daydreams, bodily sensations and any other cognitive experiences are all called “thoughts” for simplicity’s sake).
That may seem counterintuitive, but it is actually sound teaching according to the history of mystical wisdom.
We know from the classic mystic tradition — authors like St. Teresa of Ávila, for example — that thoughts or experiences are not always seen as necessarily from God. They could be figments of our imagination, or even temptations from an unfriendly spirit. Probably every psychiatric hospital in the Christian world has residents who are convinced that they have special messages given to them from God. I say this not to sow distrust for our experiences, but rather to explain why it can make sense to learn to be non-attached to our thoughts and experiences, even if on the surface they seem “holy.” Maybe they are holy. And maybe they are delusional or egotistical. If we simply practice non-attachment, we are freed from having to discern every single thought (which sounds like its own trap of self-consciousness). In other words, learning to let go of our thoughts is like letting yourself forget about being aware of your tongue.
So Centering Prayer is a prayer of faith and trust. We trust that God is active in our hearts, even if we don’t feel it. We trust that practicing non-attachment is a way of expressing faith and trust in God. And we trust that over time, the disciplined practice of Centering Prayer creates the room in our hearts and minds for us to more fully consent to God’s healing action within us, allowing us to grow in grace — again, even if we don’t “feel” a thing!
So to summarize: the method of Centering Prayer invites us to simply rest our attention on the objectless awareness of silence — what has been called “the cloud of unknowing.” Any other thought, feeling, image or experience is simply to be gently released: we ever so gently “resist no thought, retain no thought, react to no thought, and return to the sacred word.” And we do it all with trust and a willingness to accept that experience of God is not the only way to be intimate with God.
Oh, one more thing — since you’re interested in Thomas Keating, I heartily recommend that you pre-order Cynthia Bourgeault’s forthcoming book, Thomas Keating: The Making of a Modern Christian Mystic. The publisher sent me an advance copy of the book, and I believe anyone interested in Thomas Keating will love it. It will be released this fall but you can pre-order it now.
