90 Days of ILP

The other day, Integral Spiritual Center hosted a live event in Denver, featuring, along with the ubiquitous KW, Father Thomas Keating, chief patriarch of Contemplative Christianity (a.k.a. "centering prayer") here in the states. The event began with a gospel singer from Naropa (above), which got Wilber clapping so hard he lost all note-taking strength in his right hand for the first five minutes of the talk.

Then it was on: two solid hours of theory and wise espousal, with KW and Father K. sharing equal time to deal with all the vagueries of states and stages, the importance of the shadow, one's relationship to the divine, etc. After a break, a few panelists joined KW and FK, including my mentor John Forman, who asked FK a question on the similarities of FK's centering prayer to the Benedictine practice of Lectio Divina, which is a form of meditative rumination over a sacred text.

According to John, the process can be boiled down to 4 steps:

1. The reading stage (slow, deliberate)
2. Discursive (uses the faculties) meditation/rumination
3. Yearning for union with God/Spirit, which turns to prayer
4. "Hear" the answer in the "language of silence"

Unfortunately, such an in-depth practices requires a bit of time to actually "sink in", keeping it from inclusion as a one-minute module. But, for a word-geek like myself, this is far more interesting than boring ol' vipassana.