# 8 – Benedictine Tradition

Notes from John Main’s Christian Meditation Lectures
Presented by The World Community for Christian Meditation
www.wccm.org  or www.wccm-usa.org

Notes compiled By Mary Sargent

Meditation is to the spirit what breathing is to the body. It is not easy to understand how simple meditation is.  We live in a complex society where it is difficult to believe that anything simple, clear and straight forward could be very important or effective.

As Benedictine monks, we are the inheritors of a long, rich, spiritual tradition.  It has been passed on and survived for hundreds of years despite attacks, misunderstandings and simple neglect.

Once something has been written down, it has power to survive on its own.  Tradition cannot survive merely by being talked about or written down.  Only when men and women enter into the tradition can we re-create the tradition in every generation.  Then it becomes a living tradition, and in that moment of discovery, the tradition possesses the power to enlighten, guide and warm.

How do we enter into that tradition?  We let go of our own ideas about meditation, God, the spiritual paths, all concepts and images in our minds.  We learn to be still; to be silent.  Each of us can learn if we have the courage.

In the silence, we learn to be who we are now.  Meditation is simply becoming one with the basic energy of the universe.  It is realizing that you don’t have to make this harmony happen.  It already is.

We simply have to be so we can know.  Be, so that we can truly know what is.  We are released by opening our hearts and minds.  This energy then transforms us from within.  Travel through illusion, through the wall of ego into infinite space and freedom in God.

Remember to sit upright; sit still.  Next, close your eyes and gently relax your face.  Then say your mantra interiorly and silently.  That is all you have to do.  Let go.  Learn to listen to the sound of your mantra from the beginning until the end of your meditation.