A Sunlit Absence

Download or read book A Sunlit Absence written by Martin Laird and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his sequel to the best-selling Into the Silent Land, Martin Laird guides the reader more deeply into the sanctuary of Christian meditation. He focuses here on negotiating key moments of difficulty on the contemplative path, showing how the struggles we resist become vehicles of the healing silence we seek. With clarity and grace Laird shows how we can move away from identifying with our turbulent, ever-changing thoughts and emotions to the cultivation of a "sunlit absence"--the luminous awareness in which God's presence can most profoundly be felt.

Download or read book A Sunlit Absence written by Martin Laird and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-28 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The practice of contemplation is one of the great spiritual arts," writes Martin Laird in A Sunlit Absence. "Not a technique but a skill, it harnesses the winds of grace that lead us out into the liberating sea of silence." In this companion volume to his bestselling Into the Silent Land, Laird focuses on a quality often overlooked by books on Christian meditation: a vast and flowing spaciousness that embraces both silence and sound, and transcends all subject/object dualisms. Drawing on the wisdom of great contemplatives from St. Augustine and St. Teresa of Avila to St. Hesychios, Simone Weil, and many others, Laird shows how we can uncover the deeper levels of awareness that rest within us like buried treasure waiting to be found. The key insight of the book is that as our practice matures, so will our experience of life's ordeals, sorrows, and joys expand into generous, receptive maturity. We learn to see whatever difficulties we experience in meditation--boredom, lethargy, arrogance, depression, grief, anxiety--not as obstacles to be overcome but as opportunities to practice surrender to what is. With clarity and grace Laird shows how we can move away from identifying with our turbulent, ever-changing thoughts and emotions to the cultivation of a "sunlit absence"--the luminous awareness in which God's presence can most profoundly be felt. Addressed to both beginners and intermediates on the pathless path of still prayer, A Sunlit Absence offers wise guidance on the specifics of contemplative practice as well as an inspiring vision of the purpose of such practice and the central role it can play in our spiritual lives.

Download or read book Into the Silent Land written by Martin Laird and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-01 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sitting in stillness, the practice of meditation, and the cultivation of awareness are commonly thought to be the preserves of Hindus and Buddhists. Martin Laird shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own refined teachings on using a prayer word to focus the mind, working with the breath to cultivate stillness, and the practice of inner vigilance or awareness. But this book is not a mere historical survey of these teachings. In Into the Silent Land, we see the ancient wisdom of both the Christian East and West brought sharply to bear on the modern-day longing for radical openness to God in the depths of the heart. Laird's book is not like the many presentations for beginners. While useful for those just starting out, this book serves especially as a guide for those who desire to journey yet deeper into the silence of God. The heart of the book focuses on negotiating key moments of struggle on the contemplative path, when the whirlwind of distractions or the brick wall of boredom makes it difficult to continue. Laird shows that these inner struggles, even wounds, that any person of prayer must face, are like riddles, trying to draw out of us our own inner silence. Ultimately Laird shows how the wounds we loathe become vehicles of the healing silence we seek, beyond technique and achievement. Throughout the language is fresh, direct, and focused on real-life examples of people whose lives are incomparably enriched by the practice of contemplation.

Download or read book An Ocean of Light written by Martin Laird and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the third of Martin Laird's best-selling books on Christian contemplative life, Laird considers the deepening dynamics of contemplation for those who have settled into a maturing practice of meditation. Drawing on the works of writers ranging from St. Augustine and St. Teresa of Avila to Flannery O'Connor and David Foster Wallace, Laird grounds his methodology in both ancient practice and contemporary language. With characteristic lyricism and gentleness, he guides readers through new challenges of contemplative life, such as the danger of using a spiritual practice as a strategy for personal gain; making ourselves the focus of our own contemplative project; dealing with old pain; and transforming the isolation of loneliness and depression into a place of liberating solidarity with all who suffer.

Download or read book Finding Your Hidden Treasure written by Benignus O'Rourke and published by Liguori Publications. This book was released on 2010 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finding Your Hidden Treasure by Benignus O'Rourke is a contemplative path inwards, to the depths of your own being. Through silent prayer and meditation, and by discovering this ancient way of finding God, O'Rourke provides insight and guidance for your spiritual journey. He then outlines a practical approach, moving from silence to action, and explains how to take God's love to others in everyday life.

Download or read book Being Still written by Jean-Yves Leloup and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jean-Yves Leloup explores the writings of many spiritual masters from across the centuries, in particular the Desert Fathers, the fourth-century monk Evagrius, St. John Cassian, and the anonymous nineteenth-century author of The Way of the Pilgrim." "Drawn from the experience of the monasteries of Sinai and Mount Athos, here is a clear and practical presentation of the spiritual art of arts: stillness in the face of interior pain and confusion." "These spiritual riches, refined and developed by the Orthodox tradition in Christianity, can also be recognized in the teaching and practice of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islamic Sufism. The fundamental truth of one tradition is to be found under its own proper forms and nuances in others. Far from diminishing the unique value of this hesychastic way of prayer, the most developed spiritual traditions of humanity affirm it as one of the great forms through which humanity reaches out to embrace Infinite Reality."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Download or read book Closing of the American Mind written by Allan Bloom and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brilliant, controversial, bestselling critique of American culture that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times)—now featuring a new afterword by Andrew Ferguson in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition. In 1987, eminent political philosopher Allan Bloom published The Closing of the American Mind, an appraisal of contemporary America that “hits with the approximate force and effect of electroshock therapy” (The New York Times) and has not only been vindicated, but has also become more urgent today. In clear, spirited prose, Bloom argues that the social and political crises of contemporary America are part of a larger intellectual crisis: the result of a dangerous narrowing of curiosity and exploration by the university elites. Now, in this twenty-fifth anniversary edition, acclaimed author and journalist Andrew Ferguson contributes a new essay that describes why Bloom’s argument caused such a furor at publication and why our culture so deeply resists its truths today.