"Peace of Mind" Is a Contradiction in Terms.

“Beginner’s mind” is actually someone who’s not in their mind at all! They are people who can immediately experience the naked moment apart from filtering it through any mental categories. Such women and men are capable of simple presence to what is right in front of them without “thinking” about it too much. This must be what Jesus means by little children already being in the kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3-4). They don’t think much, they just experience the moment—good and bad. That teaching alone should have told us that Christianity was not supposed to be about believing doctrines and moralities. Children do not believe theologies or strive for moral certitudes. They respond vulnerably and openly to what is offered them moment by moment. This is pure presence, and is frankly much more demanding than securing ourselves with our judgments.

Presence cannot be easily defined. Presence can only be experienced. But I know this: True presence to someone or something allows them or it to change me and influence me—before I try to change them or it!

Beginner’s mind is pure presence to each moment before I label it, critique it, categorize it, exclude it, or judge it up or down. That is a whole new way of thinking and living. It is the only mind that has the power to actually reform religion.

Adapted from Beginner's Mind (CD, DVD, MP3)
Richard Rohr

"Peace of Mind" is indeed a contradiction in terms . Rohr is correct about another thing - after being taught the basics - that none of this matters - the next step in the spiritual journey is to learn to live with Chaos and face duality, bridge biulding where we can but otherwise just accepting; handing over to the Father. As I and my family move forward in faith I find that the phenomena my wife and I struggle the most with is trying to understand our exponential spiritual growth curve. 

It simply cannot be done.

All the heart is made for is to recieve, not to understand. 

We will not understand the Beatific vision, just absorb it.

 Post enlightenment notions of "understanding" would however and measure Him with a measuring stick. Joyce was right - thought is thought of thought and without contemplation we can be totally overwhelmed and dishonest with ourselves.

We are not the sum of our thoughts. 

Our minds will never be at peace as they are made to analyse and not wonder. A religous experience is therefore when the mind is suspended and the heart simply over rides saying "this is right. I know this to be true."

The source of that knowing, that peace is facinating.  

We have had some beautiful weather here in Glasgow recently and on the way to work I was thinking about the sacrament of the present moment.

The key to seeing "the big picture" is seeing ourselves in the same, loving honest spotlight as God does, i.e. that we are nothing and exhalt in our own poverty, like the little man of Assisi whose visit to the Holy Land represents just about the sum total of all the West's peacemaking attempts to date. We are poor and our story is seldom told. these acknowledgements are the only way that we can drop all of our ownprevious misconceptions and step into what Rohr calls the True Self.

Our existence in the present is not contingent on our achievements in the past.

Our existence in the present moment is not contingent  upon thoughts of our achievements in the future. We just are. 

It was my privilege to attend a debate at St Andrews University on assisted suicide. An atheist philosophy teacher got up to speak. 

At other times the good professor was very mild mannered and always had the time of day for any student. On this topic however he was quite animated.

“do you know how much envisaging oneself in the future is imperative to being a human being? You simply cannot take the right to choose away from a paraplegic or someone else who has no hope for the future.”

A very high spiritual benchmark, but if our self image is truly based on the Imago Dei, living every consecutive present moment with God then we have nothing to fear. As per the New Evangelization we must be open to God preparing us for lives of Greatness, not success.  This is St Paul's battle with the Flesh. If the ego is in control success - the ultimate comfort - is strived for. If the soul is in the driving seat then we aspire to greater things. Contemplation is the mechanism by which we achieve this orientation. It is furthered by suffering, which is only understood par coer.

  The greatness to which we are all called is worked out in the economy of grace between us and whatever healthy form the IMAGO DEI takes for us. Alternatively occidental post modern and confused images of what the human person is will always call us to follow the ego. This is why America is such a fascinating place. 

There is so much innocence there, willingness to learn but the European culture and ways of comportment have been lost. Because nothing can be done without community culture was ultimatley supposed to teach us how to live with our fellow man.  However both societies now are living a lie as "selfish society" is an oxymoron. As Rome leads the Universal Church the Amercan church leads the Protestant world, but a more divided society I have not seen, not least between ethnic groups but also church "ghettos."

 The soul will always gravitate to the City of God, loving God and serving fellow man, but it needs to be freed of individualistic, Protestant self images if it is to be free to gravitate unhindered towards its purpose. 

This is achieved through initiation but as those who complete the 12 steps are encouraged to complete a fearless moral inventory contemplation is equally imperative as the Catholic Via of spiritual growth is moved along.

We can only recieve Grace in the present moment. People that can live totally in the present moment are spiritually bulletproof.

Some years ago here in the UK a beautiful young mother was stabbed maliciously in the back of the neck in London. She was permantely physically incapacitated, paralised from the neck down. Lying on her hospital bed she could only think of her family. Having no thought for herself at all that she could exclaim was “God is Doing marvellous things.” Her hospital bedroom was her reality, no present, no future. Knowing that God was there with her she had no thought outside of the present.

When we have reached such high mansions we know that the Lord we experience in the present his taking care of our future also. We trust for the future because of what we are experiencing in the now, the only place where we can truly experience the Divine. We cannot be truly present if we are weighing up our future, the person we are talking to and ourselves at the same time.

The young British mother mentioned is now the leader of a Community of faith in London. 

I remember watching Die Große Stille (Into Great Silence) with a dear Catholic friend. This is the year in a life of some of the most austere monastics in the word. My friend found the joy expressed by the Carthusian Monks amazing as these fully grown, austere religous men slid down the snow in the  Alps. 

These men knew where there community was and where free to grow. 

I am reminded of the two of us greeting a monk at Pluscarten abbey
in Elgin, Scotland. He was polite and friendly but it was clear where his priorites lay. As he crossed a style he greeted us wormly but it was clear that this 40 year old monk in a white habit just wished to get home !

Although another friend thought it a bit voyeuristic Die Große Stille was a fascinating film. Some three hours long an old blind, seraphically happy monk was interviewed at one stage. As he explained God had allowed his sight to be taken for the good of his soul even through translation the truth of what he was saying was eveident. Community helps us to deal with anything.

 Because of Calvin’s sentiments on success America has consistently been the most successful country on the Planet. For all intents and purposes the first nation founded on Protestant principles America has been affected by the apparently inexorable link between predestination and worldly success.  In contradistinction to the UK Thatcher said that the USA was affected more by “philosophy than history.” This is undoubtley the case. 

St Andrews had a high percentage of American students. Many of whom simply did semesters with us in Scotland. At the end of her semester I remember an aquintance of mine sitting on a step looking quite dejected. A student from a top American University chatting with her I came to see how she did not view her semester as “a success.” When Aristotle talked about looking at the things men “do” rather than what is in their hearts he was talking of virtue; actions and words done over a long period of time which become “virtue.” At least here Aristotle never mentioned “success.”