Methods of Contemplation

This week it's all about the East. Or, at least Eastern Spirituality. What do Qigong, Taoism, and Zen have in common? A shared concept of energy centers within the body that correspond to facets of awareness. We'll talk briefly about the different centers, with our method focusing on the lower dantien, or Golden Stove. Lets get cooking.

Hello, and welcome to Methods: an exploration in guided prayer and meditation. This week we bring you a guided meditation by Rich Johnston, the Director for Christian Mindfulness - an organization based on providing resources for contemplative spirituality in the UK. Rich leads us through his preferred method this week, and it's a good one. And the Scottish accent doesn't hurt.

This week in Methods we build upon the Split Breath prayer from episode 12, moving into what is called a Three Phrase Cycle. Sounds complicated, but it's really not. This method uses the comfort we have built with our breath over the season to break it into three distinct phases: Inhale, Exhale, and Pause (Kumbhaka). Utilized in the context of prayer, this way of breathing gives different texture to each part of the prayer when paired with phases of the breath.

This week we continue our series on the breath in the context of prayer and meditation. Typically the breath serves as a focus point for meditation, but in this case, breath is the medium we use to express our prayer to God. Meister Eckhart is quoted to say, "If the only prayer you ever said in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough." This weeks episode uses a modified split breath method based on the Trihagion (don't worry, we'll explain later) to evoke simple acceptance and gratitude toward life, toward ourselves, toward God.

This week in Methods, we continue with our series on the breath, using it to focus our attention and hone our awareness to bring us closer to a state of wellbeing by the shedding of our attachments to our self-prescribed programs for happiness. This week we focus on a method called Vipassana, coming from the Theravada stream of Buddhism and popularized in the modern era by S.N. Goenka. If you enjoy this podcast please rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher. Visit our website at www.methodspodcast.com

This week we continue in our Breath series with a meditation on the Tetragrammaton, or the sacred name of God in the Jewish tradition. Given initially in the theophany of Moses, the Divine reveals itself in existential poetry, as being itself. This is why theologians such as Paul Tillich describe God not as a being, but as the ground of all being.

As per tradition Some Rabbi's have said that the name of God cannot be spoken, but only breathed. This implies that you are calling the name of God, right now.

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Hello, and welcome to Methods, an exploration in guided prayer and meditation. This week, we are exploring the theme of Agape within the context of our breath-work.

In ancient Greece, there were many different words to describe love. There was Philia (or brotherly love), Eros (or intimate love), Storge (or affectionate love), Pragma (or dedicated love), and Agape – unconditional love. Agape is a Greek term for a specific kind of love that is thought to resemble the love with which God loves the world.

In this method, we will practice a breathing meditation with focus on the unconditional love of God.

This week we continue with the second episode of our Breath series. In this exercise we combine visualization and embodiment with our breathwork in a method called Praying from the Clay, inspired by Franciscan Priest, Father Richard Rohr in his book "Just This". The exercise is primarily based on ideas from Genesis 2:7, Romans 8:26, and 1 Corinthians 3:16.

This is the first episode of our second season: Breath. In our first season, we explored Tradition in the context of Western Christian spirituality, and various familiar and unfamiliar practices. This season, we'll take a step back from the Christian tradition, and focus more on various breathing methods that can be utilized in any faith tradition or spiritual setting. These practices can form a sort of foundation or base upon which we can build our own practices and ways to connect with God. For this practice, belief or unbelief is relatively unimportant, as we will be solely focusing on the breath-work associated with mindful breathing.

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This episode is our last in the Traditions series, and it may be the most difficult, but arguably the most essential. In this episode, we'll strip down our prayer, liturgy, theology, and philosophy to simply sit in silence and solitude with God. Try to go into this time of silence with a feeling of receptivity, with your heart open to what you might receive, or what you may not receive. Will God speak to you? Or will your silence be met with silence?