Brother Richard

Thank you.

Welcome back.

In today's meditation, we're going to return to that great meditation master of the Christian monastic tradition, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing.

As I mentioned before, we don't know the name of this master.

He was an anonymous monk of the 1400s.

But whoever he was, he was a deep master of contemplative meditative practice.

And thankfully, his writings guide us into these methods.

We've already mentioned the first step, which is to cultivate a forgetfulness of image, sensation, distraction, so as to enter into the present moment.

And while we'll recover this slightly at the start of our practice, today we deepen and move into the second step, the cultivation of the versiculum, the little word, and its combining with the cloud of forgetting.

So let's begin.

Entering this time of meditation, entering this time of peace and stable awareness, we do so with gratitude for the opportunity this time gives us to practice.

Sitting now, we sit in stable awareness

taking into full account the presence of the body upon the chair or cushion and our presence to the body, to the moment, to the breath, allowing the breath to stabilize us even further.

We are with the rhythm of the breath,

checking in with the breath, and knowing that when we touch the breath with awareness, we touch our whole existence from beginning to end, from first inhale to last exhale.

As we breathe out, we breathe out all tension, stress, worry,

As we breathe in, we breathe in peace, warmth, light, grace.

As we sit stable now, we are present to ourselves, to the moment, and to the divine love from which the moment arises.

we let go of all other things, all other calls on our attention.

Knowing that if distractions arise, if thoughts or sensations or emotions come, we simply notice them and let them go.