2021 update Meditation and Environment
- COP26 AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS WEBSITE
- The city of Glasgow is preparing to host the vital COP26 Climate Conference from the 1st to the 12th of November. Postponed from last year because of the pandemic, and with the window of opportunity already very tight to make the essential changes, it is now even more urgent that the international delegates negotiate with their focus on the needs of the whole world, and take fully into account those communities already suffering from the warming of the planet.
Some quotes re Meditation and Environment.
Laurence Freeman “Great shifts in consciousness need to be worked out at the individual level as well the communal level” (Feb 2004)
LF “Contemplative prayer awakens our sense of connection and responsibility for and to the wondrous creation we are part of. Because meditation heals the excessive individualism of our culture and restrains its inherent self centredness we can truly see the relevance of a deep spirituality to the healing of our wounded environment.”
LF (NL Feb 2004) “GREAT SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS NEED TO BE WORKED OUT AT THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL AS WELL AS THE COMMUNAL LEVEL-WE NEED TO TRANSFORM OURSELVES BEFORE WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE BETTER.”
LF (NL July 2011) “Meditation makes each of us a channel for the divine energies to enter the human and natural worlds and to bathe them in the love that simultaneously creates and redeems"
LF “The potential of meditation is to open up the common ground of humanity in our divided world - because it is a universal Wisdom it is a source of hope. It is one of humanities great unifying elements on the way to Wisdom”
LF (NL Nov 2018) “The great teachers in our tradition all call us to see that contemplation is seeing and so in that contemplative response to the challenges of our time is the best contribution we can make to go forward with hope"
LF “In meditation we create a spaciousness of mind to give us the ability to experience a different reality and an ability to see differently."
LF “In a context of a new universality, globalisation can have many dimensions- a global consciousness and a global sense of belonging can arise.”
LF (May 2004) “Meditation develops our spiritual senses-it allows us to see the difference between needs and desires, to smell out reality from illusion, to feel the difference between the gravity of spirit which is love and the gravity of ego which is fear. The world is hungering for, and urgently needs this new contemplative consciousness to save it from its own contradictions.”
John
Main (JM) “We find Christ in our hearts and then we find ourselves in him, and in him,
in all creation.”
JM “Meditation changes our experience of who we are...not separate identities but related, as cells in one body...a movement from ego to true self in relationship in a common source and ground of being”
JM “We are called to realise that the primal power and energy of creation flows in our hearts and this power is the energy of love.”
John Main Moment of Christ: “Learning to meditate is not learning to do it is learning to be. It is learning to be yourself, to enter into the gift of your own being, learning to accept the gift of your own being, of your own creation- To be in harmony with your own being and with your continuous creation is also to be in harmony with all of creation around us, it is being in harmony with the creator.”
Charles Brandt - “Through Christian
meditation we assist in the great transformation of human hearts and minds
which leads the human community and the earth community into a single sacred community."
Charles
Brandt –“To realise our unity with all beings, and so to leave the world of
duality is perhaps the most important step we
can take towards halting the environmental destruction that is taking place on the so we enter into silence and stillness,
exposing our human consciousness to the
resurrected, glorified, infinitely transcendent human consciousness of Christ and through him we are carried to
the Father"
Joan Chittester “We are close to
finding ourselves victims of our own distorted sense of progress"
NB - Meditatio Ecologie - vidéo introductive par Michel Maxime Egger, Bonnevaux U Tube 2020
Laurence Freeman: Part 5.1
Contemplative Consciousness
writes of tipping points (TPs) as prophetic
“radical insights into the present structure of things in terms of the greater
truth"
TPs
are physical in terms of earth systems but also consciously with regard to
human self- awareness. “They demand rethinking along fresh ways of
meaning and valuing actions and outcomes."
“If we are
to think radically, I would suggest an approach to a strategy for dealing with
tipping points that includes acknowledging
the practice of meditation as a way of metanoia, seeing in a new way." p159
‘Contemplative consciousness (CC)
is a new vantage point... a radical openness to new ways of seeing and judging where science
and religion can work better together to bring about a sustainable science and economy based on wholeness”
Laurence Freeman
“Meditation
is a universal spiritual wisdom. It is a practice found at the core of all the
great religious traditions. Meditation
leads from the mind to the heart. ...The stillness and silence of meditation as a spiritual practice, changes
the world because it changes us…as a way of connecting with a consciousness
beyond the self...a deeper awareness. We unite in our common need to protract the earth. A daily
practice of meditation can be a catalyst for ongoing sustainable action for the environment.”
Thomas Berry … “When we pray for a
better world god responds but not in a way we may wish for, but by giving us the opportunity to create
it...it is up to us to do the work as co-creators .Our responsibility is the immediate work at hand, but to
let the outcome rest in God’s hands.”
News from Meditatio re Meditation and Environment on the newly designed WCCM website
https://wccm.org/outreach-areas/nature-and-the-environment/Outreach: Nature and the Environment
2021 is the WCCM Year of Health. Central to the meaning of health is our human relationship with our physical environment. In the biblical vision, humanity is a steward, a gardener, on this planet. With massive increase of technological power and economic growth we have became exploiters, even rapists, having become disconnected from the power of beauty as manifested in the cosmos and, with heart-breaking intensity, on this fragile planet.
The situation has become critical. We are already seeing the effects. Because it is a man-made problem, humanity can solve it. We have the science and resources for a green revolution. But do we have the mind? Do we have the common purpose and sense of interdependence? Above all, do we have a capacity to see the sacred in our ecological relationships? Can we be ‘saved by beauty’?
The curing of our ecological disease, demands an awakening of our inner ecology. A contemplative consciousness is integral to the saving of our planet. This means the capacity to see how our economic and social justice, a healthy lifestyle, self-control and the creative use of our resources and technology are inseparable. Meditation does not solve all our problems but it changes the way we see them. And it opens the eye of the heart so that with wisdom we can shape our policies and compassion may never be lost. The Environment is a major outreach and concern for the WCCM. We collaborate with other organisations to raise consciousness and strengthen the sense of unity globally.
