Meditation for Thursday 14th December 2023
Some of the following thoughts were incorporated into the article, ‘On a More Positive Note’ written by David Leser in The Age, 9th Dec’23.
With the carnival of death caused by war, discrimination and nature, our world is desperately in need of contemplative action, those practices such as meditation and mindfulness that assist us to have hope when all seems lost.
As Victor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, author and psychiatrist has written……
“Even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by doing so change himself.”
Frankl wrote about ‘tragic optimism’ an almost impossible to conceive notion of finding meaning in spite of, or through suffering.
Meditation can keep hope alive!
It was Vaclav Havel the first President of the Czech Republic who wrote……
“Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is a good worth working for.”
Living a meditative life will nourish our ability to have hope even in the midst of our greatest difficulties.
Meditation
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For information about the activities of the Carmelite Centre go to
www.thecarmelitecentremelbourne.org
** Next Thursday 21st December will be the last meditation gathering
in the Malone Room and the last email and audio resource
until we recommence for 2024 on Thursday 1st Feb ’24.