Meditation for Thursday 15th May 2025
Once when I suggested that meditators could assist in our understanding of the ecological crisis affecting our planet there were those that were sceptical. One promoter of this idea is Dr Deborah Guess a long-time meditator and member of the World Community for Christian Meditation. In her blog back in October 2020 she wrote eloquently about ecologically sustainable living and meditation.
“If the present crisis is in part a direct consequence of a way of working and living that is fast-paced and growth -orientated, and if the Sabbath principle is about ‘ceasing’ to do something, then the adoption of the Sabbath principle along with our daily practice invites us to lessen, or in some cases completely cease from, some forms of ecologically destructive intervention in the natural world such as emitting carbon, cutting down trees, and over-fishing. Sometimes the earth needs space and time to restore itself, as we know to be the case for ourselves.”
Deborah Guess bases a lot of her writing about sustainability and meditation on that of Laurence Freeman, Director, WCCM. Dr Guess continues this theme in her blog by specifically promoting meditation emphasising that the practice of meditation can be something that accompanies a different way of understanding our place on earth.
Through meditation “we develop a simpler way of living where we desire less, buy less, emit less carbon.” Dr, Guess says, “to move into a new era of humanity we need to learn to sit in silence, and from that we will see emerging a new consciousness which will be defining for our self-understanding and for our future environmental behaviour.”
So, with these reflections on sustainability let us still our bodies and calm our minds as we remain in the present moment, the only moment!
Meditation
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For information about the programs on offer at the Carmelite Centre go to www.thecarmelitecentremelbourne.org
*Dr.Deborah Guess, Honorary Research Assoc. Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity.
* Laurence Freeman OSB, Dir. World Community of Christian Meditation.