Meditation for Thursday 4th November 2021
One of the key fruits of meditation is simplicity. Meditation is in itself a simple activity but more importantly when we are faithful to our practice it guides us towards adopting simplicity in our day-to-day living. Simplicity is counter-cultural even scorned by some who see uncompromising, competitive productivity as virtuous.
Meditation opens the heart to getting rid of what is unnecessary and superfluous so that we can enter into an interior simplicity. It is a way of fleeing from a world dominated by ‘achievement’ and acquisition.
Meditation provides balance and control, an interior simplicity that has a concern for doing the ordinary things quietly and as best as we can.
Dutch spiritual author, Henri Nouwen wrote about simplicity in his Genesee Diary published in 1981.
“Reflecting on my past three years of work I realize more and more that it lacked unity. The many things I did during those years seem disjointed, not really relating to each other…..My fears and my resulting fatigue over the past three years might well be diagnosed as lack of single-mindedness, as a lack of one-eyedness, as a lack of simplicity.”
Nouwen knows that to attain the simplicity he’s seeking requires a certain asceticism and effort towards building a meditative life. He is looking for a centre from which everything else flows.
Meditation practiced faithfully and regularly will bring us to our centre and give us the joy and peace that comes from simplicity.
Now let us meditate with the intention of harvesting the fruit of simplicity for ourselves but also for the benefit of others.
MEDITATION
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