The Centering Prayer With Rich Lewis

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On July 8th, 2022, Rich Lewis and I talked mostly about the Centering Prayer.

While appearing a tad over-smiley it was a great reminder of actually what a joy it is to have plenty of differences yet the mutual interest and time spent on the commonality of inner practice allows honor and respect to flow so effortlessly.

Rich and I (also) talk:

  • What centering prayer is
  • its origins
  • https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org
  • Cloud of Unknowingness
  • Thomas Keating
  • Eastern Orthodox and Western Churches
  • how to do the centering prayer:
    • choosing an anchor: word, image or the body/breath
    • finding an anchor you can stay with then staying with it
  • how centering prayer has helped Rich and those who work with him
    • enjoying richness of life
    • self-confidence
    • calm
    • listening and responsiveness
    • being OK with being out of comfort zone
  • how Rich teaches centering prayer in real life and online
  • gathering and belonging
  • Five minutes for 30 days challenge of doing centering prayer via Rich’s free ebook

Rich’s website https://silenceteaches.com and social media:

Audio: The Centering Prayer With Rich Lewis

Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)

The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

wholeness welcome this is josh dippold of integratingpresence.com today i have rich lewis joining uh the

podcast rich how’s it going great great thanks for having me on i appreciate it you’re welcome well thanks

for reaching out um what i usually do people probably get tired of me saying this is if i haven’t talked too much to

the person i will toss it back to them to intro themselves instead of me just reading off a sheet or a canned intro

so who is rich lewis and what kind of work do you do specifically um kind of

work we have in common i guess yeah sure sure so what i guess what attracted

me or what what attracted you to me in my practices um i’ve been practicing uh

a silent meditation practice since early 2014 called centering prayer

which involves as we discussed right before we jumped on really inner work and and inner you know going within and

connecting to your true self with within so i have a a site um since 1919 since

2014 devoted to centering prayer called silenceteaches.com and really it just

shares what the practice is and i share how this practice has healed and transformed me and kind of shown me the

way forward in life and helped me live life life better and it’s a

practice that’s really been so helpful to me that i simply want to share with others in case it can help them um

it’s one practice and maybe it will resonate with people and they’ll take take me up on it and if it

doesn’t there’s a ton of contemplative type practices where you go within and get quiet and get out of the way but so

that’s essentially what uh why we connected was that it’s a practice that may be helpful for your community as

well because um i practice it from a christian perspective but anybody can practice it and they can come wherever

they are at and try this type of practice which is the nice thing i like to tell people is anybody can do this

it’s not if you’re not a christian you can’t do this well right on and speaking of silence

it’s so powerful and you say it’s a teacher as well and we got a real life unexpected taste of this right before

the the show here um the uh rich’s microphone had just automatic are just

somehow out of the blue went dead and i couldn’t hear him so i i said that’s probably not the

manifestation of silence you’re expecting to practice today but there it was and we

came back and here we are be able to talk too but i i feel that silence can

also help um our speech too kind of even amplify it

and notice how powerful and impactful our speech can be when we’ve spent long

moments in silence you might have something to respond to that by but i want to just um yeah make

clear kind of my intentions for bringing rich on i um you know i was raised christian i

wouldn’t consider myself like an active christian now however i run in all kinds of different

christian circles i’ve joined uh groups that have been primarily that i have a friend who’s a

she’s a presbyterian minister and so what i do is i encounter folks

who uh it seems like they would be turned off by more going within in more silent meditation meditative like

practices because i guess they don’t this is a guess obviously they don’t feel it’s christian enough so what i

want to do is kind of bridge the gap here and just promote any kind of wholesome skillful and wise

inner practices by going within and not only will it not deter you from

the christian faith from what i gather it can actually help strengthen

that and amplify that and become closer uh to this so

um first i want to start about you know start it at the beginning here what is centering prayer and its background how

is it developed sure so centering prayer has been around since the early 1970s

History

it was actually created by three trappist monks so three catholic priests in the early 70s they saw other forms of

meditation going on and they wanted a transcendental meditation i think being one of them and they wanted something

for the christian community one of the priests father william manager was reading i think it’s a 14th

century classic book called the cloud of unknowing and as he read this book kind of a method of silent wordless

meditation jumped kind of out of the pages adam so he and the other two priests began kind of refining this

practice teaching it to other clergy and then really just teaching it to clay people and and sharing it in general and

then in 1984 thomas keating who was one of the trappist monks created the contemplative

outreach organization which now has a website contemplativeoutreach.org and it’s really the main centering

prayer site with tons of resources on this practice and tons of groups that

practice many of them either in a building or via zoom all throughout the us but not just in the us

internationally so the history is it’s it’s about a 50 year old practice but i

guess the idea and we can get into what is centering prayer and how you do it the idea of silent prayer

isn’t just 50 years old it goes all it really goes all the way back to jesus and there’s various mentions of him

talking about going off to be alone and we don’t surmise that he was always babbling that he was silent or he went

off to the desert and he he couldn’t talk he had if he fasted he had to be quiet and just sat with with god is what

is what he did so i guess many people don’t realize christianity has a rich tradition going

all the way back to jesus and even further back you know you can in the old testament you know be stilled and know i

am god and various uh mentions mentionings of silence so

people just don’t realize it it goes back to jesus and then continues to come into the present future with

the desert mothers and fathers in the third and fourth centuries and and various mystics mentioned throughout

history as you approach you know the year we’re at now so it’s just not talked about a whole lot at some

churches and not possibly accepted but but they don’t realize there’s there is

a rich tradition and i think it’s really the western church versus the eastern church or the western church perhaps in

the u.s there are some churches that are willing to do silent practices some catholic churches

some presbyterian churches some united church of christ and some episcopal churches i’ve noticed tend to be open to

the idea of come on enrich and just come join our zoom session and share it with

us but i think it’s really more the eastern orthodox churches have been practicing it for thousands of

years the western churches some perhaps because they have a pastor that’s been exposed to it and says this

is this is some good stuff and i need to incorporate it into my congregation so it’s been around thousands of years

but people just don’t realize it it’s it’s uh yeah in the eastern

orthodox thing i i don’t it’s it’s amazing how much i’ve been exposed you

know regularly any pretty much anybody in the state since there’s still a huge um

uh churches everywhere just put it that way that’s you know it’s once very um

overly simplified way to look at it but the eastern orthodox at least here in the midwest is not very prevalent and so

it wasn’t until maybe five ten years ago i even even really heard about ether

eastern orthodox it’s i don’t know if what the deal is if it’s been suppressed or the politics probably there’s

politics involved in everything but we don’t have to go into that now because that’s a whole another

i mean lifetime of study perhaps uh just like just about pretty much many areas within

christianity itself you could spend the rest of your life studying on each one what i did want to see if

maybe go just a tad bit deeper is my kind of eyes opened up a little bit my ears poke perked up a

little bit about this cloud of unknowingness is there anything else you can say to expand upon that because that

seems like more of the modern day origins of this perhaps or had a a significant influence

in it right it’s just yeah i guess the center in prayer practice was kind of found in in

How it is practiced

that book um by this 14th century book so so why

don’t i just get into the the how you do the practice because the idea of it was formulated as he read this book um the

idea of centering prayer was formulated as as the gentleman read this book and then further refined by the other two

trappists so let’s get into it then yeah how it’s practiced and then if you ever

if you feel it’s appropriate to pick anything up uh else up about that book then please do so but yes let’s talk

about well you know uh we gave a little bit of history now let’s uh how how does one practice this what it you know and

then what is that well as we’ll probably get an idea of what exactly it is as we we learn about the

practice post because it’s a practice not really a study or teaching it’s something we’re actually doing and being

right so yeah go please no that’s that’s correct so it’s considered two things meditation because and i get asked this

question a lot is is this just meditation and the answer is yes and so yes it is meditation sitting silently

silently wordlessly but we considered a relationship with god so during centering prayer we’re

opening to the presence and actions of god within us so we do not believe we’re god and i do not believe i’m god but i

believe i’m sitting with god and opening to this presence that’s not only you know around me but is within me

so during centering prayer we open to the presence and actions of god within in silent

in a silent practice and and how you do the practices you sit comfortably with your eyes closed and then to begin your

silence set you introduce a sacred what we call a sacred word usually have one or two or three syllables at the most so

it could be god it could be beach ocean a color and this signifies you’re you’re now sitting with god and you’re kind of

designating this time as you’re sitting with god silently and then as you’re sitting there

as you begin engaging your thoughts and what i mean by that is when you begin thinking about all the things you did

before your sit or you begin thinking about the errands or things you have to do after you’re sick you realize you’re

no longer sitting with god you’re sitting with yourself and you’re planning and plotting or reminiscing so

you reintroduce the word interiorly to bring yourself back to the present

moment and let go of your engaged thoughts and then let go of the word as well so you you use it when needed use

the word when needed not as a mantra and there are mantra practices where you’re saying a word over and over again in

centering prayer you just use it when needed to come back to the present moment and the purpose of your sin of

just to sit with god and get you and your thoughts out of the way and go

ahead oh yeah and it is lovely too because in traditional meditation practice a lot we’ll just use our breath

as an anchor right this idea of a word is it really fascinates me one thing it’s always fascinated me well i don’t

know but always but it’s language itself right and in the bible the word you know in the beginning was the word and the

word was god i think it’s one translation or some somewhere along that and so just this

mystery of language itself you know where it comes from how it comes

to us how the words are chosen that we speak and how it just happens so effortlessly

and a double-edged sword where the mind can use language to go off into distractions and how the other end it

can help center and ground uh in our being and give connection you know so

it’s a really powerful um phenomenon language of course so yes it’s it’s a really uh interesting

and cool way to you uh to have a meditation anchor yes and you don’t have to use a word um

Using an image

i actually use an image i was gonna mention you okay some people if you’re more of an auditory person you might use

a word and i started with the word but then i realized i’m more of a visual person so i picked i picture an image in

my head it’s i actually just picture since i’ve been practicing for the last six or seven years i picture an image of

a jesus icon that i think i came across and i don’t draw it out in detail but i

just think of that to bring myself back to the present moment so you can use an image if you’re more of a visual person

you can use your breath if you’re more of a physical person and some people don’t want to close their eyes they’re

they’re afraid they’ll fall asleep so they keep their eyes open and just kind of stare at a spot at five or six feet

in the distance so you can use what i’ll call it a sacred method any one of those

and you might and someone may have another version that they use to come back so any method just to keep coming

back to the present moment can be used very good distinction and of course i’m more of an auditory thinker until i uh

will get more silent and then make a conscious choice but that’s i really like your your object and it’s with is

there there’s a there’s an eastern orthodox practice too called iconography and i think that’s in the catholic

tradition oh right right right and so that’s a really uh profound practice in itself but this is a good point because

a lot of people i would say the majority of people do think in images um and you know there’s

quite a few that do in words as well and of course they both associate with each other usually too right so i mean

they can go hand in hand it’s just like when we become aware of our thoughts and thinking usually a person is more

predominantly visual based or auditory based right or like you said i guess can

a is it kind of kinesthetics are somatically based yes so that’s a really good distinction

instead of trying to fight something that’s not really natural especially when starting off

that’s a really great point um to know too and good distinction all right the only thing well the only

thing i’ll make too common i make is so once you pick your method you don’t want to be flip-flopping in the middle of

your practice so you want to otherwise you’ll spend more time thinking about what’s the next method i’m using when i have a thought so you know

pick an image or pick a word or pick your breath and use that the entire time and then at the end of your practice if

you realize you know what it’s not working for me then try something the next time but but use the same method

the same word or the same image obviously the same breath otherwise you’ll you’ll confuse your

practice more than help it that’s all this is another huge point in meditation

too is that you know when we first start getting into at least when i did it’s just all this new possibility starts

coming up because the mind a lot of stuff gets cleared away a lot of noise and and clutter and so the mind

power and heart power starts amplifying and we just realize all these vast possibilities and it’s so tempting to

change the object and just explore all these different modes and aspects but

again that’s just kind of like another distraction especially when we’re doing more concentration type practices i think in

the buddhist tradition it’s called samata there’s summertime vipassana the summit is actually staying with one

object over and over again like rich is talking about while the vipassana is more i guess

it’s probably a distortion saying this but it’s more investigating the nature of reality but that can become really

destabilizing if there’s not a really stable base and so the type of practice rich is talking about

yeah come back over and over again to the object and i at least i know from my practice when i’m doing that

the mind can get very calm very peaceful very uh

the the amount of joy and pleasure that just arises naturally from staying with

one object over and over especially when it’s not an emotionally charged object you know more of a neutral object or one

that we really resonate with the mind becomes very powerful very peaceful very calm collected and

centered um yes and so it that’s another very uh and it can be like i said it can be so

tempting to go on to to go off to something else and you know maybe you can scratch that itch some

other time but we want to dedicate that certain amount of time we have uh to our practice whatever it is building and

strengthening that practice because it will not gather momentum or won’t gather as much

benefit momentum if we don’t stick with it like and then but with the caveat of rich saying that if you can’t you choose

something you can’t stay with it well then that’s not going to be beneficial either all right so i guess

maybe following on the progression of this is what are some of your experiences uh in

your own personal practice with this and then what are some um um

that others come to you what they’ve experienced too now this can be all the way from the mundane to

the most uh woo-woo psychic experiences or woo-woo um you know experiences with

god or what however you want to take it i mean i’m really open-minded and the audience

is too and at the same time very practical uh wisdom aspect of it well is how we

can integrate this into our daily lives and how this uh in in practical day-to-day terms helps our lives too

Coaching

sure i’ll well i i do have some coaching clients i’ve a recent coaching client i guess

his practice that he’s been doing for a number of years has helped him become um one fruit of it that’s been very

helpful for him is he’s become more playful because he’s he’s always felt that he has to be

on he always felt that he he was very critical of himself and he’s not allowed to play and he’s not allowed to have fun

he should always be working he should always be productive and he he specifically has shared with me that this practices has allowed him to become

more and we’ve been working on a lot but he’s realizing it help him become more playful and just enjoy the moment and

maybe do things that he’s never done before and maybe dance or sing or just enjoy the moment

or do a puzzle or play a game with his wife so it’s helped him

that’s one specific area that he he wanted help with but he realized the practice has helped him become playful

probably because he’s really just accepting the moment for what it is and he doesn’t have to be so critical and feel that he’d be so productive that

he’s focusing too hard and he needs to the practice is letting go because you’re letting go during center prayer and you

learn to let go in everyday life and then you’re better able to hone in on the moment of

what it requires of you which includes playfulness so that was kind of a neat thing that i have a recent coaching

client tell me and i’ll let you react to that then i can share how we’re sure that’s a great help for me that’s a

great reminder for me too i’m sorry to cut you off there because yeah it’s like my to-do list right you know bam bam bam

productivity and that’s something i’m really good at but it’s a it’s an important point because it does open up

that wisdom aspect and when we have that degree of wisdom we can see well you know how fun is that you’re missing out

on like so much uh the richness of life right and the beauty and the diversity and the

connection uh um yeah that’s so that that’s really

important uh and it’s ironic that it leisure time turns into work i hear

these people that you know are hugely rich their job now is to for leisure time

where you have people that are still struggling well their their leisure time is often spent trying

to do more work right so it’s it’s it’s interesting how that works yeah

Richs Reflection

so and then in terms of me as i think about myself and kind of reflect back now that i’ve been practicing it since

june of 2014 on a pretty fairly a daily basis twice a day

for me i’ve definitely noticed a number of fruits from the practice much more confidence in myself

i’m a much more confident person whether it’s at home as a father or whether it’s

the work i do here but i also have a regular day job and i work in the 401k space and deal with large corporate

accounts i’m a much more confident person when i’m on phone calls or making

presentations so i’ve definitely noticed i’m more confident i think i’m more calm

i’m less reactive and what i mean by that is i’m more willing to listen to people and not instantly react to that’s

wrong i’m more willing to listen and then realize that’s kind of a neat neat way of looking at things and maybe

i should try it or maybe i don’t agree with it but that’s okay and and just it’s going to be okay so i’m

less reactive i’m calmer i’m more confident and i would say not that i was not excited to live life but i i have an

excitement for life and i kind of look forward to what’s today going to bring and what’s going to happen and even if

it’s a challenge i’m going to get through it if i keep persisting and come out the other side so i guess it’s i

guess it’s taught me persistence and resilience where i will be okay and i can let go of i see a task i have

to do at work and i think oh my god why does this have to happen to me and then if i then i’m i can calm myself

down and say you know what this is okay i can handle it the next you know it’s done and i’m like why did i make such a

big deal about it so centering prayer helps me let go of fear anxiety worry and just get the thing done so those are

some really neat fruits that i’ve experienced others but that those definitely come to mind when i look back i i was not as

confident i was not as excited i was more more reactive and i was more afraid of the unknown and new things that are

out of my comfort zone and yeah plenty to pick up on here too yeah the comfort zone getting out of

that is how we grow right and at the same time if there’s too much growth we need to pull back into our comfort zone

a little bit to integrate the experiences that we’ve had and yeah those things that that happened

to us that we use like why is this hap a lot of times i’ve i’ve found uh that

there’s a lesson there right there’s there’s lessons to be learned there too um

so many uh like what is this trying to teach me but the self-confidence i’m glad you brought that up because i had

this huge distortion early on where i was confusing self-confidence for

egotism right so all these for whatever reason uh the the examples i was giving

up given uh in my life of a high self-confidence were usually uh at least

my perception they were also attached to someone who was very egotistical you know and didn’t really care about

anybody but themselves uh and it’s obvious now that they’re not the same thing right there can be a

really uh healthy um almost necessary yes uh version of

self-confidence that doesn’t have to do have anything to do with egotism right so yeah and unfortunately it took me it

took me quite a while to make that distinction and then it kind of maybe attract better examples of healthy

especially masculine self-confidence into to my life so i had better uh reference points for that you know and

it’s just it’s been a huge uh difference too being able to discern that and and then

uh help exemplify that myself too yep no i mean it’s it’s it’s not really coming

Confidence

from ego it’s more coming from i’m confident i can handle this task or i’m confident i can help this person it’s

not i am great and look at me it’s it’s it’s a different type of confidence the confidence that i if you give me this

task i’ll get it done or if you need my help i can help you or if there’s a new thing i need to

try and explore i’m confident like i can do it and figure it figure it out so it’s different than oh look at me look

how great i am yes and that’s exactly the the distinction that i had to get out of

because not only was i mixing the two together but i was doing the same thing myself you know so yeah um way behind on

that but that’s that’s okay so now i have that um that opposite end of the polarity to um to make the other end

stronger too so when there’s one negative side then there’s always the the the opposite positive side of it too

and then trying to perhaps bring those in balance in certain areas yeah so um

okay so now this is a consistency let’s talk about this because i’ve had a daily practice since 2012 you know twice a day

as well um pretty much and i i can’t really think of anything that’s helped me so much as a daily practice

something that is like a constant uh that we can rely on that we can do no matter what you know it can always fall

back on for i got the advice that you can get a hobby because you can always fall back on your hobbies but you know

that’s just it’s a good idea but um instead of looking at it like a hobby uh

or a hobby why not take your hobby to a daily practice so it builds so much and

i tell people if they’re not even interested in any of this type of stuff find a daily practice even if it’s just

singing in the shower for a couple seconds or something you can do every day as kind of like an anchor and a

stability and something to to draw on but i want to hear about your um kind of the experiences maybe or the contrast or

the benefits you’ve noticed since you’ve started a daily practice i guess as a reference point uh before

Richs daily practice

sure so um i i do it at least twice a day so it for me you know it’s the first thing

i do to begin my day is my centering prayer 20 minutes sit and i’ve actually kind of built a routine around it so i

actually before it i i have i’m a big believer in affirmations you know these

are single sentence statements of things i want to do with my family or my personal life or my mental health or my

physical health or financial or social or community these are things that are important to me so i read them and i kind of let them

go into the silence and then i begin my silent sit and then usually after my silence sit um

i’m doing two things i read from a current book that i’m reading and it doesn’t have it could be anything it could be fiction or non-fiction whatever

reading i’ll read for five or ten minutes and then and one other thing i do as part of my practice is um

journaling and i just i’ve started doing that over the last two months i’ve been wanting to do it for years and i keep

hearing how powerful it is and i keep telling myself i’ll do it well i finally did it and and you don’t have to make it

complicated i just take five however long i just it’s a dump and i’m simply

whatever i feel like saying i say so it could be i don’t think i’m i don’t like what the

work that needs to get done later today if that’s how i’m feeling i write it or if i need to motivate myself i’ll say

i’m powerful i’m resilient i’m going to get this done so i’ve incorporated that into my routine every day as well in the

morning it’s just a quick journaling even if it’s five minutes and

single words or single phrases or even sentences so that that’s really and i found it so

powerful because then i can look back and read them and it’s helped me like i’ll if i have a

day that i’m drug drudging i’ll put on there and i did it this morning i have a bunch of things that needed to get done during my day job and

i and i and i listed them down saying this is going to get done this is going to get done this is going to get done

i’m going to have a great day and i’m going to end the day and be pleased because everything will be done

so that’s kind of my morning routine is is is affirmations let them go into the

silence do my silent sit read a little bit from a book i’m reading and then do some journaling

and then begin my day very cool this is a big part of my practice too

the uh i guess the affirmations that they are really powerful uh my little

spin on it is uh putting them into intentions intentions so i intend to are i set the intention

and for me i found that while it can build willpower

and can build up willpower if i say i am

going to do this for me now i’ve gotten to the point where i just

i sometimes i still do that because i have a fairly strong will however i take it seriously so i don’t commit to a lot

of things because it the more i commit to things the the more commitments i have the um the less are the more i’m

spread thin and you know and uh so what um so for me i found uh that uh

prioritizing those um those affirmations what’s you know what is the most important thing and i know you’ve you’re

probably pretty good at this of what’s uh and i forget what how you you said but what i uh what i like to do is allow

so working with this thing of allowing as well um like uh instead of

saying uh i intend to i’m more like i i allow

such and such you know and and so that’s one thing for my intention now the other thing you said

whoops i ha funny here i’ve backed away from my screen um all right

okay so the other thing that that brought up is the um the the reading afterwards and that’s a

really good idea because uh once the mind is calm and settled and we focus so

um so uh deeply that’s a great time to do cognitive things too right because uh it

seems i’m guessing your absorption and your understanding and your insight into what you’re reading is

expanded at that time right uh yeah coming out of the meditation is a very important point uh it’s a very powerful

thing and sometimes the insights can come after the meditation too during the day so um so notice that’s the key times

well in the journaling i just have to say yeah i got advice a few years ago that if you’re not journaling you’re

faking faking it and i’m like what i’m not faking it i’m gonna do this so i’ve

kept a daily journal um probably for years now and sometimes it’s only like a sentence or two and for me it’s not as

much emotional and things like that it’s me keeping track of my day what did i do that day but the the retrospective part

of it is so important because the hindsight is where we really can change and grow and evolve i don’t do that

enough i need to go back through it now that i’ve got years and just you know flip to a random day oh yeah i remember that day what was going on oh how i

could only see part of it then but now i it fits into the bigger picture and how that informs what i’m doing now are

things events that might have happened and played out so it’s it’s a beautiful practice yeah and you’ve already noticed the benefits in your short amount of

time doing it so yeah that’s a another huge recommendation now

what about retreats of centering prayer have you led those like extended uh periods of time uh either in real life

or um on zoom and if there’s anything else you want to pick up about what i said too

Centering prayer gatherings

heaven well i do actually with another gentleman that wrote a book so i wrote sitting with god a journey to your true self through

centering prayer which came out in august of 2020. i connected with a gentleman named brian russell who also

published a book less than a year ago on centering prayer he has a podcast i was on a show and then we just resonated with each other

so and said we need to do stuff together so we’re actually tomorrow we’re doing i

think it’s our fourth one we do a monthly centering prayer gathering it’s 90 minutes

and the first 20 minutes 25 minutes is really just us talking and

on an interesting topic that we put together it sometimes it might be me asking him questions or him asking me questions but

there’s usually a topic and then we lead them into a 20-minute center and prayer set so i know it sounds funny but we do

we all then we we lead them into the sit and then everybody sits silently for 20 minutes and most of the people turn

their cameras off and mute and then um at the end of the 20-minute period it’s

we have 30 minutes left or we allow at least 30 more minutes of just q a where they can either

ask questions they can ask questions upon what we talked about at the beginning or they can simply share whatever they want to share so we’ve

been doing this and many of the people have already been practicing centering prayer but in some

cases they might be new so we always right before we do the sit i teach them you know how you do the practice in case

there’s anybody new so now that you said that we’ve been this is i think our fourth one we’re doing it once a month

and inviting anybody who wants to join us to come in via zoom and it’s it’s been a neat experience i mean we’ve had

people from all over the u.s and we we had a gentleman calling from croatia and we had a couple people from the uk

um so it’s so that’s one thing that i that i’ve been doing and then i’ll get invited to come into churches

and and we’ll do it via zoom and and i’ll kind of cater to what they want so

in some cases they want to do centering prayer exactly like what i just explained in other cases they just want

to give have me give them a talk share the practice and then let them experience five minutes of silence so i

so i do that as well so a little bit of both so the monthly gathering which is a 20-minute sit or churches inviting me to

come in whether they have an hour or 90 minutes and asking me to teach them centering prayer and let them

experiences sit or or they’ll give me a topic and i’ll incorporate that into my

talk plus the centering prayer very cool um and actually this isn’t at

least in the buddhist communities that i do i’m actually doing a day-long meditation retreat tomorrow on zoo okay

it’s out of redwood city california at least one of the teachers is so that’s the whole day just the meditation right

but more a lot of the other uh meetups and gatherings on zoom now it’s very similar to the format there’ll be a

there’ll be a talk um they’ll be sitting and then they’ll they’ll open it up for questions and answers it’s a really

common format now and like you’re saying the hybrid where part of it uh can happen in real life and then other

people can join on zoom it’s becoming really more and more common as far as i uh can uh notice now with different

things that i check out and join so yeah um well why don’t you lea we’re

getting closer to the end here why don’t you leave folks with any other thing you’d like to

anything else you’d like to say and then also we’ve mentioned kind of the events you

do tell people more about your book anything you want to say about that maybe the writing process the

inspiration process anything you want to say about that of course where people can get it too and then you can leave

folks with your social media links uh website any other events you have up coming up

any messages you want to say you know and i know this this gathering is really

important this belonging all of us if humans uh we’re just better off if we feel like we

belong to to each other to something to someone you know this in the gathering is a

really important part of life too so plenty of stuff there to pick up on sure sure

well the first thing i would just encourage people is to try as a silent practice so um whether it’s centering

prayer or whether it’s some type of silent meditation i would encourage people to find a practice and and make

it try it for 30 days and to make it a habit i’ll suggest they do

it first thing in the morning so before you begin your day do your silent practice if the idea of sitting for 20

minutes seems daunting you don’t have to start with 20 minutes sit with five minutes and try to make an effort to do it every

day for 30 days and just see what happens and see whether that resonates

with you and you can decide you know what this isn’t so bad i think i’m going to keep at it and i think i’m going to

slowly start increasing the time so i’ll just challenge people to try commit to 30 days of five minutes first thing in

the morning and see what happens is what i would challenge people to do yes can’t i can’t echo that enough

and then to and then in terms of centering prayer i have a free e-book on my site so if they come over to

silenceteaches.com and subscribe i have a free ebook that’s very easy to read and get through in five five or ten

minutes which kind of shares how you know it’s it it answers all kinds of

questions on centering prayer at the top of the page is a question and then the bottom is just

bullet points of answering the question so it’ll share the practice and how to how to do it so i would encourage them

to take a peek at my site silenceteaches.com try the free ebook and just see if this is a practice that

resonates with you and then if you find it does they they’re certainly welcome to take a look at my book

they can see it on my website i’m sitting with god a journey to your true self through centering prayers is

available on amazon and and most online retailers at barnes noble target walmart

and it’s available internationally i’ve noticed it in different spots so they can if they want to further explore the

idea of centering prayer they can check out my book because it’s a just a regular person who has who works a

regular day job and um sharing how what the practice is for

people new as well as people that want to go deeper but it shares how it’s healed and transformed me as well so i

think that’s what a lot of people have said they liked the book because it was easy to read it shared my journey i was

i was open and vulnerable in the book the chapters are short i’m purposely

short and with even within each chapter that you have a heading so you know what to read under that section the sections

are short at the end of each chapter questions for reflection and answer if you want to kind of reflect on what you just read so

people told me they liked it because it was an easy to easy book to read they could read it in chunks and it was

just coming from a regular person who’s sharing how much this practice has helped heal healed him so

silenceteachers.com really is the best place to learn about me my book or even just

take a peek at the the free e-book and see if this is something that will resonate with you

well very cool rich and those will be linked in the show notes um and thanks for everybody for joining and

listening in may you all be blessed with an ideal and optimal

day and night bye-bye

Published by josh dippold

IntegratingPresence.com

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