Contemplative Heart, The

by James Finley

Overview

James Finley recognizes the depth and range of today's spiritual yearning and refuses to settle for anything but its most profound possibilities. He opens our everyday living to the contemplative traditions, practices, and teaching that have been traditionally the preserve of the monk, and he does so without diluting them. The Contemplative Heart enables readers to realize that wherever we live, whatever we do, the richest possibilities of a contemplative life are within our reach-that they are in fact what we have been searching for all along.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781893732100
Publisher:	Ave Maria Press
Publication date:	12/01/1999
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	0.48(w) x 9.00(h) x 6.00(d)

About the Author

James Finley is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Santa Monica, California. Finley spent a number of years under the spiritual direction of Thomas Merton, and they were contemporaries during Finley's six years at the Abbey of Gethsemani. In addition to his clinical practice, Finley leads contemplative retreats and teaches throughout the United States and Canada, and he is the author of many books.

Read an Excerpt

From the back cover:
It is possible to live a contemplative life in today's world.

James Finley recognizes the depth and range of today's spiritual yearning and refuses to settle for anything but its most profound possibilities.

He opens our everyday living to the contemplative traditions, practices, and teaching that have been traditionally the preserve of the monk, and he does so without diluting them.

He makes us realize that wherever we live, whatever we do, the richest possibilities of a contemplative life are within our reach—that they are in fact what we have been searching for all along.

He shows us how to:

• discover our contemplative practices.
• find our contemplative community and enter it.
• find our contemplative teaching and follow it.

The Contemplative Heart is a deeply satisfying contemplative book about contemplation.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	7
	A Note to the Reader	8
Part 1	A Contemplative Vision of Life	11
1	Seeking a More Contemplative Way of Life	13
2	The Divinity of What Just Is	23
3	Ignorance	29
Part 2	Find Your Contemplative Practice and Practice It	43
4	Discovering Your Contemplative Practices	45
5	Meditation	51
	Sit Still	53
	Sit Straight	61
	Eyes Closed or Lowered Toward the Ground	73
	Hands in a Comfortable or Meaningful Position	83
	Slow, Deep, Natural Breathing	84
	Present, Open, and Awake, Neither Clinging to nor Rejecting Anything	93
	Repetition of a Word or Phrase	105
	Compassion	111
	Walking Meditation	117
Part 3	Find Your Contemplative Community and Enter It	131
6	Instances of Contemplative Community	133
7	The Developmental Revelations of Contemplative Community	151
Part 4	Find Your Contemplative Teaching and Follow It	175
8	Discerning That Which Enhances	177
9	Discerning That Which Hinders	199
	Notes	220

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"James Finley inspires, consoles, affirms, challenges, and convinces me of what he believes and teaches. His work has a profound depth, yet touches the commonness of our everyday existence. I will sit with this book for a long time and return to it often."—Joyce Rupp, author of Open the Door

"A lovely and lyrical lesson—one in which the medium is also the message about the contemplative approach to the direct realization of the presence of God. Finley's medication instructions, precise and poetic, are useful for people with all levels of contemplative experience."— Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job

Editorial Reviews

The Contemplative Heart shows us how to find breathing room in our cluttered daily lives. For five years James Finley lived at the cloistered Trappist monastery where he studied with Thomas Merton. Finley's meditations relate directly to our everyday experience of the hectic, modern world and the necessity to remain grounded in the meaning and value of our lives beyond what we produce, consume, and achieve. Finley offers guidelines for meditative practices that promote self-reflection, and shows how to include contemplative influences in our lives, while rooting out those that hinder the process. The Contemplative Heart is highly recommended reading for anyone needing to find tranquility in the midst of confusion, silence in the noise of the world, and personal spirituality within the framework of a secular life.

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