Christianity and meditation

Many years ago I read a book related to a seminar sponsored by the World Community for Christian Meditation, in memory of John Main, the Irish Benedictine monk who taught and spread meditation in the Christian community. And John Main learned his meditation technique from an Indian monk when he was serving with the British Force in Malaysia. The seminar invited his Holiness the Dalai Lama to run a session in which he interpret passages from the Scriptures as selected by the organizer without him knowing which passages in advance. The Dalai Lama's session was published in a book called "The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus". Putting aside the Dalai Lama's interpretations of selected passages from the scriptures, it is interesting to note that meditation has acted as a link between Buddhism and Christianity.

According to World community of Christian Meditation, the role of meditation has been side-lined in the history of Christianity, and they intended to revitalize this old tradition: "In Christianity this tradition became marginalised and even forgotten or suspect. But in recent times a great recovery of the contemplative dimension of Christian faith has been happening. Central to this now is the rediscovery of a practice of meditation in the Christian tradition that comes to us from the early Christian monks _ the Desert Fathers and Mothers and allows us to put into practice the teaching of Jesus on prayer in a radical and simple way."

What are the benefits of meditation to a Christian? World community of Christian Meditation has this to say,

"Finally - but also primarily - we meditate to take the attention off ourselves. In the Christian tradition it is seen as a work of love. Not surprising then if we find we become more loving people as a result of meditating and this will express itself in all our relationships, our work and our sense of service especially to those in any kind of need."

PS: I wrote a book review on "The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus" in Amazon.com, please click here to read.