40 Day Contemplative Lenten Challenge - Third Saturday of Lent

“What you’re looking for is where you’re looking from.”  Saint Francis of Assisi
 
After you have practiced meditation and contemplative prayer for a while, you will likely notice a distancing quality; space begins to grow between “you” and your thoughts. Most people completely identify who they are with what they think. After some months of praying as outlined in this challenge, you will start to “know” your thoughts as you know your sensory inputs. When you smell coffee brewing, there is you and there is the smell of coffee.  Similarly, one day you will be resting in silence and a thought will float by like a cloud in the blue sky. There will be you and there will be the thought. Hopefully you will appreciate this great gift when it is given to you.
 
When you notice this separation, rest in the part of you that is doing the noticing. This is your center. Repeatedly resting here will further build the distancing between the deeper you and the thought-made you. Over time, if you keep practicing prayer as taught in this challenge, you will dis-identify with your thoughts. Of course, you will still be able to think. In fact, you will be able to think clearer than ever before. You will use your mind instead of your mind using you. Then, if you remain vigilant and watchful, you can more easily deny yourself as Jesus instructed. No longer will you identify with every urge and impulse, with every judgement of your neighbor, with every doubt of your self-worth.  Those types of thoughts may still occur, but it will be easier to choose whether-or-not to listen to them. 
 
In his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton called this thought-made self, this story we tell ourselves about who we are, the “false self” and referred to the deeper self that “sees” our thoughts as the “True Self”. We will further explore this terminology later in the challenge.
 
Lenten Action
In addition to your daily meditation and contemplative practice, take some quiet time to investigate your sense of self. Before your daily prayer time, sit with eyes closed and feel what it is like to be in your skin.  Feel your body from the inside. Put your attention in your feet. Can you feel the aliveness coursing through them? Investigate any sensations. Consider if you did not have feet. Of course it would be unfortunate, but would your foundational sense of existing, your fundamental sense of being alive, still be there? Move throughout your body from one part to the next. Are your hands fundamental to your sense of being? Are your arms? Keep this up until you get to that part of you where you reside. This is your center. Rest, keeping your attention there. Said another way, rest with your attention on the place from where your attention originates. Stay there. Every time your thoughts hook your attention, gently and without judgement bring your attention back to your center. Pray from there. Go there as often as you can. Live from there, for at your deep center your heart communes with God. This is where you realize the distinction between thoughts and the deeper you, the difference between your false and True Self.
 
Today is not a Fast day, but if you have a mind to abstain from a favorite food or drink, please do so as a means of strengthening your will power. Remember not to watch TV, or use your computer or your phone to access social media, computer games, or other unnecessary apps.”