I received this book for free to review, and this post may contain affiliate links.
The Heart of Centering Prayer Book Review
I first read The Heart of Centering Prayer because I wanted to go deeper.
I had already been practicing centering prayer, but I sensed there was more happening beneath the surface.
More than silence.
More than stillness.
More than simply letting go of thoughts.
Cynthia Bourgeault helped me see that centering prayer is not just a practice we do.
It is a path of transformation.
It helps us open to God’s presence and action within us.
It helps us loosen our grip.
It helps us live from a deeper place.
This book stretched me.
It challenged me.
And it helped me better understand the deep wisdom at the heart of centering prayer.
Cynthia Bourgeault is an Episcopal priest, teacher, and author who has helped many people understand Christian contemplation, centering prayer, and the wisdom tradition.
Her book The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice takes readers deeper into the inner work of centering prayer and what it means to live from the heart.
Cynthia explains that this book grew out of her continued practice and reflection since writing Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening.
My practice has also evolved.
When I first read this book, I had been practicing centering prayer for just under three years.
Now, after more than 10 years of practice, I continue to see how this simple prayer keeps changing me.
Let me share five key takeaways from this wonderful book.
Spaces Between My Thoughts
One of the phrases that stayed with me is Cynthia’s teaching about the gaps between our thoughts.
I call them the spaces between my thoughts.
I enter them during my silent sit.
Sometimes they are short.
Other times they seem longer.
And when I rise from my sit, I often feel like a new creation.
Calm.
Peaceful.
Energized.
Ready to live.
I often discover solutions to problems that seemed to hide from me before.
Centering prayer creates space.
And in that space, God does deep work.
Nonduality
Cynthia describes nonduality as a new way of seeing.
A new operating system.
That language helped me.
In centering prayer, I do not need to divide everything into this or that.
I do not need to judge everything.
I do not need to fix everything.
I can simply be there.
Present.
Open.
Available to God.
And slowly, this way of being begins to move beyond my prayer time.
I become more present in daily life.
I notice things I used to miss.
I become less reactive.
I become more alive.
I become more whole.
Kenosis
Cynthia connects centering prayer with kenosis, the self-emptying love of Jesus.
This is powerful.
Each time we return to our sacred word, we practice letting go.
We let go of thoughts.
We let go of control.
We let go of the need to manage everything.
And over time, that same letting-go gesture begins to show up in daily life.
When I am worried, I can let it go.
When I am anxious, I can let it go.
When I receive abundance, I can share it.
I am not my job title.
I am not my accomplishments.
I am not my fears.
Centering prayer teaches me to release what I do not need to carry.
Blessed Are the Pure in Heart
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
Matthew 5:8
During centering prayer, I believe my heart is being purified.
Not because I am doing something impressive.
But because I am consenting to God’s presence and action within me.
I sit.
I open.
I return.
God does the work.
As my heart is purified, I begin to see God more clearly.
I become more compassionate.
More patient.
More aware.
More willing to love.
I am a work in progress.
That is why I return each day to my centering prayer practice.
Silence Teaches Us Who We Are
I used to think I entered centering prayer to be filled with God.
Now I see it differently.
I do not need to be filled with God as if God were absent.
God is already here.
God is already within me.
Centering prayer helps me release the barriers that keep me from living from that truth.
Silence teaches me who I am.
I am loved by God.
I am held by God.
I am invited to live from the true self God created me to be.
Centering prayer teaches me how to live.
Next Steps
Centering prayer is not a race.
It is a journey.
A daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly practice can transform you.
It has transformed me.
It continues to transform me.
If you are drawn to centering prayer, The Heart of Centering Prayer is a deep and challenging book.
It may stretch you.
It may confuse you at times.
It may invite you to see this practice in a new way.
But if you stay with it, there is much wisdom here.
Go Further
If this review speaks to you, Cynthia Bourgeault’s work is worth exploring more deeply.
A few places to begin:
The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind–A New Perspective on Christ and His Message
And if you are new to centering prayer, I created a free guide to help you begin simply.
Hi Amos,
Great overview of the book. I also love the idea of non duality as a new operating system. I think Cynthia could take it even farther, and let go (kenotically, so to speak!) of the “ascent” metaphor altogether. You hinted at it in your review – If God is omnipresent (and even more challenging to our modern, materialistic ego-driven thinking, omnipotent) then how could “I” (as the “little me”) possibly “do” anything – even the “letting go” is Divine action, though if I “think” of it that way, in my “little me” way of thinking, I may try to “do nothing” (the little me doing nothing that is) and in my egoic pride, end up subverting the process.
This is why the Heart emphasis is so important. if the above paragraph is opaque, let go of it, it doesn’t matter. The Heart knows how to do Centering Prayer, it’s been doing it for all eternity. If I just get out of the way, Centering Prayer does itself, not only in formal “seated” practice but all the time.
The other thing I’d love to see more emphasis on in Cynthia’s teaching of centering prayer is her rather radical way of teaching how to use the sacred word. I first came upon centering prayer in 1981, when i started working as music director at a Spanish Catholic Church in NYC. We were invited to a “centering prayer mass” led by Basil Pennington. I loved the silence, but didn’t find what I understood of the technique to be anything more than superficial.
over the years, whenever I heard about centering prayer, I never liked the way the use of the sacred word was described. I’ve mostly practiced, since 1976, in the “integral yoga” tradition of Sri Aurobindo, which is at its heart, a practice of surrender, letting go, and opening.
I happened to pick up The Heart of Centering Prayer last fall, and came upon the passage where she explained that, if one is intent on opening to God’s Presence and Action, there is no need for the sacred word. in fact, if “thoughts” (or objects of awareness) only come up once in the sitting time, one would only use the word once as the gentlest reminder possible of returning to one’s intention.
For the first time, Centering Prayer not only made sense, but I realized it was exactly the same “gesture of consciousness” i had learned from Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee and from Sri Aurobindo. Perhaps most astonishing, the Advaita Vedanta teacher I’ve been studying with the past 10 years, Roy Eugene Davis – who you might think would be very much in the “ascent” tradition – when he guides meditations, opens with instructions quite in the same spirit – “let your intention to open to the Divine guide your meditation.”
There is still something to be said for ascent, but that’s for another comment:>))
Thank you so much for a wonderful overview.
http://www.remember-to-breathe.org
Don
Thanks for reading my review!
I love your comment that the Heart knows how to do Centering Prayer, it’s been doing it for all eternity.
Agree, even the sacred word gets in the way. I have found that I use it less and less.
I have heard others say that they have been practicing centering prayer for a while but just did not know that they were.
Rich
Just came across this. Excellent review. CB’s word is “heart”, when she does use it and I think it’s now more to bring her back to embodied awareness in the heart region, not as a means of focused attention. Similar to Sardello. For a long time I thought one stayed focused on the sacred word. No. It is simply a tether to draw you back from development of thoughts.
Your last sentence nails it! Thanks for reading and commenting!