Hi, and welcome back to day five. So mindfulness has become a pretty well known term in contemporary culture. And myself and many other teachers of contemplative Christianity prefer to use the word heartfulness to refer to the contemplative stance towards the world. And it's really a way of being that emerges from a regular practice that keeps us grounded or centered in awareness of the Divine Presence. So that's what I want to explore with you today. We live in a culture that tends to have a strong separation between head and heart between rational thought and emotion.

But the term heart in the ancient biblical world out of which these contemplative practices emerged, didn't really hold a strong dichotomy between reason and emotion. Rather, they saw these as As different expressions of the human heart or human nature, so when I do guided meditations or teachings with groups or people, I often begin after a kind of basic breath awareness, by inviting the person to allow your awareness to drop from your head down into the heart into the full presence available in the body. So in contemplation, we don't leave intellect or reason behind, but rather, we allow it to really flourish fully, by reconnecting it with the fullness of our human experience, our full way of knowing and experiencing reality. And this view is even reflected in the language used in the biblical accounts in the Hebrew Bible in the Christian New Testament. So the word love in Hebrew is used, for example, in Psalm 51, where the psalmist writes, Create in me a clean heart.

Oh, Lord, Hear heart is that full seat of a person spiritual capacities that includes emotions, thoughts and will or desires. And we see this too in the New Testament. The Greek word here is cardian. And you can see the root here of our word for cardio. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And in this sermon in Matthew, chapters five, six and seven, one of Jesus's most beloved and important teachings in all the Gospels, Jesus emphasizes over and over again, that the fulfillment of the law of Moses in the Hebrew Bible is found in the way in which the letter of the law shapes and internal orientation or disposition of the heart towards love of God, and love of neighbor and love of self.

Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century philosopher said that purity of heart is to will one thing. And so we're going to see this purity of heart or heartfulness really focuses on honing the will to focus on one particular thing or our highest good. So here's how john kashin describes purity of heart, which he says is really the emphasis of the entire desert tradition. And if you recall from our history lesson, john kashin was the monk who went to the desert and learned from the mothers and fathers and then returned back to Gaul or what is today France, founded some of the earliest monasteries in Western Europe. He describes purity of heart as follows. The mind is fed upon the continual contemplation of the Almighty God.

The hearts attention is unwaveringly fastened upon the one and highest good until one's whole life of life, and all the yearnings of one's heart become a single and continuous prayer. Now, some of the mystical writings in the tradition can be kind of esoteric and have some difficult theology. But all the mystics were also very concerned with teaching us more practical tips about how how do we cultivate this kind of single pointed purity of heart and mind focused on the search for God amidst you know, all the daily stuff we have to do? The answer given in by caching and in his account of a dialogue between one of the Desert Fathers is constant repetition of a verse from Scripture, a sacred word, a mantra or a phrase. In his discourse, the monk that Cashin is dialoguing with, suggests repeating the opening verse of Psalm 70 Oh God, come to my assistance.

Oh, Lord, make haste to help me and he says Of course, we do this during our formal practice when we sit, but he says it should also infuse us while we're working. While we're resting while we're playing while we're washing the dishes, hanging out with our kids, doing the chores, even says to the point that the phrase would come up while we're sleeping. And he's got a funny kind of reference to repeating the phrase or verse from Scripture, even while taking care of the body's natural needs, as it were. So I want to pause here and emphasize a real practical tip that Cashin mentions, he says, prayer should be made frequently, to be sure, but briefly, prayer should be made frequently, to be sure, but briefly, this is a point I'm going to emphasize throughout this course. And Kashan was writing it in the late fourth early fifth century.

It turns out that modern science actually agrees with and confirms Cashin and the other missing sticks. That short but regular practice brings the most benefits, both in terms of what people report subjectively, but also in terms of measurable changes in brain chemistry and brain structure, things that we'll talk about a little bit later in the course. So, regular short daily practice is the best way to stay on and really cultivate this heartfulness this contemplative path. All right, I want to use the parable of the sower and the seed that Jesus tells in the gospels alongside an example from a wildflower garden that I recently planted in my front yard and this is a picture from my wildflower garden here on the right side. So when we moved into our place about a year ago, this front area was covered with a bunch of mulch and had some weeds growing around it and The first thing I needed to do was to prepare the ground so I scooped out all the mulch.

I removed that black weed blocking paper that somebody had laid down. And then I got out a pitchfork and I turned over the soil and broke up all the clumps of clay and dirt. Now doing that, if you've ever done this turning over the soil exposes many of the seeds that have been buried down in the soil and weren't growing. And so I actually had to wait then and allow those weed seeds to sprout and begin growing so that I could remove them. Only then did I lay down the wildflower seeds that I bought and then start to water it daily. So this picture here shows the garden as it is today in its very early stages.

And if you look real close, you can see that there are still plenty of weeds growing along with the wild flowers and yet, some of the flowers have already begun to blossom into this beautiful array of colors. It's kind of fun everyday to go out and see what new colors are flowers have started to blossom and bloom. Now, if you know much about wild flowers, with ongoing cultivation and attention, these wild flowers will send deep roots down into the soil, in some cases, many feet down into the soil much more than typical grass would. And what this does is it gives them a real stability that allows them to continue crowding out the weaker weeds that are growing, and of course blooming with new and vibrant colors throughout each growing season. I want to suggest that this is a perfect metaphor for cultivating heartfulness especially if we think about this alongside of the parable of the sower.

And if you're familiar with the parable, and if you're not, you could go read it even do some lexia with it if you like. It's the sower and the seeds and one of the obstacles to those seeds. That are sowing the seeds of the gospel. One of the obstacles to their taking root is that the soil is hard. And we could think of this as a hardness of heart. It's our own stubbornness and attachments.

Or in some cases, it's also the weeds that choke out the new seeds and those weeds Jesus says, our, our anxieties and our constantly churning disruptive thoughts, the worries of the world, what we might call monkey mind from the Buddhist. So all the great mystics and contemplative speak of the need for preparing the soil of our heart before receiving those seeds of contemplation. And they talked about this as removing vices and vices, maybe an archaic term, but vices are simply those bad habits that keep us distracted, or caught up in our own petty selfish desires. And this is what in the Christian tradition would be called sin. So one of the first things we notice when we begin to practice is all the stuff that we don't want to experience, the stuff that we don't like. And so we begin with the body and the breath, dropping down into our heart cultivating that basic mindfulness.

And when we do that, we start to notice those vices or character defects. For me, the strongest voice in there that I don't like, I'll admit, is a very critical voice. And it's usually criticizing me and my work, or others and the world around me. It's that voice that says, Listen, people, why doesn't the world conform to me and my needs? Well, the world doesn't do that. So I bring some mindfulness.

And by doing that, by cultivating mindfulness with an awareness of breath and body, then I can start to know myself more clearly, while cultivating that non judgmental awareness. So we might need to make some initial effort at reforming some of these bad habits. But I want to really emphasize contemplation is not a program of self improvement. It's not pop psychology. It's a program of self surrender to the healing Divine Presence, we work less so that God can work more through the grace of the Holy Spirit. So as we build up this capacity to notice our thoughts, desires and emotions without judgment, their power begins to loosen, and that frees up tremendous energy to begin to focus singly on the more important things of life.

Now we're moving towards that purity of heart. So in this aspect of our practice, we turn our attention back from those distracting thoughts and pesky faults. We come back to our sacred word or mantra or our phrase, and this signifies our intention to let go and let God so heartfulness then, is a practice of gathering up all of our energy thoughts into Ayers and directing them towards God as our highest good. This releases even more energy that can bring us into a contemplative silence, where we've created a lot more space with the help of God for God to really work deep down into the roots of our soul. So in the parable of the sower and my front yard, clearing away the earth is our initial efforts to create some space for a regular contemplative practice, ideally, daily, at least, and that involves some initial effort and, and will and maybe even struggle, and that's okay, that's normal.

Then, God desires to help us on this journey. So this initial effort is met with grace and helped to go deeper and when we are ready, the Holy Spirit starts to drop those seeds of contemplation into the soil that we've prepared and they start to grow and take root. Now notice that the weeds grow too and that's a natural part of the process. With time and our regular commitment to a practice, those flowers start to blossom and their roots sink deep into the soil. And those are the virtues and the gifts that God wants to give us for our own good and the good of others and of the world. There's always going to be weeds.

That's the human condition. But God does not want us or desire us or need us to be perfect. Rather, God wants us to be willing. Our regular practice or daily practice is our sign of our willingness that is offered to God. I want to conclude with one of my favorite stories from the saints of the Desert Fathers. Now although simply is a word for father, so a lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, Father, as far as I can, I say my little office.

I fast a little I pray and I meditate. I believe live in peace and as far as I can I purify my thoughts. What else can I do? Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands towards heaven. His fingers became like 10 lamps of fire. And he said to him, if you will, you can become all flame.

What a beautiful metaphor of the contemplative transformation that happens when we consent to this process of divine healing and inflaming of the human soul. So, tomorrow and day six, we'll kind of talk about what are some of the blossoming wild flowers or flames that come as a result of this contemplative transformation and we'll talk about this as the fruits and the benefits of contemplative transformation, for continuing to come back for these daily nugget lessons. Look forward to being with you again tomorrow. And Thank you for being here.