Entrega Total

Entrega Total

Cynthia Bourgeault, describe cómo podemos seguir el camino de descenso que Jesús modela:

En Jesús, todo gira en torno a un único centro de gravedad… En griego, el verbo kenosein significa “soltar” o “vaciarse”, y esta es la palabra que Pablo elige en el momento clave de su célebre enseñanza en Filipenses 2:5-11 para describir en qué consiste “la mente de Cristo”…

En este hermoso himno, Pablo reconoce que Jesús solo tenía un “modo de operación”. Todo lo que hizo, lo hizo vaciándose. Se vació a sí mismo y descendió a la forma humana. Y se vació aún más (“hasta la muerte de cruz”) y cayó al fondo para regresar a los reinos de dominio y gloria. En cualquier circunstancia de la vida, Jesús siempre respondió con el mismo movimiento de vaciamiento, o dicho de otro modo, con el mismo movimiento de descenso: descendiendo, tomando el lugar inferior, no el superior…

Es un camino que él mismo recorrió hasta el final. En el huerto de Getsemaní, con sus traidores y acusadores amontonados a las puertas, luchó y se angustió, pero se mantuvo fiel a su rumbo. No acumules, no te aferres, ni siquiera a la vida misma. Déjala ir, déjala ser: «No se haga mi voluntad, sino la tuya, Señor. En tus manos encomiendo mi espíritu».

Así vino y así se fue, entregándose plenamente a la vida y a la muerte, perdiéndose, despilfarrándose, «apostando todo don que Dios concede». No fue el amor acumulado, sino el amor completamente derramado, lo que abrió las puertas del Reino de los Cielos.

Una y otra vez, Jesús nos presenta este camino. No hay nada a lo que renunciar ni a lo que resistirse. Todo se puede aceptar, pero la clave está en no aferrarse a nada. Lo sueltas. Vas por la vida como un cuchillo atraviesa un pastel cocido, sin recoger nada, sin aferrarte a nada, sin pegarte a nada. Y, arraigado en esa castidad fundamental de tu ser, puedes entonces entregarte, entregarte, ser capaz de devolverlo todo, incluso devolver la vida misma. Ese es el camino kenótico en pocas palabras. Muy, muy simple. Solo cuesta todo. [1]

Referencias

[1] Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind (Shambhala, 2008), 63, 64, 70.

Material publicado en las meditaciones diarias del CAC , miércoles 16 de abril 2023

Learning to Letting Go with Centering Prayer

Learning to Let Go

Centering Prayer is a devotional practice, placing ourselves in God’s presence and quieting our minds and hearts, but as Cynthia Bourgeault explains, it doesn’t only work on that level. What the desert abbas and ammas, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, and even Thomas Keating could not have known when he formally started teaching the practice five decades ago, was that it works on a physiological level as well, strengthening neural pathways, and making “letting go” that much easier. When it comes to releasing our strong preferences, especially our desire for power and control, it seems safe to say that some practice of kenosis is necessary for any movement forward. 

The theological basis for Centering Prayer lies in the principle of kenosis, Jesus’s self-emptying love that forms the core of his own self-understanding and life practice. . . .

The gospels themselves make clear that [Jesus] is specifically inviting us to this journey and modeling how to do it. Once you see this, it’s the touchstone throughout all his teaching: Let go! Don’t cling! Don’t hoard! Don’t assert your importance! Don’t fret. “Do not be afraid, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom!” (Luke 12:32). And it’s this same core gesture we practice in Centering Prayer: thought by thought by thought. You could really summarize Centering Prayer as kenosis in meditation form. . . .

Fascinating confirmation that kenosis is indeed an evolutionary human pathway is emerging from—of all places—recent discoveries in neuroscience. From fMRI data collected primarily by the California-based HeartMath Institute, you can now verify chapter and verse that how you respond to a stimulus in the outer world determines which neural pathways will be activated in your brain, and between your brain and your heart. If you respond with any form of initial negativity (which translates physiologically as constriction)—freezing, bracing, clinging, clenching, and so on—the pathway illumined leads to your amygdala (or “reptilian brain,” as it’s familiarly known) . . . which controls a repertory of highly energized fight-or-flight responses. If you can relax into a stimulus—opening, softening, yielding, releasing—the neural pathway leads through the more evolutionarily advanced parts of your forebrain and, surprisingly, brings brain and heart rhythms into entrainment. . . .

Every time we manage to let go of a thought in Centering Prayer, “consenting to the presence and action of God within,” the gesture is actually physically embodied. It’s not just an attitude; something actually “drops and releases” in the solar plexus region of your body, a subtle but distinct form of interior relaxation. . . . And in time, this gentle and persistent “inner aerobics,” undertaken under the specific banner of Centering Prayer and in solidarity with Jesus’s own kenotic path, will gradually establish that “mind of Christ” within you as your own authentic self.

We invite you to spend some time today practicing “letting go” through Centering Prayer or another practice of kenosis.

Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice (Shambhala: 2016), 33, 34, 35–36.

Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditation.

Good and Bad Power

August 8 – August 13, 2021