The former Archbishop of Canterbury gives special credit to the Dharmic religion, which he believes has given him a deeper awareness and appreciation of breathing in the present moment. This focus has renewed his concentration on the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” repeated over), a mantra-like prayer esteemed in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches.
Rowan Williams. Photo: Fiona Hanson/PA.
“Over the years increasing exposure to and engagement with the Buddhist world in particular has made me aware of practices not unlike the ‘Jesus Prayer’ and introduced me to disciplines that further enforce the stillness and physical focus that the prayer entails,” Lord Williams told the New Statesman.
“Walking meditation, pacing very slowly and coordinating each step with an out-breath, is something I have found increasingly important as a preparation for a longer time of silence.”
The former Archbishop of Canterbury was famous for his writing on comparative theology denominations and religions beyond the Anglican tradition. However, he has been relatively private about his own personal practice. His current tenure as Master of Magdalene College, Oxford, sees him reprising a more academic identity, with perhaps more time to articulate his ideas on how his Christian faith relates to other traditions that he feels affinity with. He says that his domestic routine is in no way some “magical invocation” and instead allows him to detach his mind from “distracted, wandering images and thoughts”, picturing the human body as a cave through which the breath passes.
“So: the regular ritual to begin the day when I’m in the house is a matter of an early rise and a brief walking meditation or sometimes a few slow prostrations, before squatting for 30 or 40 minutes (a low stool to support the thighs and reduce the weight on the lower legs) with the 'Jesus Prayer': repeating (usually silently) the words as I breathe out, leaving a moment between repetitions to notice the beating of the heart, which will slow down steadily over the period.”
Of course, as a theologian, Lord Williams is not shy of trying to interpret the things happening to him. “If you want to speak theologically about it, it’s a time when you are aware of your body as simply a place where life happens and where, therefore, God ‘happens’: a life lived in you,” he added. Experiencing God “happening” seems to be an allusion to the transcending of the “present time”, as St. Augustine put it, into the “present eternity” (Highland: 2005, 99). To notice the happening of God is akin to a radical attention to the present, even in the midst of relentless changes and ubiquitous suffering. The emphasis on mindfulness by Buddhist masters like Thich Nhat Hanh seems to stimulate similar benefits in Christian teachers like Lord Williams.
The Master of Magdalene College went on to explain that those who perform meditation regularly could reach “advanced states” and become aware of an “unbroken inner light”. Whether this is a direct inspiration from Buddhism (it does not appear to be traditional Christian language) is a personal matter for the retired Archbishop, but it certainly sheds new possibilities for interfaith dialogue between the Buddhist and Christian religions.
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References
Jim Highland, “Transformation to Eternity: Augustine’s Conversion to Mindfulness”, in Buddhist-Christian Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i, 2005, 91 – 108.