Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

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	• Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation Martin Laird Oxford University Press, USA, 2006 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Silence Is Our Salvation

Laird teaches that silence is our salvation. Our lives are rooted in God, but we are unaware of this reality. The practice of contemplative prayer helps us become aware of God's presence and our connection to God. His method of contemplation aligns a prayer word or phrase to one's own breathing. The best image in the book was a riverbed that makes no commentary on the river passing over it--it merely sits in silence. This is a beautifully written book that will reward reflective reading.

Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation

Excellent! Written for the novice as well as the more experienced.
Clear, Concise and Complete!! ams

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contemplative

I have read many books on contemplative prayer practice and I beleive this book is the most concise and well written one I have read. It is difficult to describe spiritual realities with spoken language but the author does a good job of doing this.

review of into the silent land

I seldom read books that someone else recommends but this one came straight from relief work at Katrina. The understanding that this author has of the often referred to monastic thinkers is simply amazing. I believe he brings a very clear view of what this silent prayer is and how it can help the spiritual life in this modern world. I highly recommend this book to all who are looking to increase prayer life and shut down the mind with its many distractions. I even like the picture on the jacket, and I might add, I am not a Catholic .

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First rate guide to contemplative practice

I'm a liberal/pantheistic Quaker and have over the years read manuals and practiced meditation in Christian, Buddhist and Taoist traditions. This is the best meditation manual I have ever encountered in any tradition. It's also the only one I've ever recommended online. With its combination of clear description and deep intuition, I think that almost anyone who is interested in contemplation in any tradition would gain from reading it. I wish somebody had written it thirty years ago--it would have saved me a lot of time and trouble.

reviews: page 1, 2

Sitting in stillness, the practice of meditation, and the cultivation of awareness are commonly thought to be the preserves of Hindus and Buddhists. Martin Laird shows that the Christian tradition of contemplation has its own refined teachings on using a prayer word to focus the mind, working with the breath to cultivate stillness, and the practice of inner vigilance or awareness. But this book is not a mere historical survey of these teachings. In Into the Silent Land, we see the ancient wisdom of both the Christian East and West brought sharply to bear on the modern-day longing for radical openness to God in the depths of the heart.
Laird's book is not like the many presentations for beginners. While useful for those just starting out, this book serves especially as a guide for those who desire to journey yet deeper into the silence of God. The heart of the book focuses on negotiating key moments of struggle on the contemplative path, when the whirlwind of distractions or the brick wall of boredom makes it difficult to continue. Laird shows that these inner struggles, even wounds, that any person of prayer must face, are like riddles, trying to draw out of us our own inner silence. Ultimately Laird shows how the wounds we loathe become vehicles of the healing silence we seek, beyond technique and achievement. Throughout the language is fresh, direct, and focused on real-life examples of people whose lives are incomparably enriched by the practice of contemplation.

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