Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Centering Prayer
To consent — moment by moment — to the presence and action of the Divine within, by repeatedly and gently releasing every thought; training the deep gesture of ‘letting go’ (kenosis) rather than concentration.
Centering Prayer in 5 lines: Sit, eyes closed, 20 minutes. Choose one neutral sacred word as the symbol of your consent. Let it surface once. Whenever you notice you’ve gotten caught in any thought, feeling, or sensation, ever-so-gently let go and re-touch the word. Don’t concentrate — the letting-go is the prayer. End with 2 minutes of silence. Twice daily.
What it is
Centering Prayer is a silent Christian meditation method codified by Trappist monks (Thomas Keating, William Meninger, Basil Pennington) in the 1970s and made widely teachable by Cynthia Bourgeault, an Episcopal priest who reframed it through G.
I. Gurdjieff’s “Work.” Its single most important and most misunderstood feature, which Bourgeault hammers relentlessly: it is not a concentration practice. You do not hold the sacred word, watch the breath, or try to stay focused.
You let go. The word is touched only when you notice you’ve become engaged with a thought — and then you release both the thought and the word. The practice is the gesture of release itself, repeated thousands of times, which trains a deep capacity she calls kenosis (self-emptying surrender).
The Method
Bourgeault transmits the practice as Keating’s four guidelines, which she quotes near-verbatim:
- Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within. Bourgeault stresses the word should be neutral and unprovocative — “Abba,” “Jesus,” “peace,” “be still,” “let be,” “quiet,” “wait.” It is not a mantra and carries no meaning you dwell on; it is only a placeholder for your intention to consent.
- Sit comfortably, eyes closed; settle briefly and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent. Sit upright but relaxed. Let the word surface gently, once, like setting a small object down.
- When you notice you are engaged with your thoughts — including body sensations, feelings, images, memories, even spiritual insights — return ever-so-gently to the sacred word. This is the whole method. “Thought” means anything that arises. You don’t fight thoughts or analyze them; the instant you realize you’ve been carried off, you let go and re-touch the word, “ever so gently, with the gentleness of laying a feather on a piece of cotton” (Keating’s image, used by Bourgeault).
- At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes. Let the transition out be unhurried. Bourgeault’s distinctive teaching points:
- You will have thousands of thoughts. That is not failure — it is the practice. Each return to the word is “a tiny gesture of consent,” a rep of the letting-go muscle. “A good Centering Prayer session is not one with few thoughts; it is one where you let go promptly each time.”
- No technique beyond letting go. Don’t fixate on the word, don’t repeat it rhythmically, don’t pair it with breath. The word goes silent between releases.
- The “magnetic center” / attention of the heart. Drawing on Gurdjieff, she frames the cumulative effect as relocating one’s center of gravity from the thinking mind to the heart — building “attention of the heart” rather than mental concentration. Standard dose (Keating/Bourgeault): two 20-minute sits daily, typically morning and evening. Use a soft timer, not a watch you check. (Sourcing note: the four guidelines are Keating’s, quoted as Bourgeault teaches them; the “concentration vs. consent,” “thoughts as the practice,” kenosis, and “attention of the heart” framings are Bourgeault’s documented emphases in The Heart of Centering Prayer. Short images attributed; the rest is faithful paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Cynthia Bourgeault (b. 1947) learned Centering Prayer from Thomas Keating and became one of its principal teachers through The Contemplative Society and the Center for Action and Contemplation.
The method itself descends from The Cloud of Unknowing (14th c.) and Christian apophatic prayer; Bourgeault’s signature contribution is reading it through Gurdjieff’s three-centered Work (“St.
Benedict meets Gurdjieff”) and through kenosis — Christ’s self-emptying (Philippians 2) — as the engine of transformation.
The Traditions' versions
The Cloud of Unknowing — the medieval source: a single “little word” to pierce the cloud and lay every thought “under a cloud of forgetting.”
- Apophatic / objectless meditation (Zen shikantaza) — sitting with no object, releasing whatever arises; structurally close to the “let go, don’t concentrate” core.
- Christian Meditation (John Main / WCCM) — a mantra practice (“Maranatha” repeated continuously); Bourgeault explicitly distinguishes Centering Prayer from this, as Centering Prayer’s word is not continuous.
- Gurdjieff self-remembering / sensing — relocating attention out of mechanical thought; Bourgeault’s bridge.
- Surrender/letting-go practices generally — Centering Prayer is, in her reading, a surrender practice wearing meditation clothes.
Common refinements
Treating the word as a mantra / repeating it continuously. The #1 error Bourgeault corrects. The word is touched only when you notice engagement, then dropped.
- Trying to concentrate / “stay focused.” This makes it a different (and harder, more frustrating) practice and misses the whole point — the letting-go is the work.
- Judging the session by thought-count. “I had too many thoughts” means you got many reps. Success = promptness of return, not emptiness.
- Fighting or analyzing thoughts. Don’t engage, suppress, or interpret. Notice, release, re-touch the word.
- Picking a charged sacred word. A word that stirs strong meaning or emotion pulls you into thinking. Keep it neutral.
- Skipping the 2-minute landing. The unhurried exit matters; don’t leap up at the timer.