Extracted from “Silence and Stillness in Every Season” (John Main)

September 7

Perhaps you have been meditating for long enough to realize that
nothing anyone can say about meditation is ever very satisfactory. If so,
you will also know that the only ultimately important thing is that we
meditate, treading the path of this pilgrimage each day of our lives.
Talking about a path of this kind can even be dangerous because, in
the nature of language, it is so easy to imagine that by talking about it we
know about it. Yet if we talked about it from now until the end of time
we would know almost nothing about it.
The mystery is that if we can only learn the humility, patience and
fidelity to say our mantra we can enter fully into everything there is. This
is the present-ness of the mystery of God, who is, who is now, who is
always, who is all. The time-bound structures of language and the ego-
bound drives of desire and imagination perpetually fail to find the
entrance to this mystery. The mantra, taking us into the present moment
and beyond the ego, slips through the narrow gate into the city of God.

《Word Made Flesh》

九月七日

或許您已默禱了一段頗長的時間，足以體

會到從來無任何形容默禱的說話能令人感到貼切滿

意的。如是這，您亦會明白到那唯一最終要緊的

事，就是我們要在生命中的每一天，踏上默禱這朝

聖之路。

談論這樣的路甚至可以是危險的，因為在語言

的本質上，很容易讓我們認為通過談論，我們便是

瞭解；然而，即使我們從現在一直談論到時間的盡

頭，我們對它幾乎都是一無所知的。

那奧祕之處在於，只要我們能學會謙遜、忍耐

和忠誠去誦念短誦，我們便能完全融入當中的萬

有。這是天主奧祕的臨在：祂是 (God is)、祂是現

在、祂是永遠、祂是一切。受著時間限制的語言結

構和受著「自我」操控的慾望與想象，是永遠無法
找到進入這奧祕的入口。短誦引領我們進入當下並

超越自我，穿過狹窄的門進入天主之城。

【摘自《聖言成為血肉》】