"By understanding the nature of matter, matter is energy, we're beginning to be prepared for a major shift in the way we look at ourselves and the world. Meditation is at the heart of that shift of consciousness. Meditation reawakens that capacity to be truly amazed" Laurence Freeman. This is the first talk of the Monte Oliveto Retreat led by Laurence Freeman at Monte Oliveto Maggiore in Italy in 2021.

In this episode, Laurence Freeman identifies what we may feel about St. Paul. Is his complex personality so different from ours? In his historical context, we can get past our first reactions to some of the tough passages in his letters, showing us a tenderly passionate, earthily mystical individual wrestling with his destiny like a boddhisatva who loved Christ more than himself. This podcast is part of the first session from the online series Seeing What St Paul Saw held in 2022.

In this episode, Laurence Freeman reflects on the challenge of the attention deficit in the human mind. An especially acute problem of our time. Early Christian teachers saw the attention deficit as being akin to the meaning of ‘original sin’. Meditation does more than improve our capacity for attention, however. It expands our capacity for love. This podcast is part of the Levels of Consciousness and the Fruits of the Spirit series held in 2021.

Always deepening her insight into what ‘contemplative Christianity’ means and what the options for the church of the future are, Sarah Bachelard tackles the dilemma of modern discourse – how to be committed to a good cause without increasing polarisation, how to practise peace in a culture spoiling for a fight. This podcast is part of the WCCM online Speakers series held in 2021, including speakers such as Herman van Rompuy, Liz Watson, David Lorimer, Marco Schorlemmer and Kim Nataraja.

Tim is an oblate of the WCCM and works with a US federal agency which provides care for refugees and survivors of torture. In this talk he describes how meditation helps him – and those he trains to work with those who have suffered a trauma – to maintain the optimum level of compassion while taking the necessary care of themselves. Sharing meditation directly with those survivors has also shown him that, however essential it is to provide psychological therapy, it has its limitations. There is another level of healing which requires a spiritual dimension. Valuable as may be the ‘relaxation response’ or the ‘therapeutic response’, the deepest healing response lies not outside but within ourselves.

Herman Van Rompuy speaks about the crisis of democracy and what habits leaders need to be learned in order to give people some hope in the future of democracy. Herman Van Rompuy is a Belgian politician and former President of the European Council. This talk was part of a John Main Seminar in Bruges. Music Credits: Aourourou by Blue Dot Sessions

In this podcast, Martin Laird OSA explores what the great saints and sages of the Christian tradition claim about the constant presence of God - God does not know how to be absent. We may feel God’s absence but he’s always present. Union with God is not something that can be acquired but something to be realised. This can be difficult to accept in the commodity-driven culture we live in. This podcast is the first part of a talk held at the London Meditatio Centre in 2020.

In this podcast, Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, reflects on questions that deeply touch our modern lives. Drawing on the wisdom of the 4th century Desert Fathers and Mothers, he encourages us to enter into the challenges and simplicity of the desert and find healing for our fragmented condition.

In this podcast, you’ll listen to the first talk of the retreat The Tightrope of Moderation which was held during Bonnevaux 2020 Lent Retreat by Laurence Freeman & Giovanni Felicioni. The first talk's titled Getting Ready for the Mysteries.

Listen to Kim Nataraja in her first talk from Who am I? Dancing with your Shadow online retreat in which she explored the images we have of ourselves and what stops us from seeing the true Image that we were born with.

Listen to Jim Green leading an online meditation session with a focus on Contemplating Earth, his new course which was recently published on wccm.org. This session was led on September 22, 2021, as part of the outreach initiatives offered during the Glasgow Climate Conference, COP26.

Listen to Liz Watson reflecting on what a contemplative response to the climate crisis can be. This podcast includes a time of meditation near the end and was part of a Meditatio online talk held in November 2021, at the same time as the Glasgow Climate Conference, COP26. 

"When we meditate, we experience an unveiling, a clearing of our perception, or better, our direct experience of what is the familiar pattern of our thoughts, all the stories we tell ourselves. The fantasies and hopes are unveiled, they become present we see through them." Jim Green We now all know – except those who are strenuously doing their best to deny it – that the Earth is in grave danger. The conditions for human life, even the conditions for life itself, are severely threatened. There have been previous radical shifts of climate as well as catastrophic mass extinctions across the almost 4 billion year history of life on earth. What is unique about this particular crisis is that we have no doubt what is causing it.

Research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is advancing rapidly, yielding computational systems with impressive capabilities. This has brought world-renowned scientists and engineers to voice their concerns about the risks that AI research can pose to the survival of humanity. But, is AI really such an apocalyptic threat? Actually, we can learn a lot from AI research about how we see ourselves as sentient beings. Marco Schorlemmer will argue that AI is not a threat to our survival 'per se', but that we need to cultivate our capacity of intimate inquiry if we are to survive in the emerging knowledge and innovation societies in which AI will play an important role. Actually, AI research (and research in other technoscientific fields) is very valuable for humanity... if done with a contemplative mind.

Listen to a conversation between Reverend Rowan Williams and Laurence Freeman on meditation with children. This talk was part of the Meditatio Seminar 'Hope for the Future' - Meditation in Schools held in 2016.

Listen to Pascale Callec, the French National coordinator, she’s been part of WCCM for 10 years. She works in public services management and facilitating the expression of the common good is her deepest motivation. She’s committed to the ecological transition alongside her husband. This talk was part of the short talks from the online John Main Seminar 2021.

Meditation is as old as humanity itself. It is a universal practice, arising in – and uniting – all wisdom traditions throughout the world. The Christian contemplative path has too often been overlooked, but is now more urgently needed than ever before. By following this practice we are personally responding to the teaching of Jesus on prayer. It takes us directly to the purest source of wisdom.

In this talk, Father Laurence Freeman talks about the process of healing as an integral part of life, we cannot imagine a human life that is not in need of healing. Health, the same as happiness is not a continuous state and needs to be understood at a level deeper than the superficial changes of state, of mood or of our inner weather. Healing is part of our growth into health, wholeness and happiness. This talk was recorded during the Bonnevaux Advent Retreat, 2019.

In this podcast, Father Laurence Freeman speaks about meditation in the monastic tradition. The word tradition is a dynamic word: it means 'transmission', it's a process in which we are constantly receiving, adapting and passing on -the very nature of the Gospel, a transmission of a living word. Laurence then continues on talking of John Main as a contemporary figure within this ancient tradition. This talk is part of A Week of Study and Practice at San Anselmo, Rome, Italy, 2015.

In 1991 Bede Griffiths OSB led the John Main Seminar in New Harmony, Indiana. He chose to speak about John Main’s thought on meditation and community and developed it in his mystical understanding of Christ. It was during this Seminar that The World Community for Christian Meditation was formed. In this podcast, Bede Griffiths OSB reflects on the monastic order as the prophetic order in the Church. "The Gospel is primarily not a word to be preached but the spirit to be communicated." - Bede Griffiths