Episode 15: Thy Will Be Done

One Heart One Mind

Thomas McConkie

Meditation, Spirituality, Mindfulness, Contemplation, Psychology, Buddhism, Development, Thomasmcconkie, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the heart of contemplation is an attitude of total surrender to the Divine. This is easier said than done, of course. In our minds, we may sincerely believe that we wish to do God’s will in all things. But the moment the bitter cup is served, we often find ourselves protesting and howling at life’s unfairness. Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane is an archetype of perfect “willingness”: the willingness to experience exactly what life gives us to experience in each moment, trusting that it is for our good. And it’s not only Christianity where the virtue of “willingness” figures prominently. Listen as Thomas takes a comparative look at the Buddhist tradition’s take on this “divine abode.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to another episode of One Heart, One Mind.
0:14.0	I'm your host Thomas Mconkey.
0:16.0	Thanks so much for listening.
0:19.0	I want to talk today about a kind of foundational skill in spiritual life, in human life.
0:27.7	It applies very much to our contemplative prayer practice.
0:33.2	In my opinion, it applies to absolutely everything.
0:46.3	It goes by different names. We can understand it in different ways, but I've taken to calling it willingness over the years, inspired by a section from the New Testament.
0:51.3	And I want to start by reading from the New Testament.
0:55.0	This is Luke chapter 22, verses 41 through 43, King James Version.
1:02.0	Talking about Christ, he was withdrawn, withdrawn from the apostles, that is.
1:09.0	He was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast and kneeled down and prayed, saying,
1:16.8	Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me.
1:22.5	Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.
1:32.8	And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him this is a verse this is a section a scene that has been a huge source of spiritual strength to me
1:43.3	throughout my life in hindsight even strength to me throughout my life.
1:45.0	In hindsight, even at the times in my life where I felt distant from the Christian
1:50.0	tradition, distant from Christ in my own way, I realized that this was a teaching, this was
1:58.0	a transmission of wisdom and spiritual power that has really carried
2:02.2	me through the years.
2:06.2	I talk about it in terms of willingness because here Christ is in the Garden of Gassimony,
2:12.6	atoning for the sins of mankind, bleeding from every poor, depending on our interpretation and our reading,
2:20.5	but undergoing intense agony.
	...

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