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Today I speak with Jim Finley, a master of the Christian

contemplative way and renowned retreat leader, Jim left home at the age of 18 and studied at the Abbey of Gestemone with Thomas Merton for six years.

He's a clinical psychologist in Santa Monica, California,

and the author of Christian meditation, experiencing the presence

of God and the book The Contemplative Heart, as well as the Sounds True Audio Learning Programs, Christian Meditation entering the Mind of Christ,

Thomas Merton's Path to the Palace of Nowhere, and a series along with Medical intuitive Carolyn Mace on transforming trauma, a seven-step process for spiritual healing.

In this episode of Insights at the Edge, I spoke with Jim about embracing our brokenness and the attitude of non-judgmental compassion as a critical part of meditation.

We also spoke about the value of spontaneous moments of meditative awareness, as well as false perceptions about the practice of meditation.

Here's my conversation with someone I consider a very experienced meditator and teacher of meditation, Jim Finley.

Jim Finley, Jim, I'm so interested in meditation as someone who's been a meditator now for you know close to three decades and what I'm

really curious about is what does it mean to meditate in the Christian

tradition how might that be different than

meditating in other traditions? What's Christian meditation? I would say you know first I think that if we speak of

meditation in terms of consciousness then meditation is universal. That is, meditation is the process of entering

into more interior meditative states of consciousness that lead toward realized

oneness or unit of consciousness. But each religious tradition has its own

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