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Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

The Cloud of Unknowing: Listener Questions

Turning to the Mystics with James Finley

Center for Action and Contemplation

Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 β€’ 1.8K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 8 June 2022

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Jim and Kirsten answer questions that were submitted by the listeners during the airing of the 5th season around The Cloud of Unknowing. Due to the length of this episode, we are providing key markers so you can move around the episode however it best applies to your path. Markers: 00:02:38 – Recapping The Cloud of Unknowing 00:05:19 – Gender and The Cloud of Unknowing 00:07:38 – Questions about The Path 00:11:55 – Using Words and Anchors in Meditation 00:14:09 – Encountering Anxiety During Meditation 00:22:23 – Working with Non-Attachment and Fear 00:27:30 – Meditation in Group Settings 00:30:32 – Difficult Emotions During Practice 00:33:51 – Accepting Yourself During Practice 00:36:14 – The Cloud and Working with Painful Memories 00:41:19 – Working with Pain and the Infinite 00:43:56 – Struggling to Connect with Unitive Consciousness 00:47:48 – Is Every Thing Eternal? 00:52:16 – Feeling Love During Contemplation 00:55:21 – A Voicemail from Miguel 01:01:14 – The Mystics and Centering Prayer 01:03:37 – Bringing Our Practice Into the World 01:06:40 – Loving God for God Alone 01:09:01 – Contemplative Transformation of Personality Resources: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation. To learn more about Jim, visit jamesfinley.orgβ€― For the transcript for this podcast can be found here. The book being used for this season can be found here. Connect with us: We also produce other podcasts you might enjoy. To learn more about them and our other offerings, visit cac.org This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would love to support the ongoing work of the Center for Action and Contemplation and the continued work of our podcasts, you can donate at cac.org/podcastsupport Thank you!

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to a podcast by the Center for Action and Contemplation

0:04.2

to learn more, visit caac.org.

0:08.4

Greetings. I'm Jim Finley.

0:11.0

And I'm Kirsten Oates.

0:13.0

Welcome to Turning to the Mistakes.

0:23.0

Welcome everyone to season five of Turning to the Mistakes,

0:26.6

where we've been turning to the Cloud of Unknowing.

0:30.6

And I'm here with Jim.

0:31.6

And in today's episode, we're going to be addressing questions

0:35.6

that have come in from people listening to the podcast.

0:39.6

Welcome, Jim.

0:40.6

Yes, thank you. Good morning. Yes.

0:43.6

Good.

0:44.6

Well, we've received a lot of amazing questions and reflections

0:48.6

and notes of gratitude.

0:51.6

So thank you, everyone, who made the effort to send something in

0:55.6

and Jim, you were going to start with just some general reflections about what you read.

1:00.6

Yes. In reading, I read through all of these a couple of times, actually.

1:05.6

And first of all, I was very encouraged by it because these are path questions.

1:11.6

That is the kinds of questions or the kinds of things that people say who are on this path.

1:19.6

And also, I noticed this how we respond here because there were so many comments and questions.

1:25.6

This will be a representative sample of some of the main categories.

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