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LAURENCE FREEMAN
novice master heard him describe the way of meditation he was following, which had brought him to the monastery. The novice master couldn't understand it, and he told Father John: "This was obviously the Lord's way of bringing you to the monastery. But now that you're here, you should abandon it and return to our Christian prayer."
L.M.: So he ordered Father John not to meditate?
L.F.: Well, he advised it.
L.M.: He advised against meditation.
L.F.: Those were the days when monks were still obedient; so he obeyed. Father John later said that when he came back to the practice of meditation through Cassian, he came back on God's terms, not his own. He saw that as a desert period, but also as a purifying, fruitful experience.
L.M.: Did your own reading of some of John Main's writings lead you to become a monk?
L.F.: Yes, I was led to be a monk directly through meditation; and through having Father John as a teacher. I had actually met him a long time ago, before I was even thinking of becoming a monk-when I was a boy in school. He was teaching school when I was about thirteen or fourteen. He wasn't teaching meditation at that point. That was my first encounter with him. And then we met again, in the late sixties, when he had started meditating again. He was at that time headmaster of a Benedictine school in Washington, D.C., Saint Anselm's. I was visiting there at Easter. And he introduced me to meditation.
I never doubted the rightness of the path, it just made sense to me. It was clear, it was simple, it was authentic. It was also a discipline one that was quite challenging to me. I was then attending university, with many distractions and worries. So I practiced it very intermittently. Then, Father John came back to England, and he started a lay community centered on meditation at his monastery in London. The idea was that you would join the community for six months to receive instruction and training in meditation-and spiritual preparation for life. I joined that lay community. But because I am a very undisciplined and slow learner, I had to become a monk to learn it.
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