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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   31281 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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Somatic meditation, breath meditation, and other forms of attentional work are practiced in Catholicism? Do you have sources? I'd be quite curious.

I'm Orthodox and while we do have hesychasm, more.... fluid forms of attentional practice are often frowned upon. I haven't done an exhaustive dive though.

I think you’re getting into some semantics here.

Repetitive prayer certainly exists in Catholicism (and its online offshoot: Eastern Orthodoxy), as does meditation.

The belief that Buddhists have discovered some mystical magical thing in meditation, or “mantras” or “breath work” is just orientalism.

https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/meditations

I'm not saying they have discovered anything. I'm saying the techniques are more salient in the Buddhist tradition and easier for the modern mind to understand. Prayer and meditative prayer is an extremely confusing concept comparatively, in my opinion. It's also not nearly as popular in Christian circles.

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