Rating: 
Summary: A Classic
Review: A classic from Thomas Keating - a must read for all those interested in meditation.
Rating:
Summary: THE modern classic
Review: Everyone with any interest in meditation and silent prayer needs this book. It should sit on your shelf as a ready reference. There are other books of inspiration, others of instruction, but this one is so comprehensive and so encouraging that it has become the most indispensible modern work on contemplative prayer.
Everyone can benefit most from personal instruction, which is available in most parts of the country and many other countries, too, but there are times when you just need to be able to grab something off the shelf and look up the answer to your question of the moment.
Of course, you will want other sources, but this book covers the basics really, really well.
review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening in God
Rating:
Summary: Combined with a good course or retreat, it's priceless
Review: Father Keating's objectives have been twofold: first, to explore the dimensions of Christian contemplative prayer and second, to provide an alternative for Christians who have been fleeing to Eastern traditions in droves. The Prayer method seeks to let the consciousness arive at a point where one's own will lets the Trinity "take over" as the center of one's being. Father Keating has some impressive credentials and he seems to give adequate credit to previous Christian methods, such as Lectio Divina. In my opinion, one would benefit most from reading this book prior to undergoing a directed retreat in centering prayer, but I think one should undertake such a retreat before forming an opinion of the prayer method. In some ways, the book has been superseded by some of Father Keating's later works but is still a wonderful introduction to this method.
The technique may be relatively new and inclusive, and may still not be considered an orthodox method, but it is hard to deny its Christian roots as long as one is grounded in the faith. Father Keating might advise people who criticise the method for not being adequatley "socially involved" that without a solid grounding in the Trinity, one runs a very real risk of dangerous self-righteousness.
Incidentally, the point where one directs one's will prior to making judgments seems very similar to the Buddhist point just before feelings (vedana) turn into cravings (tanha) in the Twelve-Fold Chain of Conditioning (paticca samuppada).
Rating:
Summary: Read and Re-read this Book
Review: For persons who want to start, are stuck or need encouragement in the practice of Centering Prayer as a pathway into Contemplative Prayer this book is for you. This book gives the fundamentals. It then answers the most common concerns that come to the consciousness of the serious practitioner of meditation. Since 1984, I've read and re-read this book and have been able to continue a Centering Prayer practice on a regular basis.
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Summary: Excellent Meditation help for Christian Martial Artists
Review: For some Christians studying martial arts, it presents an alternative method of meditation practice that is in harmony with your values. This method may be practiced in the dojo (training palce) combining the same meditative postures and breathing methods as is taught by many traditional martial arts styles. Rating 10.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: For years I practiced a form of meditation with very good results. But it was just a nice relaxation technique, totally disconnected from my religion. After reading Father Keaton's book I added the dimension of prayer to the meditative technique and it has become a marvelous religious experience. I can hardly explain how positive and enjoyable prayer has become.
Rating:
Summary: Very helpful guide!
Review: Fr. Keating explains the basic method of centering prayer very clear. It is an excellent guide for a beginner, regardless of the religion/denomination for centering prayer. However, I must admit that there are several other chapters that are very hard to read/understand for beginner. As I begin my journey, little by little, what he wrote begin to make some sense to me. I recommend highly reading his other book "The Human Condition" along with this one, to understand his underlying principles on some of the things that he wrote in this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Counterfeit Spirituality
Review: Having practiced several forms of Eastern meditation and having followed Eastern/New Age worldviews for many years before I became a Christian, I was sad to see Keating recommending techniques I learned from Buddhist (both Tibetan and Zen) traditions. He also seems to like Eastern spiritual views, such as reaching a state where the "knower, the knowing, and that which is known are all one," (p. 74, paperback). This is nothing but Eastern/New Age thinking that blurs the lines between us and God -- whereas it is clear in God's word that He is distinct from us. We know God only through knowing Christ, but Keating instead recommends Eastern techniques, even quoting from the Diamond Sutra. He talks about going into "pure consciousness." Exactly what is that? Where does God tell us to do this? This is a mystical state of altered consciousness that results from certain focusing and breathing techniques. It is not a spirituality from God, but a counterfeit spirituality. Keating says contemplative prayer is a process of transformation, but the Bible tells Christians our minds are transformed by the Holy Spirit. Jesus, when asked how we should pray, answered with the Lord's Prayer, a model for praying: praise, petition, asking forgiveness. Jesus did not recommend a technique, or say we should repeat a word, or advise us to go into a mystical state. Keating talks about "no-thinking," but Jesus said to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. It doesn't matter how many people in the past did these things; that does not make these practices right. Keating advises repeating a sacred word: this is the same as repeating a mantra. I recognized my past nonchristian beliefs and practices in this book; it was all disturbingly familiar. We do not know God through techniques but in Christ. We do not grow as Christians by non-thinking but by reading and understanding scripture, by praying, worshiping, and daily seeking to obey God. God gave us a written record to study, and He gave us a mind. Eastern spirituality believes that the mind is a barrier to understanding spiritual truth, but God gave us a mind for reading and studying His word. Mystical experience is no substitue for truly knowing God's peace through Christ. I had those mystical experiences; they don't compare to Christ or to the Bible. Do you want a technique or the real thing? Read the Bible instead of Keating's book.
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Summary: A Journey Back Into the True Heart of Christianity
Review: I have a checkered spiritual past. Like many people of my generation, I have always felt that modern life was going in the wrong direction, and that the traditional answers we were getting from the government and institutionalized religion just weren't quenching the spiritual drought in the contemporary world. So I went east, to Buddhism, the Sufis, Hinduism, looking for something that might help me fill the void I felt. Then I stumbled upon the Centering Prayer movement. Little did I know that the Christian tradition that I grew up in, would hold the secret to what I was looking for. Centering Prayer is based squarely in the Christian tradition. It is based on forms of prayer that have roots in the earliest Christian monesteries of the 4th century. There are even tantalizing glimpses of it in the writings of St. Paul and even the Gospels, though not spelled out in so many words (which is probably what gives literalists conniptions.) It existed in the Benedictine monasteries of medieval Europe, in the Cloud of Unknowing, the 14th century manual of prayer, and in the writings of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila. It is not, I repeat, NOT a "new age" spirituality, unless one thinks that all of Christian Spirituality is new age (and the case could be made that it is.) Centering Prayer is a simple method of prayer that is designed to help us consent to the presence and action of God in our lives. Through quite simple guildelines and a few adjustments of attitudes, Centering Prayer helps us to let go of our own ego and expectations and just "wait upon the Lord". For me, it has been key to reawakening my Christian faith. Having been a practicing Buddhist for many years, I can say that readers who equate Centering Prayer with Buddhist practice are mistaken. Without denigrating Buddhist practice, which I learned much from and which I still admire, there is a vast difference between Vipassana and Centering Prayer and that difference is the presence of a personal God. Perhaps some people don't need that personal connection, but I know that it has made a huge difference for me in my prayer life. That, and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, who prays in us rather than we ourselves doing the praying. This doctrine, which can seem so theological at surface, in fact helps me to take my own ego out of the practice. "I" don't pray, but the Holy Spirit prays through me. It's really quite a difference. Perhaps the problem that some on this page have, is that Cenetering Prayer strikes at the literal certainty that many look for in regards spirituality, particularly Christian spirituality. (All religions have their fundementalists, even the Buddhists. But ours are most vociferous in this culture.) The more I live this teaching, the less I think I know about God, and yet paradoxically the closer I feel to God. It is a personal living out of one of the central mysteries of the faith, that God is both separate of us and imminent within us. It's easy to believe that God is completely divorced from creation (traditional Protestant theology). It's also easy to believe that God is creation (pantheism). But to believe that God is both at the same time requires a leap that logic, literalism and all other right brained operations just can't make. Centering Prayer makes that leap. It allows me to live, centered (sometimes) in the uncertainty of modern life, and connected to God in a real way. This book has changed my life. And it can change yours as well if you are open to it.
Rating:
Summary: Practical Inspiraton
Review: I have been reading books on contemplation and attempting the practice for some time now--always with disappointing results. Father Keating's book is the most practical book on the subject I have ever encountered. Not only does he lead the reader through the process step by step, his encouraging words have cast an entirely new light on the "failures" of my own practice. Thanks to Father Keating, I have found the courage to persevere.
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