Meditation and Prayer – Some Helpful Direction

Meditation #1

From Vladimir Lossky: “The Way of Union”
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church
James Clark, London, 1957

The heart must always be ardent. The spirit must remain calm. It is the spirit, which is the guardian of the heart. The heart is the center of the human being, the root of the “active” faculties, of the intellect and of the will, and the point from which the whole of the spiritual life proceeds, and upon which it converges. Source of all intellectual and spiritual activity, the heart, according to St. Macarius of Egypt, is a “workshop of justice and injustice.” It is a vessel, which contains all the vices, but where at the same time, “God, the angels, life and the Kingdom, light and the apostles, and the treasures of grace are to be found. Where grace fills the pastures of the heart, it reigns over all the parts and the thoughts: for there inhabit the intelligence and the thoughts of the soul.” In this way grace passes by way of the heart into the whole of man’s nature. (pp. 200-201)

There is a physical aspect involved (in hesychia) “certain procedures in regard to the control of breathing, the position of the body during prayer, the rhythm of prayer — but this exterior discipline has only one object in view: that of concentration” (p.210)

Evagrius states: “In your longing to see the face of the Father in heaven, never try to see any shape or form when you are praying.” …in freeing itself completely from all conceptualization of the godhead, “the spirit receives into itself the characteristics of the image of God, and becomes clothed with the ineffable beauty of the likeness of the Lord.” according to St. Mark the Hermit. (pp. 211-212)Union with God…is accomplished in persons by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit and our freedom. When St. Seraphim of Sarov was asked if the Christians of his own day lacked any of the conditions necessary to produce the same fruits of sanctity which had been so abundant in the past, he replied: there is one condition only lacking — a firm resolve. (p.216)

Meditation #2

From Metropolitan Anthony Bloom:
Living Prayer
Darton, Longman, Todd, London, 1966

Once the Curé d’Ars, a French saint of the eighteenth century, asked an old peasant what he was doing sitting for hours in the church, seemingly not praying; the peasant replied: “I look at him, he looks at me and we are happy together.” The man learned to speak to God without breaking the silence of intimacy by words. (p. 6)

The main distinction between meditation and our usual haphazard thinking is coherence; it should be an ascetical exercise of intellectual sobriety. Theophan the Recluse, speaking of the way in which people usually think, says that thoughts buzz around in our heads like a swarm of mosquitoes, in all directions, monotonously, without order and without particular result.

The first thing to learn, whatever the chosen subject of thought, is to pursue a line. Whenever begin to think of God, of things divine, of anything that is the life of the soul, subsidiary thoughts appear; on every side we see so many possibilities, so many things that are full of interest and richness; but we must, having chosen the subject of our thinking, renounce all, except the chosen one. This is the only way I which our thoughts can be kept straight and can go deep.

The purpose of meditation is not to achieve an academic exercise in thinking; it is not meant to be purely intellectual performance, nor a beautiful piece of thinking without further consequences. It is meant to be a piece of straight thinking under God’s guidance and Godwards, and should lead us to draw connections about how to live. It is important to realize from the outset that meditation has been useful when, as a result, it enables us to live more precisely and more concretely in accordance with the gospel. (pp. 49-50)

Parallel with mental discipline, we must learn to acquire a peaceful body… Theophan the Recluse, in his advice to anyone wishing to attempt the spiritual life, says that one of the conditions indispensable to success is never to permit bodily slackness: “Be like a violin string, tuned to a precise note, without slackness or supertension, the body erect, shoulders back, carriage of the head easy, the tension of all muscles oriented toward the heart. A great deal has been written and said about the ways in which one can make use of the body to increase one’s ability to be attentive, but on a level accessible to many, Theophan’s advice seems to be simple, precise and practical. We must leant to relax and be alert at the same time.

Meditation is an activity of thought, while prayer is the rejection of every thought. According to the teaching of the eastern Fathers, even pious thoughts and the deepest and loftiest theological considerations, if they occur during prayer, must be considered as a temptation to be suppressed; because, as the Fathers say, it is foolish to think about God and forget that you are in his presence. All the spiritual guides of Orthodoxy warn us against replacing this meeting with God by thinking about him. Prayer is essentially standing face to face with God, consciously striving to remain collected and absolutely still and attentive in his presence. (p. 55)

St. John Climacus gives us a simple way of learning to concentrate. He says: choose a prayer, be it the Lord’s Prayer or any other, take your stand before God, become aware of where you are and what you are doing, and pronounce the words of the prayer attentively. After a certain time you will discover that your thoughts have wandered; then restart the prayer on the words of the sentence, which was the last you pronounced attentively. You may have to do that ten times, twenty times or fifty times; you may, in the time appointed for prayer be able to pronounce only three sentences, three petitions and go no further… (p. 57)

Meditation #3

From Bishop Kallistos Ware:
The Inner Kingdom
“Silence in Prayer: The Meaning of Hesychia”
SVSPress, Crestwood, 2000

Silence is the mystery of the age to come. — St. Isaac the Syrian

Hesychia:
solitude / desert / wilderness (physical or spatial as well as spiritual or internal)
spiritual sobriety, alertness or vigilance, stillness, silence (active and creative silence), alert attentiveness, listening
to return to oneself so as to ascend to God — the real desert lies within the heart
laying aside or stripping the mind of thoughts, visual images, humanly devised concepts — transitioning from “my” prayer to the prayer of God working within me

Praxis / Praktike (active life) = inner struggle to subdue the passions and acquire the virtues (as opposed to the West’s term which signifies direct service to the world such as preaching, teaching, social work and the like).

Theoria (contemplative life) = to contemplate in purity the realm of God; lifted above the senses into pure silence — to aim at “self-naughting” so that one may be filled with an all-embracing sense of the divine indwelling: to enter into the activity of God “Not I but Christ in me” (Gal. 2:20 & “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30) “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps.45:11)

Therefore, hesychia = the general term for “inner prayer” — union with God by means of prayer or perpetual prayerfulness

Hesychia has also come to designate one spiritual path in particular: the invocation of the Name of Jesus.

“Occasionally the term “hesychasm” is employed in a yet more restricted sense to indicate the physical technique, involving especially control of the breathing, which is sometimes used in conjunction with the Jesus Prayer. (St. Gregory Palamas and the other Hesychast masters regard the physical technique [control of the breathing, inner "explorations," etc] as no more than an accessory, helpful to some but by no means obligatory or indispensable. Modern teachers add that the technique should be used only under the personal guidance of an experienced spiritual father. The Jesus Prayer can be practiced in its fullness without any bodily exercises at all, and it is thus a misnomer to call these exercises [as some writers do] “the hesychastic method of prayer.”)” (p.98)

“Thoughts move restlessly through our head, like the buzzing of flies (St. Theophan) or the capricious leaping of monkeys from branch to branch (Ramakrishna). This lack of concentration, this inability to be here and now with the whole of our being, is one of the most tragic consequences of the Fall. (I take these two similes from the article of Dr. André Bloom — now Metropolitan Anthony) Instead of fighting our thoughts directly and attempting to drive them out by an effort of will, we can seek to direct our attention away from them and look elsewhere. Our spiritual strategy in this way becomes positive instead of negative; our immediate objective is not to empty our mind of what is evil but rather to fill it with what is good. ‘Do not contradict the thoughts suggested to you by your enemies, for that is exactly what they want and they will not desist. But turn to the Lord for help against them, laying before Him your won helplessness; for he is able to expel them and reduce them to nothing.’ (Ss. Barsanuphius and John of Gaza) Now the Jesus Prayer is precisely a way — the supreme way — whereby we ‘turn to the Lord for help.’ The Jesus Prayer combats our temptations specifically by enabling us to look elsewhere. It is surely evident to each one of us that we cannon halt the inward flow of our images and thoughts by a crude exertion of will-power. It is of little or no value to say to ourselves, ‘Stop thinking’; we might as well say ‘Stop breathing.’ ‘The rational intellect cannot rest idle,’ insists St. Mark the Monk. How then are we to achieve spiritual poverty and inner silence? Although we cannon make the never-idle mind desist altogether from its restlessness, what we can do is to simplify and unify its activity by continually repeating a short formula of prayer. The flow of images and thoughts will persist, but we shall be enabled gradually to detach ourselves from it. The repeated invocation will help us to ‘let go’ the thoughts presented to us by our conscious or unconscious self. This ‘letting go’ seems to correspond to what Evagrius has in view when he speaks of prayer as a ‘laying aside’ or ‘shedding’ of thoughts — not a savage conflict, not a ruthless campaign or furious aggression, but a gentle yet persistent act of detachment.

This, then, is the strategy presupposed in the use of the Jesus Prayer. It assists us in applying the second or oblique method of combating thoughts: instead of trying to obliterate our corrupt or trivial imaginings by a direct confrontation, we turn aside and look at the Lord Jesus; instead of relying on our own power, we take refuge in the power and grace that act through the Divine Name. The repeated invocation helps us to detach ourselves from the ceaseless chattering of our ‘logismoi.’

…We concentrate and unify our ever-active mind by feeding it with a single thought, by nourishing it on a spiritual diet that is at once rich yet exceedingly simple.

Such in outline is the manner whereby the Jesus Prayer can be used to establish hesychia within the heart. First, to achieve its purpose the invocation should be rhythmical and regular, and in the case of an experienced hesychast — although not of the beginner, who needs to proceed with caution, if possible under the guidance of a spiritual father — it should be uninterrupted and continuous during long periods of the day. External aids, such as the use of a prayer rope and the control of breathing, have as their main purpose precisely the establishment of a regular rhythm.

In the second place, during the recitation of the Jesus Prayer the mind should be so far as possible empty of mental pictures. For this reason, it is best to practice the Prayer in a place where there are few if any outward sounds; it should be recited in darkness or with the eyes closed, rather than gazing at an icon illuminated by candles or a votive lamp….Those who invoke the Lord Jesus should have in their hearts an intense and burning conviction that they stand in the immediate presence of the Savior, that he is before them and within them, that He is listening to their invocation and replying in His turn…” (pp. 99-101)

Meditation #4

Coming soon…