Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

Pål R, modified 7 Years ago at 1/17/17 2:34 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/17/17 2:34 PM

Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

Posts: 115 Join Date: 8/3/16 Recent Posts
Is anyone here experienced in this practice?
Where did it take you, in concentration, insight and bhakti territory? (How) did you schedule it? (How) is it different from other mantra and pranayam techniques? If it seems to lead to insight, how is that, do you think? 

Secondary question, which I have raised before but is interesting to discuss in this context:
Does cultivation bhakti produce insight? Why (not)? 
Derek2, modified 7 Years ago at 1/17/17 5:35 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/17/17 5:34 PM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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Hi, Pål, I've never been introduced to the hesychast tradition in the flesh (though I did read the Way of a Pilgrim at one point), but I practiced for many years in the somewhat similar Christian mantra tradition of Fr. John Main.

Chapter 5 of my book gives my historical outline of the hesychast tradition; chapter 13 gives my personal experience:

http://christianmeditationbook.com/downloads/

I can't answer your second question because I never saw Christian mantra as a strongly bhakti practice. You might find some answers if you explore the writings of St. Teresa of Avila on contemplative prayer.
Pål R, modified 7 Years ago at 1/22/17 2:37 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/22/17 2:37 AM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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Thank you! 
Alex W, modified 7 Years ago at 1/25/17 3:08 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/25/17 3:08 AM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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I did also. In my experience the Jesus Prayer works like a mantra. Since the focus is the heart, I tend to feel a warm sense of bliss / joy in the chest that moves gradually to the heart. Focusing on this sense of bliss tends allows one to enter in 1st and 2nd Jhana, etc. This leads me to think that this core practice of the Orthodox Church is a path of concentration from a buddhist perspective.

On a later stage, one may switch to a more passive approach of deep surrender to the uncreated divine energies (in the sense of St. Dionysius the Areopagite's Mystical Theology), which may eventually lead to the results of vipassana practice. The result is Theosis (enlightenment).
Pål R, modified 7 Years ago at 1/25/17 3:48 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/25/17 3:48 PM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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Do you think the results obtained through hesychasm are only due to the concentration aspect? And how dis you pull of the chest focus? How narrow or wide did you go and how did you harmonize it with the mantra and breathing?
Alex W, modified 7 Years ago at 1/26/17 3:59 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/26/17 3:59 AM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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Pål R:
Do you think the results obtained through hesychasm are only due to the concentration aspect? And how dis you pull of the chest focus? How narrow or wide did you go and how did you harmonize it with the mantra and breathing?

Interesting questions. I do not try to harmonize the prayer with my breath. It may happen spontaniously on its own after a while, but I don't try to connect them artificially. What I do is to simply recite the Jesus Prayer mentally, like a mantra (of Sufi 'dikhr'), using a Greeek prayer robe, with a wide focus around the chest area. When I start to feel a warm cosy sensation in the chest, I focus more on it and it tends to turn into joy and bliss. I then shift the focus towards the heart (physical organ). This tends to trigger a flow of ecstatic bliss through the whole body via the blood.

This is just one way to do it, inspired by monastic Orthodox teachings from Valaam monastery.
Derek2, modified 7 Years ago at 1/26/17 10:05 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/26/17 10:05 AM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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Thank you, Alex. For others reading this, I would like to point out something else. The Christian approach requires adopting an entirely different mindset. For Christians, it is not simply a matter of picking up a "practice" that will serve as a "tool" to get you somewhere. Your entire life must be reoriented to focus on God rather than on "me and my meditation progress."
Alex W, modified 7 Years ago at 1/26/17 11:04 AM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/26/17 11:00 AM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

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Derek2:
Thank you, Alex. For others reading this, I would like to point out something else. The Christian approach requires adopting an entirely different mindset. For Christians, it is not simply a matter of picking up a "practice" that will serve as a "tool" to get you somewhere. Your entire life must be reoriented to focus on God rather than on "me and my meditation progress."

Absolutly, Derek. This is the reason why I can talk about my experience with the Jesus prayer on a Buddhist forum from a purely "technical" persepctive, but would never dare address the same topic in the same manner with my eastern orthodox friends.

Even if one is not commited to converting to Orthodoxy, I would advise studying the Church fathers (in particular Saint John Damascus' exposition of the orthodox faith), the seven Ecumenical Councils, dogmatic theology, etc. while developping a growing faith grounded on a solid theological foundation.
Pål R, modified 7 Years ago at 1/27/17 1:42 PM
Created 7 Years ago at 1/27/17 1:42 PM

RE: Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer

Posts: 115 Join Date: 8/3/16 Recent Posts
This kind of leads us to the question of the relationship between bhakti and insight, pistis and gnosis, which was debated so much in the early church before orthodoxy was written in stone.

Let me quote St Paul emoticon

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

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