Category: Spirituality

The prayer rope (chotki) is used as a rosary within the Easter Orthodox Church. Buy a 100 knot prayer rope. I suggest getting one with a knotted cross at the end. I use my thumb to move the knots from one to the other.

Preparation

Hold the prayer rope in your left hand, and use your right hand to do the sign of the cross over yourself, saying, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Then say three times, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on me.” And finally, pray the “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9-13).

The Jesus Prayer

Then begin saying the Jesus Prayer. Move the first knot with your thumb, saying, “Lord Jesus Christ.” And then move your thumb to the next knot, saying, “have mercy on me.” Repeat 100 times.

You will find three beads on the hundred knot prayer rope. I suggest that you pay them no special attention. They just break the prayer rope up into 25 knot sections. Just say the Jesus Prayer on them.

Conclusion

When you get back to the cross, hold it. And with your right hand again do the sign of the cross, saying: “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.”

At this point you may wear it around your left wrist or, if you prefer, put it in your pocket so as not to be “seen” (Matt. 6:5-6).

Please note, this is my personal practice. I am not following or representing the Eastern Orthodox practice. You should consult an Orthodox priest if you want to do it “right.’

I highly recommend seeing a spiritual director before beginning any prayer rule. You should consult your priest or pastor. I am sharing my personal practice for those without a spiritual director. Go slowly, stay humble, and be faithful to your church.

“no one can say, ‘Lord Jesus’, unless in [the power of the] Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3 Darby).

In the Christian tradition, meditation is reserved for reflective thinking. It is the pondering over the scriptures, God, or some work of God. What Buddhists call meditation, Christians call recollection.

In St. Teresa of Avila’s description, “It is called the prayer of recollection because the soul collects together all its faculties and enters within itself to be with its God.” Recollection is about becoming concentration or one pointed in attention. It is the practice of mindfulness that leads to focus.

I recommend a 20-minute recollection session. This is kind of like a meditation session. Except we’re using the Christian terminology. Sit down, relax, with your back straight. Take a deep breath, and let everything fall away.

Because the breathing will be much deeper and shallower, I don’t recommend using the full Jesus prayer, ” Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Only use the beginning two words, “Lord Jesus.”

When you breathe in, pray mentally, “Lord,” and when you breathe out, pray mentally, “Jesus.” Don’t picture anything. Don’t try to not think Rather just focus your attention on the prayer and the feeling of your breath entering and exiting your nose.

I recommend getting a very simple meditation timer for your phone. Don’t get one with a social aspect. You’re not here to socialize but recollect. You can also use a kitchen timer.

Keep your sessions at 20 minutes. Don’t expand your time, rather add to your sessions. Start with once a day, then go to twice a day, even go to three times a day. And if you’re consistent with these, then expand the time to 25 or 30 minutes. I don’t recommend more than 45 minutes for a session.

“Recollection, as understood in respect to the spiritual life, means attention to the presence of God in the soul. It includes the withdrawal of the mind from external and earthly affairs in order to attend to God and Divine things. It is the same as interior solitude in which the soul is alone with God.” – The Catholic Encyclopedia (1917)

The activity that Buddhists call meditation, Christians call recollection. Although, as it noted, interior solitude is also another term for it. The Eastern Orthodox practice recollection in order to gain stillness (hesychia).

Unfortunately, some Christians have decided to use the word meditation. Although this matches current usage, it does not match what the Bible means by the word.

In the Bible the word meditation is reserved strictly for discursive meditation. Meditation is always used for the activity of thinking about, or pondering on, the word of God or the works of God. The word meditation is never used in the sense of interior. solitude

John Main, a. Benedictine monk, has compounded the problem by not only using the word meditation but by also borrowing the word mantra. It would have been better for him to have called it prayer. Maranatha, after all, is a prayer for the Lord to come (“O Lord, come!”).

I follow the Eastern Orthodox hesychasts of using the Jesus Prayer for the practice of recollection. On the in-breath, I say mentally, “Lord Jesus Christ.” On the out-breath, I say mentally, “have mercy on me.”

Is Nirvana God? No. Nirvana actually means to blow out, referring to the selfish desires or cravings. In Christianity, the equivalent of Nirvana would be what the mystics call union with God.

It is amazing how well Buddhism and Christianity harmonize while using different semantic systems. Metta and agape, for example. Or that the cause of suffering is craving and sin, which refers to selfishness. Self is the problem for both systems. The first stage on the mystic way is purgation, while in Buddhism it is called non-attachment. I could go on.

Christianity is the best symbol system for Western thinkers. We are already steeped in its myths, metaphors, and parables. We swim in its semantic sea. It’s easier to swim in familiar seas.

There is one mountain but many paths up it. Find the path that is closest to you and take it. As long as it makes you a better, more loving person, you are headed in the right direction. If it makes you selfish and judgmental, you have lost your way.

“Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples” (Matt. 28:19 CEV).

The Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to make the people of all nations his disciples, not ours. Are we teaching them how to do this?

Jesus speaks to every Christian:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

Notice, Jesus said that we are supposed to “learn from me.” Jesus is both teacher and lesson. He teaches us through the Gospels and the life he lived on earth as a man.

But he has not stopped teaching. He still teaches us through the Holy Spirit, who “will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears” from Christ (John 16:13).

Let’s be honest, we can get distracted with a million other side projects. There’s so much activity, but so little spirituality. We must come back to the most important thing, and that is your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. For “there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

“Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus in the morning,
Jesus in the noontime;
Jesus, Jesus,
Jesus when the sun goes down!”