Empty Prayers, Doing Nothing & Christ the Tao

In my recent review of The Way of the Pilgrim, I discussed how some Orthodox hierarchs have become hesitant about hesychasm. The controversy surrounds the practice of the Jesus Prayer and its pairing of a person’s inhalations and exhalations with the words of the Prayer. In itself, there is nothing dangerous or controversial about the method described in the book by the Pilgrim or by the Fathers in the Philokalia; it simply hopes that prayer become as natural to a person as their breathing, heartbeat, or any other autonomic physical process. The goal is for the person surpass the periodic, willful effort we normally employ while praying; instead, he will reach a point where the Prayer is so natural that it’s as if he’s “doing nothing.” The Prayer prays itself. God prays the Prayer in us, as St Philaret of Moscow said in his famous morning prayer: “Teach me to pray, and pray Thyself in me.”

However, the hierarchs are right to point out that spiritual immature people can abuse this method. Through vigorous hyperventilation or sheer pride, some overeager adoptees of this method can stimulate psychosomatic states which they could confuse as a “spiritual experience.” People stricken with this “spiritual materialism,” as Chögyam Trungpa calls it, think that spiritual realities are things that can be amassed and hoarded. Rather than the calming of the passions and engendering of a peaceful stillness (ἡσυχία) which defines hesychasm, this abuse leads to rouses the emotions and bodily senses while fostering narcissism and delusion. Spiritual experiences cannot be hoarded.

Where does this tendency for abuse come from? What can we do about it?

The Addicted Mind

Our tendency for abuse stems from our minds, which have been formed and deformed by a culture of addiction. While obsession and temptation exist in all culture, our Western culture is unsurpassed in the diversity of ways we lead ourselves astray. Human temptation was relatively weak before we began exporting our junk food, sexualized entertainment, inane yet catchy music, algorithmic social apps, and ubiquitous marketing strategies to the rest of the world. Now it’s rare to find a corner of the world that doesn’t have people staring into their phone; gaudy advertisements are emblazoned in the background; canned music that sounds like nothing playing from nowhere; a jaded stare, a restless agitation, and quiet hunger seeps out of all these faces.

Within our consumerist model, one can find a sinister spiritual parody at work. Naturally, all humans are called back to a more bestial form through food and sex. But our system moves people up a hierarchy of temptations upward from the body, to the mind, and even the spirit. Take sugar for example. We begin with the primal rush of sugar which makes us feel good. Then, we supplant that taste with an advertisement that reminds us of how good sugar feels. Then, that euphoric feeling is supplanted by vigilance for notifications which herald these advertisements that bring the feelings. Then, through random intermittent rewards, we keep that vigilance alert and on the watch for new patterns of desirable products. Finally, we use the some design patterns in every marketable corner of a person’s so that he’s constantly triggering the cycle to start over again. At this point, the person doesn’t even need sugar—they just want the feeling of sugar which they search for in anything. Once the carnal pleasure becomes a feeling, mind spends its time recalling that feeling and searching for ways to get that feeling again when the memory becomes too faint. While the body might get this process started, all the rest takes place in the mind. In addiction (Sucht), the search itself (suchen) supplants the good it searches for: “It’s about the journey, not the destination,” one could say.

Throughout the life of our ego, we have become habituated to trusting our problem-solver and its thoughts and feelings. To practice watchfulness is essentially to practice distrusting them. p. 315

Our world capitalizes on our main virtue and turns it into our main vice. With its foundations in Greek philosophy, Western culture has always prized its ability to prime minds for curiosity, inquiry, exploration, conversations, arguments, discovery, and creativity. But our systems play tricks on this mind which wants to solve problems, figure things out, and discover something new; by making minds that are interested in so many different facets of the world, we make them more distractible and reactive. Now, where once curiosity and wonder led to insight and revelation, we find distraction and agitation leading to more distraction and more agitation. Again, we move this process up from the body, through to the mind, and up to the level of spirituality as well. Thus, this chronic condition can even turn the practice of Jesus Prayer into a compulsive repetitive rattling off of words and chasing of experience. It might distract the mind for awhile, but it will ultimately leave one awash and numb in the same oblivious burnout as everything else we abuse.

Higher & Lower Minds

Since this malady has come from the West, I’d suggest we look for a remedy from the East. In Hieromonk Damascene’s Christ the Eternal Tao, we can find a unique achievement with many insights that can help set minds aright. One part of the work is a retelling of the Gospel in the poetic and philosophical style of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. The other part is a mystagogical catechism of sorts that anthologizes and synthesizes wisdom from both Taoist and Orthodox sources. This work brings together the Taoist concept of the Tao (道) with the Biblical concept of Christ as the Logos (λόγος) in a creative and harmonious way, which yields illuminating insights that transcend culture. It turns out there is much in Taoist philosophy that can support Orthodox prayer and keep it safe from spiritual abuse.

When so many of the issues above are born of our minds, it helps to realize we have more than one. In both the Greek of Patristic philosophy and the Chinese of Taoist philosophy, there categories of mind which map conveniently unto one another. Firstly, we have a “higher mind” which the Taoists call “yüan-shen” (元神) and the Fathers call the “nous” (νοῦς). Secondly, we have a “lower mind” which the Taoists call “yüan-shen” (元神) and the Fathers often called “psyche” (ψῡχή).