A reader of this Substack recently wrote to me, in response to my piece on the two faces of mystical spirituality. Here’s the essence of their message, which I’ve edited slightly for the sake of clarity.
I am returning to practice a prayer of silence — a quiet prayer of attentive adoration. But I often find myself so distracted during this silent prayer period it is unnerving. Sometimes I even end up asking myself what exactly am I doing here with these twenty minutes? What am I expecting to accomplish? What is my goal and intention?
I begin by quieting my mind with some deep breathing to settle the nervous system. Then verbally outloud or mentally I welcome God’s presence and invite God to open my heart and mind to the Presence. But during the course of the meditation time I just become so distracted and my thoughts seem to go all over the place.
Any advice? What should my intention be with this prayer and what am I hoping for as a result of this practice?
Thanks for such an honest question. You are describing an all-too-common experience of distraction that Buddhists call “the monkey mind,” as if there were a screeching monkey wreaking havoc in the middle of our meditation! Saint Teresa of Ávila complained that her mind was unruly like wild horses: and she didn’t even have cellphones or other technological distractions to blame.
As I read your words, two things leap out to me: first, that you genuinely seek a rich and meaningful prayer experience; and second, that your noisy “monkey mind” has made it seem all but impossible to find that which you seek.
I hope that you can see this: it is because you desire God so much that your frustration with your distracted mind is so difficult.
If you didn’t care about getting closer to God, the monkey mind wouldn’t bother you so much. You’d probably just say, “oh well, I’m not very good at meditating” and you’d go on to some other pursuit.
But this is how Centering Prayer is different from secular or non-theistic meditation practices like mindfulness or zazen. Nothing wrong with those practices, but since they are not God-centered, they are easier to walk away from.
Those of us who hunger for divine union are more prone to find it haunting just how noisy our interior minds/hearts can be. But it’s important not to lose sight on what really matters:
Our desire for God matters for more than the quality of our attentiveness. And paradoxically, the more we desire God, the more our distracted minds will bug us.
So an important task for practitioners of Centering Prayer is learning to be gentle with ourselves, even when our minds are racing and distracted and in full-throttle monkey mode. In fact, that’s what self-compassion becomes the most important.
Face it: most of us are perfectionists. We take spirituality so seriously, precisely because it matters so much to us — but also, if we are honest, because we want to be perfect at everything we do. And a noisy, racing monkey mind in the midst of Centering Prayers feels like the opposite of perfection!
But we are not perfect. It’s just the truth. We are broken, we are wounded, we lack discipline and are prone to behaviors that can be self-sabotaging or even self-hostile. While I do believe that it is possible to grow in the practice of Centering Prayer, for most of us it’s a relative growth: we do not achieve silent minds, so much as we slowly, gradually, find in ourselves the capacity to be somewhat less distracted in our prayer.
So when we discover just how undisciplined and unruly our hearts and minds can be, the tradition is very clear: the solution to this problem is to learn to be more kind to ourselves and more trusting of God. The God who loves unconditionally is delighted with our Centering Prayer, even when it is a distracted mess. Paradoxically, the shortest route toward making our silent prayer less distracted is learning to gently accept it even when it is at its most distracted.
And that gentle, compassionate self-acceptance is more possible the more we focus on trusting God’s love as more important than “getting it right” on our end.
This is not easy to do. It is profoundly counter-cultural to practice such radical self-acceptance and kindness even in the face of our hyperactive inner monkey. We have a lot of self-criticism to unlearn. So it’s a process of learning to be less judgmental — even of our habitual capacity for self-judgment! It’s like peeling away layers of self-directed aggression and self-condemnation. It doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a long process of unclenching the mind and the heart.
But it’s worth persevering in.
I hope that you will continue your practice. And when you find yourself getting irritated or annoyed with your thinking mind, try to remember that the irritation or annoyance is just more thinking, more distraction! So try to see those tight feelings as inner bells calling you back to the spaciousness of self-kindness and God-trust. Trust the one who loves you unconditionally. Trust the invitation to persevere in this practice of prayer, knowing that gently and gradually, over time, you will learn to be more available for trust and acceptance: and as you grow in this way, it creates the spaciousness within you to begin noticing those times when you do seem to effortlessly experience unforced silence and vast loving awareness. It’s available to you, even if it takes a while to notice that it’s there.
Again, thanks for writing. I hope this helps!
Do you have a question for me? If so, please send it along (if you’re a paid subscriber you can leave a comment here, otherwise reach out using my comment form). I can’t promise to answer every question I receive, but I do promise to read them all, and if possible, I’ll respond.