Meditation: A Million Monkey-Mind Metanoias

{ Fun to watch and film these wiley friends on a trip to Costa Rica ~ the capuchin monkeys }

Monkeys are fun. They make capricious leaps, swing back and forth on branches, and chase one another nimbly through the jungle of our minds.

So how do we sit for hours at a meditation retreat, without those monkeys running all over our best efforts in our oh-so-distractible prayer life?

It can take a million metanoias to beat those wiley guys.

Metanoia combines two smaller Greek words: meta = beyond, and nous = mind or spirit. It is sometimes considered as repentance, but at a more basic level, Metanoia can simply be “a changing of mind”.

“Meditation” and “Contemplative Prayer” are often interchangeable terms, although they can be used distinctly, as well. “Meditation” can be seen to focus on the mind, and managing thoughts, while “Contemplative Prayer” often focuses on the heart, and being with God.

In the Philokalia, Saint Nikiphoros takes a practical approach to taming those monkeys, by training your intellect not to leave the heart quickly. When the monkeys strike, pay them no attention. Simply turn your attention back to the prayer and continue (until they strike again!)

He gives us simple instructions to discover ‘indescribable delight’ through breathing, repeating the Jesus Prayer, and banishing those monkeys, writing,

Seat yourself, then concentrate your intellect, and lead it into the respiratory passage through which your breath passes into your heart. Put pressure on your intellect and compel it to descend with your inhaled breath into your heart. Once it has entered there, what follows will be neither dismal nor glum. Just as a man, after being far away from home, on his return is overjoyed at being with his wife and children again, so the intellect, once it is united with the soul, is filled with indescribable delight.

Therefore, brother, train your intellect not to leave your heart quickly, for at first it is strongly disinclined to remain constrained and circumscribed in this way. But once it becomes accustomed to remaining there, it can no longer bear to be outside the heart. For the kingdom of heaven is within us (Luke 17:21); and when the intellect concentrates its attention in the heart and through pure prayer searches there for the kingdom of heaven, all external things become abominable and hateful to it. If, then, after your first attempts you enter through your intellect into the abode of the heart in the way that I have explained, give thanks and glory to God and exult in Him. Continually persevere in this and it will teach you what you do not know.

Moreover, when your intellect is firmly established in your heart, it must not remain there silent and idle; it should constantly repeat and meditate on the prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’, and should never stop doing this. For this prayer protects the intellect from distraction, renders it impregnable to diabolic attacks, and every day increases its love and desire for God.

If, however, in spite of all your efforts you are not able to enter the realms of the heart in the way I have enjoined, do what I now tell you and with God’s help you will find what you seek … Banish, then, all thoughts from this faculty – and you can do this if you want to – and in their place put the prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’, and compel it to repeat this prayer ceaselessly. If you continue to do this for some time, it will assuredly open for you the entrance to your heart in the way we have explained, and as we ourselves know from experience.1

I love how Nikiphoros speaks to us like friends, from the 13th century. Just as our priests and teachers encourage us today, continue to turn back to the Jesus Prayer, to your Sacred Word or Mantra, to increase your love and desire for God.

It’s really not that complicated. It just takes some humility to keep turning back toward God and way from those wiley monkeys, while accepting our imperfect pursuit of stillness. And some grit to stick to it.

Saint Nikiphoros echoes the take-away morsel in my book, The Little Way of a Pilgrim. “Be with God always in your heart, while keeping God always in your thoughts.” Prayer and meditation. The heart and the head. Nice combo.

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Q: Do you respond more to the pursuit of Meditation or Contemplative Prayer?

Spark: Give yourself a little interior smile, each time you turn your back on the monkeys.

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