If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master’s presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord’s presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.
St François de Sales
In this case the circumvention of distractions constitutes a valuable lesson in patience and perseverance. Another and more direct method of making use of the monkey in our heart is described in The Cloud of Unknowing.
When thou feelest that thou mayest in no wise put them (distractions) down, cower then down under them as a caitiff and a coward overcome in battle, and think it is but folly to strive any longer with them, and therefore thou yieldest thyself to God in the hands of thine enemies... And surely, I think, if this device be truly conceived, it is nought else but a true knowing and a feeling of thyself as thou art, a wretch and a filthy thing, far worse than nought; the which knowing and feeling is meekness (humility). And this meekness meriteth to have God mightily descending to venge thee on thine enemies, so as to take thee up and cherishingly dry thy ghostly eyes, as the father doth to the child that is at the point to perish under the mouths of wild swine and mad biting bears.
The Cloud of Unknowing
Finally, there is the exercise, much employed in India, which consists in dispassionately examining the distractions as they arise and in tracing them back, through the memory of particular thoughts, feelings and actions, to their origins in temperament and character, constitution and acquired habit. This procedure reveals to the soul the true reasons for its separation from the divine Ground of its being. It comes to realize that its spiritual ignorance is due to the inert recalcitrance or positive rebelliousness of its selfhood, and it discovers, specifically, the points where that eclipsing selfhood congeals, as it were, into the hardest, densest clots. Then, having made the resolution to do what it can, in the course of daily living, to rid itself of these impediments to Light, it quietly puts aside the thought of them and, empty, purged and silent, passively exposes itself to whatever it may be that lies beyond and within.
‘Noverim me, noverim Te,’ St Francis of Assisi used to repeat. Self-knowledge, leading to self-hatred and humility, is the condition of the love and knowledge of God. Spiritual exercises that make use of distractions have this great merit, that they increase self-knowledge. Every soul that approaches God must be aware of who and what it is. To practise a form of mental or vocal prayer that is, so to speak, above one’s moral station is to act a lie: and the consequences of such lying are wrong notions about God, idolatrous worship of private and unrealistic phantasies and (for lack of the humility of self-knowledge) spiritual pride.
It is hardly necessary to add that this method has, like every other, its dangers as well as its advantages. For those who employ it there is a standing temptation to forget the end in the all too squalidly personal means — to become absorbed in a whitewashing or remorseful essay in autobiography to the exclusion of the pure Divinity, before whom the ‘angry ape’ played all the fantastic tricks which he now so relishingly remembers.
We come now to what may be called the spiritual exercises of daily life. The problem, here, is simple enough - how to keep oneself reminded, during the hours of work and recreation, that there is a good deal more to the universe than that which meets the eye of one absorbed in business or pleasure? There is no single solution to this problem. Some kinds of work and recreation are so simple and unexactive that they permit of continuous repetition of sacred name or phrase, unbroken thought about divine Reality, or, what is still better, uninterrupted mental silence and alert passivity. Such occupations as were the daily task of Brother Lawrence (whose ‘practice of the presence of God’ has enjoyed a kind of celebrity in circles otherwise completely uninterested in mental prayer or spiritual exercises) were almost all of this simple and unexacting kind. But there are other tasks too complex to admit of this constant recollectedness. Thus, to quote Eckhart, ‘a celebrant of the mass who is over-intent on recollection is liable to make mistakes. The best way is to try to concentrate the mind before and afterwards, but, when saying it, to do so quite straightforwardly.’ This advice applies to any occupation demanding undivided attention. But undivided attention is seldom demanded and is with difficulty sustained for long periods at a stretch. There are always intervals of relaxation. Everyone is free to choose whether these intervals shall be filled with day-dreaming or with something better.
Whoever has God in mind, simply and solely God, in all things, such a man carries God with him into all his works and into all places, and God alone does all his works. He seeks nothing but God, nothing seems good to him but God. He becomes one with God in every thought. Just as no multiplicity can dissipate God, so nothing can dissipate this man or make him multiple.
Eckhart
I do not mean that we ought voluntarily to put ourselves in the way of dissipating influences; God forbid! That would be tempting God and seeking danger. But such distractions as come in any way providentially, if met with due precaution and carefully guarded hours of prayer and reading, will turn to good. Often those things which make you sigh for solitude are more profitable to your humiliation and self-denial than the most utter solitude itself would be... Sometimes a stimulating book of devotion, a fervent meditation, a striking conversation, may flatter your tastes and make you feel self-satisfied and complacent, imagining yourself far advanced towards perfection; and by filling you with unreal notions, be all the time swelling your pride and making you come from your religious exercises less tolerant of whatever crosses your will. I would have you hold fast to this simple rule: seek nothing dissipating, but bear quietly with whatever God sends without your seeking it, whether of dissipation or interruption. It is a great delusion to seek God afar off in matters perhaps quite unattainable, ignoring that He is beside us in our daily annoyances, so long as we bear humbly and bravely all those which arise from the manifold imperfections of our neighbours and ourselves.
Fénelon Consider that your life is a perpetual perishing, and lift up your mind to God above all whenever the strikes, saying, ‘God I adore your eternal being; I am happy that my being should perish every moment, so that at every moment it may render homage to your eternity.’
J J Olier When you are walking alone, or elsewhere, glance at the general will of God, by which He wills all the works of his mercy and justice in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and approve, praise and then love that sovereign will, all holy, all just, all beautiful. Glance next at the special will of God, by which He loves his own, and works in them in divers ways, by consolation and tribulation. And then you should ponder a little, considering the variety of consolations, but especially of tribulations, that the good suffer; and then with great humility approve, praise and love all this will. Consider that will in your own person, in all the good or ill that happens to you and may happen to you, except sin; then approve, praise and love all that, protesting that you will ever cherish, honour and adore that sovereign will, and submitting to God’s pleasure and giving Him all who are yours, amongst whom am I. End in a great confidence in that will, that it will work all good for us and our happiness. I add that, when you have performed this exercise two or three times in this way, you can shorten it, vary it and arrange it, as you find best, for it should often be thrust into your heart as an aspiration.
St François de Sites
Dwelling in the light, there is no occasion at all for stumbling, for all things are discovered in the light. When thou art walking abroad it is present with thee in thy bosom, thou needest not to say, Lo here, or Lo there; and as thou layest in thy bed, it is present to teach thee and judge thy wandering mind, which wanders abroad, and thy high thoughts and imaginations, and makes them subject. For following thy thoughts, thou art quickly lost. By dwelling in this light, it will discover to thee the body of sin and thy corruptions an
d fallen estate, where thou art. In that light which shows thee all this, stand; go neither to the right nor to the left.
George Fox
The extract which follows is taken from the translation by Waitao and Goddard of the Chinese text of The Awakening of Faith, by Ashvaghosha - a work originally composed in Sanskrit during the first century of our era, but of which the original has been lost. Ashvaghosha devotes a section of his treatise to the ‘expedient means,’ as they arc called in Buddhist terminology, whereby unitive knowledge of Thusness may be achieved. The list of these indispensable means includes charity and compassion towards all sentient beings, sub-human as well as human, self-naughting or mortification, personal devotion to the incarnations of the Absolute Buddha-nature, and spiritual exercises designed to free the mind from its infatuating desires for separateness and independent selfhood and so make it capable of realizing the identity of its own essence with the universal Essence of Mind. Of these various ‘expedient means’ I will cite only the last two - the Way of Tranquillity, and the Way of Wisdom.
I he Way of Tranquillity. The purpose of this discipline is twofold: to bring to a standstill all disturbing thoughts (and all discriminating thoughts are disturbing), to quiet all engrossing moods and emotions, so that it will be possible to concentrate the mind for the purpose of meditation and realization. Secondly, when the mind is tranquillized by stopping all discursive thinking, to practise ‘reflection’ or meditation, not in a discriminating, analytical way, but in a more intellectual way (cp the scholastic distinction between reason and intellect), by realizing the meaning and significances of one’s thoughts and experiences. By this twofold practice of ‘stopping and realizing’ one’s faith, which has already been awakened, will be developed, and gradually the two aspects of this practice will merge into one another - the mind perfectly tranquil, but most active in realization. In the past one naturally had confidence in one’s faculty of discrimination (analytical thinking), but this is now to be eradicated and ended.
Those who are practising ‘stopping’ should retire to some quiet place and there, sitting erect, earnestly seek to tranquillize and concentrate the mind. While one may at first think of one’s breathing, it is not wise to continue this practice very long, nor to let the mind rest on any particular appearances, or sights, or conceptions, arising from the senses, such as the primal elements of earth, water, fire and ether (objects on which Hinayanists were wont to concentrate at one stage of their spiritual training), nor to let it rest on any of the mind’s perceptions, particularizations, discriminations, moods or emotions. All kinds of ideation are to be discarded as fast as they arise; even the notions of controlling and discarding are to be got rid of. One’s mind should become like a mirror, reflecting things, but not judging them or retaining them. Conceptions of themselves have no substance; let them arise and pass away unheeded. Conceptions arising from the senses and lower mind will not take form of themselves, unless they are grasped by the attention; if they are ignored, there will be no appearing and no disappearing. The same is true of conditions outside the mind; they should not be allowed to engross one’s attention and so to hinder one’s practice. The mind cannot be absolutely vacant, and as the thoughts arising from the senses and the lower mind are discarded and ignored, one must supply their place by right meditation. The question then arises: what is right meditation? The reply is: right meditation is the realization of mind itself, of its pure undifferentiated Essence. When the mind is fixed on its pure Essence, there should be no lingering notions of the self, even of the self in the act of realizing, nor of realization as a phenomenon...
The Way of Wisdom. The purpose of this discipline is to bring a man into the habit of applying the insight that has come to him as the result of the preceding disciplines. When one is rising, standing, walking, doing something, stopping, one should constantly concentrate one’s mind on the act and the doing of it, not on one’s relation to the act, or its character or value. One should think: there is walking, there is stopping, there is realizing; not, I am walking, I am doing this, it is a good thing, it is disagreeable, I am gaining merit, it is I who am realizing how wonderful it is. Thence come vagrant thoughts, feelings of elation or of failure and unhappiness. Instead of all this, one should simply practise concentration of the mind on the act itself, understanding it to be an expedient means for attaining tranquillity of mind, realization, insight and Wisdom; and one should follow the practice in faith, willingness and gladness. After long practice the bondage of old habits becomes weakened and disappears, and in its place appear confidence, satisfaction, awareness and tranquillity.
What is this Way of Wisdom designed to accomplish? There are three classes of conditions that hinder one from advancing along the path to Enlightenment. First, there are the allurements arising from the senses, from external conditions and from the discriminating mind. Second, there are the internal conditions of the mind, its thoughts, desires and mood. All these the earlier practices (ethical and modificatory) are designed to eliminate. In the third class of impediments are placed the individual’s instinctive and fundamental (and therefore most insidious and persistent) urges - the will to live and to enjoy, the will to cherish one’s personality, the will to propagate, which give rise to greed and lust, fear and anger, infatuation, pride and egotism. The practice of the Wisdom Paramita is designed to control and eliminate these fundamental and instinctive hindrances. By means of it the mind gradually grows clearer, more luminous, more peaceful.
Insight becomes more penetrating, faith deepens and broadens, until they merge into the inconceivable Samadhi of the Mind’s Pure Essence. As one continues the practice of the Way of Wisdom, one yields less and less to thoughts of comfort or desolation; faith becomes surer, more pervasive, beneficent and joyous; and fear of retrogression vanishes. But do not think that the consummation is to be attained easily or quickly; many rebirths may be necessary, many aeons may have to elapse. So long as doubts, unbelief, slanders, evil conduct, hindrances of karma, weakness of faith, pride, sloth and mental agitation persist, so long as even their shadows linger, there can be no attainment of the Samadhi of the Buddhas. But he who has attained to the radiance of the highest Samadhi, or unitive Knowledge, will be able to realize, with all the Buddhas, the perfect unity of all sentient beings with Buddhahood’s Dharmakaya. In the pure Dharmakaya there is no dualism, neither shadow or differentiation. All sentient beings, if only they were able to realize it, are already in Nirvana. The Mind’s pure Essence is Highest Samadhi, is Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi, is Prajna Paramita, is Highest Perfect Wisdom.
Ashvaghosha
26. Perseverance and Regularity
HE WHO INTERRUPTS the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.
St John of the Cross Si volumus non redire, currendum est. (If we wish not to go backwards, we must run.)
Pelagius
If thou shouldst say, ‘It is enough, I have reached perfection,’ all is lost. For it is the function of perfection to make one know one’s imperfection.
St Augustine The Buddhists have a similar saying to the effect that, if an arhat thinks to himself that he is an arhat, that is proof that he is not an arhat.
I tell you that no one can experience this birth (of God realized in the soul) without a mighty effort. No one can attain this birth unless he can withdraw his mind entirely from things.
Eckhart
If a sharp penance had been laid upon me, I know of none that I would not very often have willingly undertaken, rather than prepare myself for prayer by self-recollection. And certainly the violence with which Satan assailed me was so irresistible, or my evil habits were so strong, that I did not betake myself to prayer; and the sadness I felt on entering the oratory was so great that it required all the courage I had to force myself in. They say of me that my courage is not slight, and it is known that God has given me a courage beyond that of a woman; but I have m
ade a bad use of it. In the end Our Lord came to my relief, and when I had done this violence to myself, I found greater peace and joy than I sometimes had when I had a desire to pray.
St Teresa
To one of his spiritual children our dear father (St François de Sales) said, ‘Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean, do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. I am glad you make a fresh beginning daily; there is no better means of attaining to the spiritual life than by continually beginning again, and never thinking that we have done enough. How are we to be patient in bearing with our neighbour’s faults, if we are impatient in bearing with our own? He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them; all profitable correction comes from a calm, peaceful mind.’
Jean Pierre Camus
There are scarce any souls that give themselves to internal prayer but some time or other do find themselves in great indisposition thereto, having great obscurities in the mind and great insensibility in their affections, so that if imperfect souls be not well instructed and prepared, they will be in danger, in case that such contradictions of inferior nature continue long, to be dejected, yea, and perhaps deterred from pursuing prayer, for they will be apt to think that their recollections are to no purpose at all, since, for as much as seems to them, whatsoever they think or actuate towards God is a mere loss of time and of no worth at all; and therefore that it would be more profitable for them to employ their time some other way.
Yea, some souls there are conducted by Almighty God by no other way, but only by such prayer of aridity, finding no sensible contentment in any recollection, but, on the contrary, continual pain and contradiction, and yet, by a privy grace and courage imprinted deeply in the spirit, cease not for all that, but resolutely break through all difficulties and continue, the best way they can, their internal exercises to the great advancement of their spirit.
Complete Works of Aldous Huxley Page 500