(If you haven’t read the last post in this series click here. For the part one click here.)
In our last reflection, we explored the Jesus Prayer—how it is not merely spoken but breathed, a circular rhythm that transfigures the heart.
But as anyone who has attempted this prayer knows, it does not take long before distractions arise.
Memories surface. Desires awaken. Worries press in. Thoughts scatter in a thousand directions.
We sit to pray, yet our minds wander.
If Hesychasm is about restoring the heart to stillness, then why does the mind refuse to be still? Why does the soul constantly gravitate toward everything but God?
The answer is that we are not whole—we are fragmented.
We are still ruled by the passions.
The Nature of the Passions: A Sickness, Not a Moral Failing
For Eastern Orthodox Christians, the purpose of life is to become partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4). We are meant to become by grace what God is by nature.
But for this to happen, we must be freed from our bondage to sin.
In Western Christianity, sin is often framed as a violation of moral rules—a legal debt.
But in the Orthodox tradition, sin is a sickness—a distortion of our nature that turns us away from God. It is a disease of the will that disorients our true desire.
Sin is not merely wrongdoing—it is a condition that weakens our capacity for union with God.
"Sin is nothing else than the misuse of powers given us by God for doing good." — St. Basil the Great
The passions—lust, self-love, pride, vainglory, judgment, despair, despondency, anger, resentfulness, etc.—are the result of this misuse.
They are not natural to us—they are intruders in the soul.
How the Passions Take Root: The Power of Thought
The vehicle through which the passions take hold in us is thought.
St. Maximus the Confessor distinguishes between two types of thoughts:
Simple thoughts—an image comes to mind (e.g., "A piece of food.").
Complex thoughts—an image comes to mind attached to an inclination (e.g., "I want that food right now.").
A simple thought does not harm us. It simply is.
A complex thought contains a suggestion—an impulse to incline or to dispose ourselves a certain way toward whatever image or impression comes to mind.
Imagine you are praying. Suddenly, an image of a person appears in your mind.
If this is just an image, it is a simple thought.
But if it is accompanied by anger, lust, envy, or judgment, it becomes a complex thought—the seed of a passion.
The problem is not that thoughts arise—this is natural.
The danger is when we entertain them or rather the impulse attached to them.
If we are attentive, we can let the complex thought pass before the impulse attached to it takes hold.
But if we entertain it, it takes root, and we perpetuate it by spending long hours thinking on it or acting on it.
Soon what began as a thought becomes a habit.
And a habit—to judge, to become angry, to be selfish or possessive or prideful or greedy—is what the Eastern Orthodox call a passion.
The TV Screen Metaphor: Learning to Watch Without Engaging
One way to understand the work of watchfulness is through the TV screen metaphor.
Imagine your mind is like a television screen constantly displaying images, emotions, and impulses.
Most people are so caught up in the show that they don’t realize they can step back and watch the screen itself.
Hesychasm teaches us to become the observer.
We are not the thoughts flashing across the screen.
We are not the anger, not the fear, not the impulses.
We are the ones watching.
The moment we recognize that we can step back and observe, the passions lose their power.
They only control us when we believe we are them.
Beyond Observation: Watchfulness as the Awakening of the Nous
This stepping back is only the first stage of watchfulness. It trains us to see our thoughts for what they are: not realities, not commands, but passing impressions.
Yet the aim of Hesychasm is not detachment alone. If prayer were merely the suppression of thoughts, it would remain a negative practice—a retreat, an emptiness. But the Fathers insist that Hesychasm is not about emptiness at all.
It is about presence.
To watch the mind is to stand in the place of the nous—the eye of the soul that, when healed, gazes directly upon the pure Uncreated Light of God.
When we stop mistaking our thoughts for ourselves, we are left with a question: If I am not these thoughts, then what am I?
And this is the real crisis of prayer.
Most of us are so absorbed in our mental noise that we have never fully faced the silence beneath. When that silence is revealed, it is not always peaceful at first—it can be terrifying.
Because when the chatter dies down, we begin to see our wounds.
The Stripping Away of the False Self
The Jesus Prayer does not simply quiet the mind—it reveals the heart.
We see our compulsions, our fears, the entire architecture of self-justifications we have built to avoid God.
Prayer, then, is a fire.
At first, it burns the surface distractions—our restless thoughts. But the deeper we go, the more it burns away our illusions, our false sense of control, our attempts to negotiate with God while keeping parts of ourselves hidden.
And this is why watchfulness must be accompanied by humility.
Because the moment we begin to see clearly, we will also see how deep our sickness runs.
And this is where most turn back.
To be still is to see oneself truly.
But to pray is to step into that truth—not as a means of self-reproach, but as an offering.
We learn to place even our worst thoughts, our most shameful desires, before God without fear.
And something happens in that offering.
In the burning light of divine love, the passions begin to lose their weight.
This is why the Hesychast does not fight thoughts directly. He does not resist them through force of will.
Instead, he sees them, lets them pass, and turns to Christ.
Not once, but constantly.
Moment by moment, redirecting the heart toward the presence of God.
Becoming a Living Prayer
The goal of watchfulness is not detachment alone. It is vision.
The nous, stripped of illusions, becomes clear enough to perceive.
To be still is not only to be emptied of distraction.
It is to be filled with divine life.
To be watchful is not only to let go of thoughts.
It is to awaken—to find oneself standing in the pure Uncreated Light of God, where the nous, no longer clouded by passions, perceives reality as it truly is.
To pray in truth is not merely to call upon God, but to stand in His presence as one truly is, without defense, without fear.
Like Moses before the burning bush, one approaches trembling, yet is not consumed.
The fire of divine love burns away all that is false, all that resists grace.
It strips nothing that is real but makes luminous what was always meant to shine.
And in the fire, the heart is not destroyed, but made fire itself.
"If you will, you can become all flame."
And in the end, love is no longer something given or received.
It is all that remains.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Having practiced and studied the Jesus Prayer for over 40 years I have to say that these are the best short essays on it that I have ever read. Thank you! I am not Orthodox, but this prayer is the center of my spirituality. My image is erosion: the prayer wears down the false self over time until you realize its effect. And yes humility is absolutely key.
The importance you (rightly) place on the danger of distractions to prayer raises a critical concern: if it's true that we are, generally speaking, much more distracted than we were in the past (due to streaming, social media, etc., and especially their convenience access via smartphones that we always have with us), then it would follow that in 2025 we will find it much harder to reach any given spiritual threshold.
I certainly find myself less able to simply be bored for a bit now than I was in the past. I have at least some degree of addiction to screens (and I think I am probably less addicted than many, especially than many younger adults). I don't have an easy solution to this, but I think it's worth thinking on. Perhaps the beginning of a spiritual practice will need to be finding ways of simply cutting back time online.