Chapter 120

It is the Easiest Means to Continuity in Prayer

There are degrees of prayer. The first degree is bodily prayer, more in reading, standing, and bows. Attention wanders, the heart feels nothing, there is no inclination: here is patience, labor, sweat... The second degree is attentive prayer: the mind grows accustomed to gathering itself at the hour of prayer and speaking through the whole of it with awareness, without fragmentation. Attention fuses with the written word and speaks as if it were its own. The third degree is the prayer of feeling: from attention the heart grows warm, and what was there in thought becomes feeling here... And thus the common counsel of the saints is — do not let this pass without attention: that is, when feeling arises, cease every other activity (reading, thinking) and remain in it... By attention to these manifestations of prayer, the cultivation of prayer is knit together, but by inattention it is destroyed... However one may regard oneself as advanced in prayer, the rule of prayer should never be abandoned, but performed as indicated, and one should always begin with active prayer. With it there should be noetic prayer, and after them the prayer of the heart will come. Without this these latter ones scatter and a person will think he is praying when in fact he is not... The easiest means of ascent to continuity in prayer is the accustoming of the mind to the Jesus Prayer and rooting it within oneself. (1, 242–243)