When Prayer isn't Thought: Steps to Practiced Selflessness

Both Christ's pierced heart and the Holy of holies in the temple were utterly empty, and the same is true of the mind of Christ. Reacting to our fundamental vulnerability, though, our own panicky minds churn out thought all day long, and we anesthetize ourselves with fulfilled desires to compensate, to make thought sit down and shut up. Buddha was right when he said "life is suffering." Jesus, too, has more to teach about suffering consciously than we've previously been willing to admit. [bxA]

But Christ's teaching is wisdom--it's revealed in experience and doing, not in thought. The centerpiece of Christian Wisdom is the Teacher's call to "give up self, take up your cross, and follow." And the path is mystical, not theological--it asks us to encounter God, not think about him, and it dials up the urgency of practicing the grace of contemplation. If we haven't practiced "just being," how will we ever "be holy?"

The fast track to contemplation is this: when thoughts occur that say "I want to pray" or "I want a pastrami sandwich" or "I want the messiah to come"--in those moments, say "just because a train of thought uses the personal pronouns 'I, me, and my'--well, it's limitedly healthy to assume that's ME." After that, breathe, listen and feel sensations--continue to do so after thoughts of self have gone quiet. Remember "Many will come saying 'I am he.' Do not follow them...as lightning lights up the sky...so will the Son of Man be in his day." That day is today, and when we finally catch up to the present moment we will be back at the Red Sea, learning what Moses meant when he said "the Lord himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still." 

Emotions and memories, opinions and choices will arise. However you need to treat them to minimize suffering, do so. Reverence them, use the higher self to nurture the lower self, then let thought and emotion go. Ongoing practice will train our eyes to see desire and attachment with compassion and skill. It'll temporarily be a terrible source of suffering to see the way desire and attachment conceal an addiction to willfulness and control. But sitting with the sensations of suffering are an aid to awareness. As awareness shifts, it's possible to give desire and attachment up as well. 

So: noticing thoughts of self and letting them go, noticing desire and willfulness but ceding control, and finally getting so grounded in the body that thinking ceases altogether--these are important steps which, as a prayer practice grows, become easily and quickly doable. Those who have decided to become practitioners know that stillness is more possible than their own noisy heads prefer to admit. It may inspire a bit of fear when you find yourself going through your day, being and acting without thoughts of self. But that fear is just a signal that, having nurtured and let go of ego, you are finally as present to reality as God has always been.