How do Christian mystics practice jhanas?

[Tad]

Christian prayer is based on words or contemplating about God. Then how is it possible that Christian mystics practice Jhana? Would it not be more likely that they practiced something like breath meditation?

[Jhanananda]

Christian prayer is based on words or contemplating about God. Then how is it possible that Christian mystics practice Jhana? Would it not be more likely that they practiced something like breath meditation?

My take on mainstream religion is they are always corrupt. So, just because mainstream Christian religions tends to preach prayer and tend to say meditation is devil worship is surely evidence of corruption.

Recently I was in a dialog on FaceBook where early Christianity was discussed. My point regarding Christianity is what passes for Christianity today was developed in the 4th century and does not reflect the first 3 centuries of Christianity.

To understand the life and teaching of Jesus one would want to study the first three centuries of its development.  We can start with the subject of the First Nicaean Council. The subject was "was Jesus God."

The First Nicaean Council pitted 2 factions of Christianity against each other. The two factions were Greco-Roman Christianity verses Arian Christianity.

Arian Christianity, or Arianism was represented by a Lybian who lived in Egypt and his name was Arius. Please note that Wiki is wrong in not understanding that Arianism originated in Persia who call themselves Aryan, and the reason why Arius took his name was a direct reference to Arianism.

Arian Christianity began in the first century CE when the apostle Thomas traveled east through Persia to India and China bringing the life and teachings of Jesus with him. Under Thomas Arian Christianity is distinctly contemplative.  Have you read the Gospel of Thomas, which is one of the Nag Humadi texts? I highly recommend reading it.

If you are interested in contemplative Christianity it would begin with Thomas, and move through Arian Christianity to the Desert Fathers and to Arius.

By the time you work through these links you should realize there is a radically different form of Christianity which predated Greco-Roman Christianity by 3 centuries, and you will understand why you may never have heard of it.

[Tad]

I will have to take a look at the gospel of Thomas. Have you found any complete descriptions of meditation practices of early Christians? I read about the Desert Fathers, but the description of their meditative practice is not very clear: "Hesychast prayer was a meditative practice that was traditionally done in silence and with eyes closed—"empty of mental pictures" and visual concepts, but with the intense consciousness of God's presence." So what is meant by "the intense consciousness of God's presence"?

[Jhanananda]

With the intense hostility within mainstream Christianity toward Arian forms of Christianity most of the content regarding the contemplative arts has been burned a long time ago.  We can only infer that some of the Desert Fathers were onto something when we learn of the kryas that St Vitas was experiencing, which is some of the external observable phenomena that is associated with deep altered states of consciousness associated with the attainment of samadhi.

What we hear most of from the Desert Fathers is "constant prayer," which is mantra-like. What is far more important is learning to still the mind, because stilling the mind is the gateway to depth in meditation, and filling the mind with anything is not helpful.  Instead those seeking depth in meditation will be working toward emptying the mind.

On the Gospel of Thomas I found it remarkably zen-daoist-like, which supports the history of Thomas having traveled through Persia, India and China. So, I think you may get a lot out of reading the Gospel of Thomas.

From reading a great deal of Jewish and Christian sources on the Shakina-Holy Spirit I believe that the genuine experience of the Shakina-Holy Spirit is consistent with the experience of Samadhi.  It is when we here experience the various phenomena associated with the jhanas and ayatanas is what a Kabalist would call the experience of the Shakina, and what a Christian mystic would call the Holy Spirit. Speaking of which if you have not read Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, then I urge all Christian contemplative to read them, because their writing proved they were Christian contemplatives who had become mystics.

[Alexander]

Hello Tad,

If you read The Inner Castle by Teresa of Avila, she has a section on what she calls the "prayer of quiet" which is the equivalent of what Jeff would refer to here as stilling the mind... so, the concept certainly existed in Christian mysticism. We also find that Evelyn Underhill, one of the great scholars of the western mystical tradition, was clear in her model of 'concentration, meditation, and ecstasy' when describing the contemplative life. You may notice that those three stages (the second of which is *stilling the mind*) are identical to the model of the contemplative life taught by Patanjali.

There are many complications to this of course, however... For example, in the early modern period there was a movement in France called "quietism" which promoted the practice of stilling the mind. This must have drawn too much attention to itself (I'm not familiar with the whole story...) as it was declared heretical by the Catholic Church. So, we can say that there was at least one time when the Church went on record and said that stilling the mind was anti-Christian.

Now, this is, of course, the same church that also named Teresa of Avila... who advocated the same practice... a saint. So, you can see how vast these religions are, and how many contradictions there are, and be aware of the irony.

You must always be careful in certain times of not challenging the "spiritual authorities" too much. They are of course just in it for the robes and power, and are no real authorities at all.

[Jhanananda]

Thanks, Alexander, Quietism was not a movement I ran into in my research on western mysticism.  It should be noted that the movement became heresy just prior to the 1690 witch hunts.

Quietism is the pejorative name given (especially in Roman Catholic theology) to a set of Christian beliefs that rose in popularity in France, Italy, and Spain during the late 1670s and 1680s, particularly associated with the writings of the Spanish mystic Miguel de Molinos (and subsequently François Malaval and Madame Guyon), and which were condemned as heresy by Pope Innocent XI in the papal bull Coelestis Pastor of 1687. The "Quietist" heresy was seen to consist of wrongly elevating "contemplation" over "meditation", intellectual stillness over vocal prayer, and interior passivity over pious action in an account of mystical prayer, spiritual growth and union with God (one in which, the accusation ran, there existed the possibility of achieving a sinless state and union with the Christian Godhead).

Since the late seventeenth century, "Quietism" has functioned (especially within Roman Catholic theology, though also to an extent within Protestant theology), as the shorthand for accounts which are perceived to fall foul of the same theological errors, and thus to be heretical. As such, the term has come to be applied to beliefs far outside its original context. The term quietism was not used until the 17th century, so some writers have dubbed the expression of such errors before this era as "pre-quietism".

[mapeli]

Hi!

I've spent some time looking in to this and one of the more clear resources I came across was A Different Christianity by Robin Amis. It tries to uncover, document and trace the inner tradition that went underground at the time Jhanananda described.

One discouraging note in the book is that it clearly states that the inner contemplative tradition as taught at Mount Athos, for instance, is not fully documented anywhere. At that point I put down my research and sent out a grateful thought to Jhananandas work.

Regarding the actual practices, I believe, for instance, that the external practice of the Jesus prayer is a vehicle to the Jhanas as it is said that the goal is to have it "sink into the heart", and then the "heart keeps praying even during sleep".

They also call the highest form of prayer Theoria, which they describe as "looking at, or seeing, or gazing at God". That to me sounds like Jhana. Supposedly one of the effects of this practice is Apatheia, dispassion, which could perhaps maps to what we would call Equanimity.

They  also state that the goal of life is Deification - to become so saturated with the energies of God - that one gradually becomes like God - or one becomes God:ified. Both the non-duality of Deificaiton and the saturation concept maps quite will to the teachings of the GWV.

One other indication is the emphasis of needing a guide, a spritual father. That concept I guess all of us who are here could relate to, as without Jhanananda to guide at least me, both passively and actively, I would not have had the confidence to keep walking.

All this being said though, to get access to any form of living tradition one has to wade through enormous amounts of religion, most of which seems dead or corrupt to me.

All of this takes place, of course, in the Eastern church, perhaps with some leakage over to the Greek and Russian orthodox. The great schism between the two halfs of both Rome and the Church was cemented by dispute on whether you could and should know God with the intellect or experientally, ie mystically. The West as we all know and feel went astray and turned God into a legal system. I'm sure other forms of persecution happened in the East eventually.

But the book by Amis is a good introduction to a lot of this. It frequently mentions Boris Mouravieffs Gnosis as well, which seems to try to unite Gurjieffs system with the Orthodox Church and Yoga or something like that.

Lots of the Desert Fathers are interesting, but none are as clear as St John of the Cross or Theresa of Avila that Jhanananda constantly refers to, from the perspective of Jhana practice.

I guess the simple and short answer to the original question is; I believe they call it Theoria - "looking at..."

EDIT: I misunderstood the original question to be about what the called it rather than how they did it. Perhaps Theoria could be a helpful term to try to find info about. But as stated above, I think they themselves don't think it's written down somewhere.

EDIT2: One cool introduction to the Desert Fathers from the folk here coming from a Buddhistic context, could be to read St Mark the Ascetic's On The Spiritual Law - where he basically explains Karma or perhaps even the Dammha (hmm not sure I use that term correctly), that I don't think a lot of Christians are aware are a part of their tradition. It takes as it's stepping stone what St Paul says, that the Law is Spiritual. Anyway, tangential to the topic. But could be a fun read. It has waken me up a couple of times.

[Tad]

Thank you, Mapeli, for interesting information. Can you explain how to use Jesus Prayer? Is it necessary to believe that Jesus can help us for practice to be effective?

[Jhanananda]

Thank you, Mapeli, for your contribution on Christian mysticism, which I would put into a Buddhist context by using the term jhana.  Since you mentioned Mount Athos, I am reminded that the Russian early 20th century mystic Rasputin walked to Mount Athos from Russia and returned disappointed in what he saw there, and he was demonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. So, I believe we have to assume nearly every contemplative movement in the history of Christianity has most likely been subverted by the Church, so we have to be willing to unpack and digest any history with a healthy rigorous, self-aware, contemplative life.

As such, the Jesus prayer of the desert fathers was simply a mantra.  Mantras help some people gain progress in the contemplative life; however, the mantra eventually has to be dumped when the mind is still, and without stilling the mind, the superior fruit of the contemplative life cannot be acquired.