On Silence and Stillness (I)
Although they are often used interchangeably, the terms “silence” and “stillness” are not synonymous. Silence implies in part an absence of ambient noise, together with an inner state or attitude that enables us to focus, to “center” on the presence of God and to hear His “still, small voice.”
To silence, the virtue of stillness adds both tranquility and concentration. Stillness implies a state of bodily rest coupled with the creative tension that enables a person to commune with God in the midst of a crowd. It means openness to the divine presence and to prayer: prayer understood as a divine work accomplished by God Himself. As the apostle Paul insists, it is not we who pray, but the Spirit who prays within us (Rom 8:26).
This kind and quality of stillness is termed in Greek hesychia. It underlies the practice of Prayer of the Heart that focuses on the Name of Jesus: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Most of us are familiar with the 19th century account entitled “The Way of a Pilgrim,” and “The Pilgrim Continues His Way.” Here an anonymous Russian pilgrim, physically handicapped and with only the most rudimentary education, undertakes a voyage of the heart that will lead him step by step toward the heavenly Jerusalem. His journey is marked by numerous encounters with all sorts of people, several of whom initiate him into the practice of the Jesus Prayer. In the Church’s ascetic tradition, that prayer is progressively purified, becoming, in rare and privileged cases, “pure prayer” (kathera proseuchê) or “prayer of the heart.” As many within that tradition have described it, repetition of the name of Jesus begins with the lips, gradually passes to the mind in a spontaneous outpouring, and finally descends with the mind into the heart, the spiritual center of our being. The hesychast tradition therefore invites us to “stand before God with the mind in the heart,” to offer Him intercession, thanksgiving, praise and glorification day and night, without ceasing.
The terms used in this context need to be carefully defined. The word “mind” refers not only to our rational capacity, discursive reasoning and analysis, that is, to the activity of the brain as it is usually understood. “Mind” or “intellect” translates the Greek term nous, a notion well described by Bishop Kallistos Ware as “the power of apprehending religious truth through direct insight and contemplative vision.” The “heart” he goes on to define as “the deep self; it is the seat of wisdom and understanding, the place where our moral decisions are made, the inner shrine in which we experience divine grace and the indwelling of the Holy Trinity.” The heart, he adds, “indicates the human person as a ‘spiritual subject,’ created in God’s image and likeness.”
Silence fosters stillness; it is indispensable for stillness. Inner stillness, however, goes beyond silence insofar as its aim is to purify the heart and issue in pure prayer. That purification involves the body in its entirety, because body and soul, like mind and heart, are ultimately inseparable. In the words of St Mark the Ascetic, “The intellect cannot be still unless the body is still also; and the wall between them cannot be demolished without stillness and prayer.”
~Adapted from the Very Rev. John Breck, Life in Christ, Orthodox Church in America (oca.org), March 01, 2005
