Gentle reader, you might remember that when I was 18 years old I spent a year in a monastery. Among other things, the monastery was a place of profound stillness. ‘Stillness’ is close to being the ‘heart’ of the monastery. Each day began with a common, disciplined practice of stillness: an hour of sitting meditation (once a week each of us entered into an hour of ‘kneeling meditation’).
‘Stillness meditation’ is an intimate, moving and powerful experience. The experience was enhanced because we sat in silence-stillness with others; we were all touched by the sacred stillness. We were truly in community.
Over time I came to realize that this simple practice grounded everything else that happened during the day; this experience was THE taproot that nurtured and sustained us, individually and as a community. It was the taproot that sustained our manual labor, our common prayer, our study, our dialogue with God, and our love. I found that it grounded the entire mysterious process by which I-We were drawn closer to God.
In my studies I learned that the ancient monks of the Egyptian desert had a name for this real, elusive and critical aspect of the spiritual life: hesychia. This Greek word can be translated in different ways, depending upon the context: stillness, quiet, tranquility, deep peace. In the monastic literature, hesychia is often synonymous with a certain quality or depth of prayer – or awareness of God’s presence.
John Climacus (known by many as ‘John of the Ladder’) was an Egyptian Monk (6th-7th Century). John described hesychia as ‘worshipping God unceasingly…[an] inviolable activity of the heart.’ In this place of stillness, everything other than God faded from consciousness. For many, God’s touch, God’s presence, became palpable (an aside: during my twelve months in the monastery on two occasions I did, I think, have such an experience; fleeting experiences they were).
In this stillness one can become conscious of living IN God. ‘[The one] who has achieved hesychia has arrived at the very center of the mysteries,’ declared John Climacus [Gentle reader, if you are not familiar with ‘The Ladder of the Divine Ascent’ written by Joh of the Ladder, I invite you to check it out].
Each monk had a Spiritual Director; my Spiritual Director was Brother Gerontius. I remember asking him how one could ever arrive at such a place – this place called hesychia. How was I to learn to let go of the things, the activities, the ideas, the inner noise that hindered me from allowing hesychia from taking root in my life?
‘Deep Stillness’ is the commitment of a lifetime. Hesychia, Brother Gerontius told me, was both an end to be sought – ‘the very center of the mysteries’ – and the means by which one might (‘might’ is an important word in this context) gradually (think: lifetime) come to this end. In other words, hesychia is a practice, a spiritual discipline.
This spiritual discipline might involve at any moment a withdrawal from unnecessary activity, a careful scrutiny of the character of one’s relationship with self, with another and with God. It might involve a particular way of meditating or praying. It will involve a willingness to open oneself to engage in jihad (yes…that was the word Brother Gerontius used in 1962); jihad is the inner spiritual war that we wage with ourselves.
Hesychia also involves a gradual realization of a deeper level of honesty and transparency – being honest and transparent with/to oneself and to God. ‘Deep Stillness’ – hesychia – was a tap root and, to mix metaphors, a touchstone for almost everything that mattered in one’s life.
Your duty is to be, and not to be this or that. ‘I am that I am’ sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words ‘Be Still!’ –Ramana Maharshi
Searcher-Seeker 
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