I am curious. I have read about prayer here, using various prayers from prayer books and the Jesus prayer, but I also read a rather offhand statement (so it may need the context to really apply) that Eastern Rite Catholics do not do muc in the way of "visualizing" during prayer, which I tooK to mean that the Eastern tradition does not include practices such as those recommended by St Prancis, during which the person praying imagines himself actually present at scenes from the life of Christ, altho I may have misunderstood.

In the Wextern tradition, there is a body of literature about meditation, but there is one basic formula, and what I have read (nothing *very* mystical) seems to be variations on the one formula: suggestions for a series of meditations, slight variations in techniques, and the like. What made me suddenly wonder was that I read in one the suggestion to "excite in oneself" the appropriate affections [which I think means a particular type of feeling]" before entering into the meditaiton itself. All this made me wonder what the Eastern position on this is.

Thank you all, and I hope Lent is going well for all... altho I am not fasting every day, I am still getting quite a shaking up of my spiritual life.

Dear Philothia,

Good scouting, you have touched on a good topic. The Eastern meditation is done with no images in the mind. Our imagination is to limited. Instead to keep the mind busy with words of pray to free the heart. To meditate is not to be in the past, but to be in the present - to experience God here.

Well I'm not an expert, but there is more info in other books. Techniques are only a means to understanding this form of prayer. Once learned the techniques don't apply.

Things like dispassion in "the ladder" is a something. Read pages 29 - 33 in the introduction. Or the Appendix of the story of "The Way of the Pilgrim."

Joyce

Christ is Risen!

Hi Joyce,
I was going to respond sooner, but I wanted to find something profound to say... how silly of me. Thank you!