The breakthrough

“A certain brother inquired of Abbot Pastor, saying: What shall I do? I lose my nerve when I am sitting alone at prayer in my cell? The elder said to him: Despise no one, condemn no one, rebuke no one, God will give you peace and your meditation will be undisturbed.”
—Wisdom of the Desert

There is abundant evidence that the desert monks were among the first Christians (that we know of) to practice a form of wordless, silent prayer or meditation. And it is refreshing to see that the same problems we encounter in the twenty-first century when we sit to meditate were the same problems encountered in the fourth century. We humans have not changed much.

The discursive mind engages in a ceaseless commentary. The racket of this commentary is startling to a meditator when he or she first begins to pay attention to the mind. Every experience inspires some judgment on the part of the mind, whether the experience is good, bad or neutral, and one comment connects to another comment creating an ever-flowing stream of judgment and assessment.

There is no inherent problem in this. The problem arises when we get swept up in the stream of judgment, and we start taking the commentary literally—or even seriously. With great practice we can start to live with the flow of thoughts (except in rare moments of graceful inner silence, the thoughts do not cease), without clinging to them or pushing them away. In other words, the great breakthrough actually happens not when we stop judging others or judging our experiences, but when we stop judging ourselves for judging.