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Watching the River

To live in the present moment requires a change in our inner posture. Instead of expanding or shoring up our fortress of “I”–the ego–which culture and often therapy try to help us do, contemplation waits to discover what this “I” consists of. What is this “I” that I take so seriously? To discover the answer, we have to calmly observe our own stream of consciousness and see its compulsive patterns. That’s what happens in the

Practice of the Heart

Abba Poemen said, “Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart.” Many of the desert fathers and mothers, as well as the Philokalia in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, have described prayer as bringing your thinking down into your heart. It always seemed like soft piety to me until someone taught me how to do it, and I learned the immense benefits of the prayer of the heart. As a Catholic, I was often