"Meditate Like": From The Mountain To Union

Father Seraphim was once asked about prayer of the heart from a young man beginning in his journey of prayer. Seraphim’s response was, “Before I talk about prayer of the heart, first learn how to meditate like a mountain.” Pointing to a rock, he said, “Ask it how it goes about praying. Then come back to me. Silent prayer...has the stability of mountains, but its purpose is not to make you a dead branch but someone alive!"

St. Seraphim was once asked about prayer of the heart from a young man beginning in his journey of prayer. Seraphim’s response was, “Before I talk about prayer of the heart, first learn how to meditate like a mountain.” Pointing to a rock, he said, “Ask it how it goes about praying. Then come back to me.”

While the mountain holds in God’s kairos, the poppy lives in chronos. And so must we, holding that balance between both. Jean-Yves Leloup writes: “To meditate is to know the Eternal in the fleetingness of the moment, to flower in the time we are given, to love in the time we are given for loving, without asking why. Why do poppies bloom?” This is about learning flexibility and humility.

Father Seraphim went on to tell the man that after he had observed the mountain, he also had to learn to meditate like the poppy. Poppies are fragile and their blossoms fade. We too must learn that the same circle applies to us - we must blossom but we must also wither. "If you watch the poppy closely", he said, "it will teach you not only an upright posture, but also how to bend with the wind. It will teach you humility."

Next, Father Seraphim told the man, “Think of the ocean. Learn to meditate like the ocean. The one who listens attentively to their own breathing is not far from God."

"Now you are going to learn to meditate like a turtle-dove”, Father Seraphim told the man. He noticed that the birds would simply coo at various times - that the sound would simply rise from within them.

"Now”, said Father Seraphim, “you must learn to meditate like Abraham.” The story of Abraham is a story in which humans learn the nature of a god who can be seen and known in all things, in all places, in all interactions. "To meditate like Abraham is to forget yourself in order to discover that you, your neighbour, and the entire Universe are the dwelling place of the infinite presence of the God who Is."

Finally, Fr Seraphim said to the man: “To meditate like Jesus perfects all the forms of meditation I have passed onto you. He knows how to meditate like the mountain, the flower, the ocean, the turtle-dove, and Abraham. [Then he] cries out like a child in the night, ‘Abba’, which means ‘daddy’. In this prayer of 'Abba', heaven and earth were united. God and humankind become one."

Meditation and contemplation are often used interchangeably. But in the Christian tradition they have a nuanced difference. Meditation is a form of prayer in which we give thoughtful and mindful reflection to something. Contemplation on the other hand is a form of prayer in which we seek to put words aside and simply rest in God’s presence. In this epilogue to our course, we look at each of these separately, and then consider the relationship between the two.