Subtracting and breathing

Prayer is about finding what God is drawing you towards and digging deeper with it. It’s more about subtraction than addition. We must remind ourselves that if prayer was easy, everyone would be doing it, and God is well aware of our honesty and patience in attempting to pray. Good advice is that we should pray as we can, not as we think we should. The Irish Jesuit Priest Michael Paul Gallagher found that, “some strategies of the East offer immense help towards inner stillness. Lie on the ground and put a book on your belly. When you breathe in, make sure the book moves up, a sign that you are diaphragm breathing rather than chest breathing. When breathing out, the diaphragm should empty and the book should lower. Most people start their quest for ‘concentration’ in the wrong quarter – in some gymnastics of will power. But the wisdom of the East would say: ‘Lose your mind and come to your senses.’ Certainly most skills of stillness that I have found a helpful start with some focus on the physical sense, as in the experience of breathing.’”