Dom Cyrprian Smith of the Benedictine Order, commenting on the thought of Meister Eckhart (a famous Catholic mystic who first used the term “Ground”), when he wrote:
The transcedent, immeasurable Ground beyond time and place is a staple element of Catholic mysticism. It is, essentially, the Image of God within us - infinite, inexpressible and divine just as God is, although not identical with him in Essence (we aren’t pantheists).
Believe it or not this is
you - the real YOU, not the false self of your fleeting thoughts and emotions which you must learn to disentangle yourself from.
In time, you will discover that this deepest part of you is
never depressed,
never fearful,
never sad - he just exists in perpetual, inner calm and stillness; quietlt observing all these fleeting mental states as they come and go, utterly unaffected by them.
This is the person you are meant to be.
I suggest 3 steps:
- Turn around and meet your afflictive emotion with stillness
- Allow the anxiety to be present
- Let go of the story or commentary on the afflictive emotion
Then you will get out of the mental habit of watching and listening to that mental chatter going on in your head.
You must keep returning to your practice whenever the afflictive emotion snatches your attention away. For this you need to focus on something else: the Jesus Prayer, your own breath, your heart-beat.
This idea is encapsulated in the following Bible quote:
Here is an exercise on how to pray the “Jesus Prayer” from the “Way of the Pilgrim”, a 19th century Russian mystical text. Its not word-for-word from the text but rather a truncated summary (I’ll quote the actual one tommorrow). In this scene the pilgrim teaches a blind man how to pray:
Just remember that you are never alone no matter what. God is with you always. He has died for us, so we can never doubt that he loves us. He wants us to be truly happy.