Philokalia

[snowymountains]

Has anyone practiced Philokalia ?

I'm not familiar with the practice personally, though from what I hear it's essential that it is practiced under supervision of a senior monastic.

 

How do you find the practice ?

 

1. How did you find integrating your practice with daily life? and what challenges did you come across while integrating it?
2. Under what classifications would you break down the daily practices?
3. What do you feel you've gained from the practice?
4. How would you compare it to other practices you've tried in the past or are currently actively engaged in?
5. How often do you meet with your teacher and if this is possible remotely as well via skype/zoom or in-person meetings are more or less necessary?
6. Are the books (four volumes) by Kallistos Ware good? is reading them without a teacher to get an idea what it is about mostly a waste of time? like eg reading Zen books solo without a teacher could be.

Edited January 20 by snowymountains

[Cobie]

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Edited January 26 by Cobie

[snowymountains]

37 minutes ago, Cobie said:

I learned within Esoteric Greek Orthodoxy. Starting Hesychasm with reading the Philokalia. Lol. That’s like a toddler wanting to start physics at Phd level. I would recommend to start at the beginning. For a Western Christian, go to your local church. If there isn’t one, try  online - WCCM (the World Community for Christian Meditation). 

 

Sure, but none of this is part of the question 🙂

[Cobie]

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Edited January 26 by Cobie

[snowymountains]

Just now, Cobie said:

If you were an adept you would have understood that it does answer all your questions.

 

I honestly see no point in having this discussion 

[Cobie]

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Edited January 26 by Cobie

[snowymountains]

Just now, Cobie said:

 lol, you started this thread. 

 

I meant this specific one with you 

[Cobie]

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Edited January 26 by Cobie

[snowymountains]

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

Sure. Much nicer talking with people that haven’t got a clue what they are talking about. Then you can all agree on how ‘enlightened’ you are and how ‘stupid’ everyone else is. Easy-peasy. Well I’m off, good luck reading the Philokalia. Lol.   

 

 

The only requirement really was reading comprehension 🙂

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, Cobie said:

Sure. Much nicer talking with people that haven’t got a clue what they are talking about. Then you can all agree on how ‘enlightened’ you are and how ‘stupid’ everyone else is. Easy-peasy. Well I’m off, good luck reading the Philokalia. Lol.   

 

 

Lets just post the Dunning Kruger  image you used before  to show my level of advancement .... right here .

[SirPalomides]

The Philokalia is an anthology of Greek Christian spiritual and ascetic writings from the 4th to the 15th century (not to be confused with an older Philokalia that Sts Basil and Gregory Nazianzen made of Origen's writings). There are also much-expanded Romanian and Russian editions. The plan of the original Greek text, in 5 volumes, is roughly chronological rather than thematic.

 

The 18th century compilers Nikodimos the Hagiorite and Makarios of Corinth published it with  the intention that it would be widely read by Orthodox Christians but over the years some Orthodox teachers have cast an esoteric veil over it, saying that someone should have some kind of special initiation/ instruction from a spiritual father before reading it. Other teachers have pointed out that this is nonsense but the air of esotericism persists. In any case a lot of the teachings in the Philokalia, especially on the Jesus prayer, have been thoroughly popularized in Orthodox churches so that you'll find summaries in lay prayerbooks or hear about it in sermons. 

 

If you want to get a good idea of what the Philokalia is about without poring through all five volumes, the book Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart is a good single-volume collection which largely follows the plan of reading given in the Russian spiritual classic Way of the Pilgrim.

 

You can't really boil down the Philokalia to a particular practice. The various fathers talk about a wide range of topics, from virtues and vices, dealing with temptations, fasting, etc. to stages of prayer and some heavy theological speculation. Yes, some of it is advanced but other parts are quite straightforward, basic Christian stuff. Most of the texts assume a monastic audience- the only pieces addressed to laity appear in the fifth volume- so there are many references to monastic life and the day-to-day problems of monks. Stoic and Platonic themes are readily apparent throughout (the first volume includes significant texts by Evagrius, one of the greatest of the "Origenists"). I believe the first version of the Jesus Prayer in its modern form appears in Abba Philemon's discourse in Volume 2 (which also contains writings of Maximus the Confessor, whom everyone interested in esoteric Christianity should be acquainted with). 

 

Many people confuse hesychasm with the Jesus prayer. The Jesus prayer is the prayer most associated with hesychasm but its practice is not necessarily tied to hesychasm. Sometimes people talk about the Jesus prayer like it's a magic spell requiring initiation to practice. This is directly contradicted by all the key sources for this prayer- anyone can pray it. Likewise hesychastic meditation can use other prayers, it's just that the Jesus prayer is the most popular and widely known.

 

As for hesychasm,I have come to the conclusion that hesychasm is for monks and hermits. It assumes you have hours in the day and night to pray without distraction, coupled with intense fasting, vigil, and other rigors, not to mention a community of likeminded ascetics to offer mutual support and guidance. Many attempts have been made to popularize hesychasm, and to monasticize the Orthodox laity in general, and in my opinion this leads to no good. Anytime I encounter Orthodox laity who try to be hesychasts, with or without the blessing of their priest or spiritual father, they are weirdos and not in a cool way. If they have families it's even worse. 

[Dainin]

Some of these courses sound interesting including one on the Philokalia:

 

https://olfoundation.net/product-category/ae/kallistos/

[snowymountains]

Thank you @SirPalomides and @Dainin

 

I talked with a friend who practices Philokalia. For the Jesus prayer/heart part, the idea is to have the prayer on "auto-repeat" 24/7 and this is in practice is hard to combine with work, though on holidays, calm weekends etc it is possible. However to be at that level everyday, it's only possible for monastics.

 

As a note it looks like there are many traditional methods to do the prayer, there's an article by Kallistos Ware here ( I don't know if the article is good to extract instructions on how to do the prayer, he gave me this link when we were discussing embodied practices and if breath control techniques are a pointless pursuit in the context of non-Christian traditions - but it also discusses that there are multiple ways to do the prayer).

 

There's no initiation, one needs a monastic to teach them though, any monastic would accept anyone genuinely interested whether they are a Christian or not.

On the point of finding a monastic who knows it well and practices it rigorously themselves, this needs a bit of seeking to find the right person but tbh I have found this to be true for Buddhism as well, ultimately it sounds equally feasible in Philokalia with a bit of effort.

Any Orthodox church should be able to give pointers as to where to who to start talking to in order to find a mentor.

 

He meets the elder/monk 1-2 times a year in person and they talk on the phone once a month. He practices everyday, has a family, a (demanding) job etc.

 

Anything by Kallistos Ware is a recommendation, he's also got a small book on the Jesus prayer beyond the philokalia books, as well as other books.

 

He recommended the below readings, in proposed order,

1. The Orthodox Way by Kallistos.

2. For the life of the World by Schmemann.

3. The way of the Pilgrim - not to copy instructions for the Jesus Prayer from there, just as overall good read.

[SirPalomides]

Just to reiterate- the Philokalia covers a wide range of disciplines and concepts, so one does not "practice Philokalia" just by doing the Jesus prayer/ prayer of the heart. 

 

Kallistos Ware was an excellent and kindly popularizer of Orthodox spirituality. He produced both popular works and ones with scholarly merit. An all around decent guy and I would second the recommendation of his works. He would disagree that one needs instructions from a monk to practice the Jesus prayer- in fact he, and many other teachers of the prayer, explicitly counsel against such requirements. It's amazing that people keep raising such prerequisites even after they read works that explicitly say, Everyone can start using this prayer, right now. This goes back to my point about people trying to make the Jesus prayer into an esoteric incantation. 

 

I think the practice of having lay Christians seek "spiritual fathers" other than their parish priests has created a lot of weird situations in orthodox churches where the parish priest will give some advice, and the monastic "spiritual father" will give something very different, sometimes extremely rigorous and unsuited for laity. Like with Buddhist and Hindu gurus, the orthodox spiritual father business sounds cool and mystical but in practice can often lead to abuse and unbalanced sectarian behavior. I have met enough Orthodox monastics to be extremely skeptical of the assumption that they are inherently wiser or more spiritually advanced. 

 

Speaking generally, there is much that is beautiful in Orthodoxy, and much that is profoundly screwed up. I would advise inquirers into Christianity to take what seems useful to them in the orthodox traditions but not to get sucked in by the very slick and alluring presentations of the "Ancient Faith", "Holy Orthodoxy", etc. 

[snowymountains]

3 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

He would disagree that one needs instructions from a monk to practice the Jesus prayer- in fact he, and many other teachers of the prayer, explicitly counsel against such requirements. It's amazing that people keep raising such prerequisites even after they read works that explicitly say, Everyone can start using this prayer, right now. This goes back to my point about people trying to make the Jesus prayer into an esoteric incantation. 

 

It's not needed for the Jesus prayer, though a monk can show it.

Nor is it a requirement for Philokalia, but how else can someone work with a 5-volume set, for all practical purposes, an instructor is needed.

To take it to the extreme one could also learn a university discipline on their own, some people have even done it, but in practice they need to attend courses and talk to teachers.

[snowymountains]

6 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

I think the practice of having lay Christians seek "spiritual fathers" other than their parish priests has created a lot of weird situations in orthodox churches where the parish priest will give some advice, and the monastic "spiritual father" will give something very different, sometimes extremely rigorous and unsuited for laity. Like with Buddhist and Hindu gurus, the orthodox spiritual father business sounds cool and mystical but in practice can often lead to abuse and unbalanced sectarian behavior. I have met enough Orthodox monastics to be extremely skeptical of the assumption that they are inherently wiser or more spiritually advanced. 

 

He mentioned that it's typical for an elder of a monastery to be the mentor, or alternatively (this sounded like a plan b tbh ) a senior priest tbh, not a junior monk nor a church priest.

It makes sense imo, they'd be more experienced.

 

Btw Buddhism Gurus are a Vajrayana thing, in general there no Gurus in Buddhism. Theravada and Zen texts are all public domain, the Pali canon being the main textual basis of the former, no cryptic language used.

Again, I guess similar principle applies, one can try to make sense by reading the Pali Canon line by line but a teacher will be of great help.

[snowymountains]

12 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

Just to reiterate- the Philokalia covers a wide range of disciplines and concepts, so one does not "practice Philokalia" just by doing the Jesus prayer/ prayer of the heart. 

 

It sounds like there are lot more practices there, including a version of mindfulness, though the Jesus prayer/ heart prayer is a very important practice.

[SirPalomides]

41 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

He mentioned that it's typical for an elder of a monastery to be the mentor, or alternatively (this sounded like a plan b tbh ) a senior priest tbh, not a junior monk nor a church priest.

 

It's often presented as typical but it's not. Most people don't have time to travel to monasteries, even once or twice a year; for those that do, even fewer are able to meet with one of the elders. And this is talking about people who live in a region that actually has monasteries and elders at all. One problem with contemporary orthodoxy, especially in the diaspora, is that a peculiar sectarian viewpoint, to a significant extent of modern vintage, has come to dominate the spiritual discourse as the "traditionalist" party, with dissenters dismissed as lax, nominal, modernist, westernized, etc. They think lay people should behave as far as possible like monks. 

 

41 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

It makes sense imo, they'd be more experienced.

 

It does seem to make sense but then you have to take into account that most of these monks have no experience with marriage, raising a family, etc., whereas the average parish priest does all of that. These monastic spiritual fathers may, for instance, prescribe an onerous prayer rule that takes several hours a day to complete; they may ask for rigorous requirements for preparing for communion that result in someone only communing once or twice a year; they may even get into a married couple's bedroom, so to speak, and impose stringent requirements for when and how the couple may boink, on a narrow set of acceptable days throughout the year. I'm not speaking theoretically here, this is all stuff that people have dealt with after approaching monks for spiritual guidance. 

[snowymountains]

1 minute ago, SirPalomides said:

 

It's often presented as typical but it's not. Most people don't have time to travel to monasteries, even once or twice a year; for those that do, even fewer are able to meet with one of the elders. And this is talking about people who live in a region that actually has monasteries and elders at all. One problem with contemporary orthodoxy, especially in the diaspora, is that a peculiar sectarian viewpoint, to a significant extent of modern vintage, has come to dominate the spiritual discourse as the "traditionalist" party, with dissenters dismissed as lax, nominal, modernist, westernized, etc. They think lay people should behave as far as possible like monks. 

 

 

It does seem to make sense but then you have to take into account that most of these monks have no experience with marriage, raising a family, etc., whereas the average parish priest does all of that. These monastic spiritual fathers may, for instance, prescribe an onerous prayer rule that takes several hours a day to complete; they may ask for rigorous requirements for preparing for communion that result in someone only communing once or twice a year; they may even get into a married couple's bedroom, so to speak, and impose stringent requirements for when and how the couple may boink, on a narrow set of acceptable days throughout the year. I'm not speaking theoretically here, this is all stuff that people have dealt with after approaching monks for spiritual guidance. 

 

I think he's practical about it, he listens on philokalia topics but eg he's not married to his long term partner.

I don't know what he does with prayer but I'd assume on holidays he does the monastic version, on workdays the lighter version.

 

My understanding is that the elder monk has a mandate to see someone, even if they don't follow their advice everywhere.

 

At the end of the day that's one needs to do with all traditions, otherwise they'll turn into a robot executing instructions from a text written in the middle ages. Same would apply to Buddhism too.