www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology contemplative prayer

There is much written on contemplative prayer in the Latin Catholic world.

I'm just wondering what is written in the Eastern Catholic - Eastern Orthodox world on contemplative type prayer.

I know about the Jesus Prayer - Heysechasm but what do the Orthodox think about modern approaches to contemplative prayer?

Is it new age brought to catholicism or cultish?
A desire to have what Buddhists and Hindi have?

My understanding is that the Orthodox prayer tradition is pretty much summed up in the Fathers and Philokalia and in the writings of the Saints who draw upon them. Nothing added, nothing taken away.

I believe the Orthodox would say the contemplative prayer movements in Roman Catholicism are inauthentic as they emerge from and have their life outside the Orthodox church.

I'm going to be following this thread, as I wasn't aware of such a difference. Awesome, more research!

The big key to the success of the Buddhist-Hindu type of contemplative prayer was probably more good marketing in the 1960s and 1970s than anything else. It wasn't that there wasn't a long standing tradition of contemplative prayer in both Orthodox and Catholic circles. It really wasn't marketed and was generally reserved as part of a more mystic segment of Christian faiths. I think the key to Christian meditation is Jesus is the center of the prayer and devotion. In Buddhist meditation it places "you" at the center. The focus of any Christian prayer has to be Jesus, with the intent of becoming closer to him. There are numerous wrtings both old and new about the "Jesus Prayer".