Abstract: Directing awareness inward to illuminate itself is a practice that has been used for centuries in various contemplative traditions in the East and the West. Within Christianity, it can be traced back to the Desert Fathers meditating in Egypt during the early centuries of the Christian church. Hesychios the Priest (seventh century), for ex- ample, a priest and monk who lived in a monastery on Mount Sinai, commented on this form of meditation in his treatise On Watchful- ness and Holiness. A central theme of this meditation manual is at- tentiveness, which he defined as “the heart’s stillness, unbroken by any thought.”1 “When the heart has acquired stillness,” he wrote, “it will perceive the heights and depths of knowledge; and the ear of the still intellect will be made to hear marvelous things from God.”2 This gives rise to a unique kind of spiritual well-being.
