What do we mean by prayer? We tend to think of it as something we do, but it is much more something we are. Prayer is less about saying prayers and more about becoming a prayer. Prayer is looking out from a different set of eyes, which are not comparing, competing, judging, labeling, and analyzing, but receiving the moment in its wholeness. That’s what #contemplation means. Whatever we do, in conscious loving union with God and “what is,” is prayer. The deepest meaning of prayer is beyond words. Prayer is a resonance. It’s something that happens to you. Thus, our part in prayer is to assume the stance, the posture, of least resistance so that prayer, union, might happen.

We must keep in mind that the purpose of the exploration of prayer is not to get anywhere. We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. The goal of prayer is divine union—union with what is, with the moment, with yourself, with the divine. We have to pray for the grace of a beginner’s mind. The beginner’s mind is a posture of eagerness, of spiritual hunger. It knows it needs something. To acknowledge oneself as a beginner is to be open to transformation.

True #contemplation (prayer) looks for the place of perfect simplicity. You can’t stay there, but if you know this simplicity once, it is enough for a whole lifetime. You know your life is radically okay. That you are a child of God. You are in union. There is nothing to prove, nothing to attain. Everything is already there. Then instead of saying “I prayed” you can say “prayer happened”