Stillness Over Byzantium: The Four R's That Actually Transform You

A Contemplative Comparison Between Metropolitan Jonah and Thomas Keating

When Metropolitan Jonah taught the Four R's of Orthodox contemplative prayer, something clicked. For those of us who had sat through years of liturgies, theology classes, icon veneration, and endless debates about canons and jurisdiction, his words felt almost too simple. Too direct. Too familiar.

As someone who came through the path of Buddhism before Orthodoxy, I remember thinking: "Wait... I've been doing this for years." And that realization opened a door. Not to abandon Orthodoxy, but to recognize that the nous—the deep heart—isn’t the exclusive domain of any tradition. It's the human ground of communion with the Divine.

Metropolitan Jonah's Four R's (Orthodox Path)

These are rooted in the hesychastic tradition, designed to lead the practitioner to stillness (hesychia) and union with God through purification of the nous:

1. Reject the thought — Not by fighting it, but by simply letting it go. See the thought for what it is: a distraction. A temptation. A fragment.

2. Remember the Prayer — Return to the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." It's your anchor.

3. Refocus on God — Bring your attention back to Presence, not a mental image or theology, but God Himself.

4. Repeat if necessary — And it will be necessary. This is the work: falling and returning, falling and returning, without shame.

This is the practical framework of hesychasm, but here’s the shocker: most Orthodox never learn this. Not in catechism. Not in seminary. Not in confession. According to Metropolitan Jonah, this quiet, inner practice is more essential than all the liturgical performance, icon-kissing, and doctrinal precision that dominate the public face of Orthodoxy.

And of course, the hardliners accused him of ecumenism. But I doubt most of his critics had mastered prayer of the heart either. Because once you touch that level of stillness, you stop measuring truth by the walls it builds. You recognize it by the fruit it bears.

Jonah made the inner path so clear, it embarrassed people who'd spent decades hiding behind liturgical precision. From their perspective, anything that sounded too familiar to Catholic or Buddhist teaching had to be suspect. But from the perspective of the nous, it was just true.

The scandal of real prayer isn’t that it looks Buddhist or Catholic—it’s that it bypasses the gatekeepers who built their identity on guarding it.

That’s the paradox: the more universal the experience of deep prayer becomes, the more threatening it is to those whose identity depends on religious exclusivity. Contemplative practice doesn’t erase the uniqueness of a tradition—it fulfills it. But it also humbles it. The heart that has encountered God doesn’t need to defend God. It just abides.

And that’s what Jonah was pointing to. Not a hybrid spirituality. Not some new-age universalism. But the ancient Orthodox path of interior stillness, stripped of institutional noise. The same path the Fathers walked in the desert, just articulated in plain English.

Keating's Four R's (Centering Prayer)

Thomas Keating, in the Catholic contemplative renewal, taught a very similar framework, though with different emphasis:

1. Resist no thought — Let thoughts come. Don’t fight them.

2. Retain no thought — Let them pass. Don’t hold on.

3. React to no thought — Don’t follow them emotionally or narratively.

4. Return ever-so-gently to the sacred word — Use your sacred word (e.g. "peace," "Jesus") to return to your intention.

Keating often described thoughts as boats floating down a river. The task of the contemplative is not to stop the river, nor to analyze the boats—just to let them pass. If you notice you’ve “gotten on a boat”—in other words, followed a thought or engaged with it—then that’s when you gently use the sacred word to return to your intention.

In this light, step 3, “React to no thought,” aligns closely with the moment we realize we’ve boarded a boat. The sacred word becomes the signal to disembark and return.

It’s psychological in tone, disarming in approach, and profoundly effective. Instead of an ascetical struggle with logismoi (thoughts), it trains non-attachment through gentleness. Both aim at stillness. Both point to union. But their flavor reflects their lineage.

Centering Prayer emerged in the wake of Vatican II, when many Catholics were rediscovering the mystical tradition that had long been buried beneath layers of devotionalism and rigid doctrine. Keating's genius was in translating deep monastic wisdom into a form accessible to modern, often skeptical people. His method preserves the apophatic core of Christian mysticism—but it does so without demanding a full sacramental buy-in.

What you get, then, is something that sounds more Buddhist in tone, more therapeutic in feel, but is still aiming at that same still point: the silent presence of God.

Same Goal, Different Language

Whether you call it Centering Prayer or Hesychasm, both practices aim to rest in the nous—the spiritual center of the person. This is not the brain. Not the emotions. It is the place of inner stillness, the seat of watchfulness, the point of encounter with the uncreated energies of God.

The Jesus Prayer and Centering Prayer are not opposed. They are twin doors. And for many of us who moved through Buddhism, Orthodoxy, and beyond, it’s obvious: the deep work is shared. The form changes, the doctrine shifts, but the contemplative process is consistent.

Where you start may shape your language and symbolism. But where you end up—if you walk the path long enough—is silence, surrender, and the unnameable presence of God.

And if Metropolitan Jonah is right, then recovering these Four R's is more important than recovering Byzantium.

Because at the end of the day, it's not about which Church has the best liturgy, or whose iconography is more correct. It's about whether we’ve entered the heart. Whether we’ve made space for God to act. Whether we’ve consented to stillness long enough to be changed by it.

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