Sep 092010
 

If you find your intellect wanders,
then reading, night-time vigils, and prayer will bring it to stillness.
Fasting, hard manual work, and quiet solitude calm the fires of desire.
To calm your restlessness, sit and recite the book of psalms,
and have pity and compassion on all those around you.
If you do excessive and inappropriate exercises
it will all come to grief very quickly,
and this will cause you more harm than good.


— Evagrios of Pontus, Texts on Watchfulness, found in The Book of Mystical Chapters, translated & introduced by John Anthony McGuckin



  2 Responses to “Some advice”

  1. Where was it, again, that you were planning to build that monastery?

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