In parallel with mental discipline, we must learn to have a peaceful body. The body responds to all our mental activity, and, on the other hand, our bodily state to a certain extent determines the type and nature of our mental activity. In his advice to those wishing to enter the spiritual life, Theophan the Recluse says that one of the indispensable conditions for success is never to allow bodily softening; be like a violin string tuned to a certain note, without relaxation or overexertion; Keep your body straight, shoulders pulled back, let the head sit freely, keep all muscles tense to the heart.

Much has been written and said about how the body can be used to develop the faculty of attention; but on a public level, Theophanes' advice seems simple, precise, and practical. One must learn to be collected without tension. We must control our body in such a way that it does not interfere with our concentration, but contributes to it.

Thinking about God is the activity of thought, while prayer is the rejection of all thought. According to the teaching of the Eastern Fathers, even pious thoughts and the deepest and most sublime theological reflections, if they arise during prayer, should be treated as temptations and driven away; for, say the Fathers, it is foolish to think of God and forget that you are in His presence. All the spiritual mentors of Orthodoxy warn us against substituting reflections on Him for this encounter with God. Prayer in its essence is standing before God face to face, with a conscious desire to be collected and completely calm and attentive in His presence; it means standing with an undivided mind, an undivided heart, and an undivided will in the presence of the Lord; And it's not easy. Whatever our training gives us, there is always a certain vulnerability: non-separation can only be achieved by those for whom the love of God is all those who have broken all bonds, who have given themselves entirely to God; then there is no more personal effort, but only the action of the radiant grace of God.

When we are emotionally affected, extraneous thoughts do not arise because we are completely absorbed in what we are praying for; and only when we move on to praying for another person or another need, our attention is suddenly scattered; this means that it was not the thought of God, not the feeling of His presence, that was the reason for such concentration, but our human sympathy. This does not mean that human concern is unimportant, but it does mean that the thought of a friend can do more than the thought of God. And this is very serious.

One of the reasons we find it so difficult to be attentive is that our act of faith in affirming "God is here" means too little to us. We are mentally aware that God is here, but we do not respond to it physically in such a way that all our forces, thoughts, feelings, and will are concentrated and gathered in one focus, so that we turn our attention entirely to it. If we prepare for prayer through the process of imagination – "Christ is here, this is what He is, this is what I know about Him, this is what He means to me..." – then the richer the image, the less real the presence. We can get help from this for some emotional focus, but it is not God's presence, not the real, objective presence of God.

The early Fathers and the entire Orthodox tradition teach us that we must concentrate our willpower on the words of prayer that are being spoken. We must say them carefully, in essence, without trying to evoke any emotional state, and letting God awaken in us the response of which we are capable.

St. John of the Ladder offers an easy way to learn focus. He says: choose a prayer, the Lord's Prayer or any other, stand before God, be imbued with the consciousness of where you are and what you are doing, and carefully pronounce the words of the prayer. After a while you will notice that your thoughts are wandering, then begin to pray again with the words that you last pronounced attentively. You may have to do it ten, twenty, or fifty times; perhaps in the time allotted for prayer you will be able to pronounce only three petitions and will not move further; but in this struggle you will be able to concentrate on the words, so that you will offer to God seriously, soberly, reverently the words of prayer, in which the consciousness participates, and not the offering, which is not yours, because your consciousness did not participate in it.

St. John of the Ladder also advises us to read the prayer we have chosen slowly, evenly, slowly enough to enclose our attention in words, but not so slowly that this exercise becomes boring; and to do this without trying to experience any feelings, because our goal is a relationship with God: when we come to God, we should never try to squeeze any emotions out of our hearts; prayer is a statement, everything else depends on God.

With this method of teaching, prayer is given a certain time, and if the prayer is attentive, then the duration of this time does not matter. If you were to read three pages of a prayer rule, and half an hour later you saw that you were still reading the first twelve words, it would certainly make you feel discouraged; Therefore, it is best to have a certain time and stick to it.

St. John of the Ladder educated dozens of monks only by this simple method: a strictly defined time and merciless attention – nothing more.

The outward beauty of the divine services should not carry us away to the point of forgetting that in Orthodoxy sobriety is a very essential property of prayer. In "Frank Tales of a Pilgrim" the village priest gives a very important piece of advice about prayer: if you want your prayer to be pure, correct and joyful, choose some short prayer consisting of not a few, but powerful words, and repeat it often, over a long period of time. Then you will find consolation in prayer. The same idea can be found in the "Letters of Brother Lawrence": "I do not advise you to talk too much in prayer, since verbosity and long speeches often lead to absent-mindedness"[4].

Father John of Kronstadt was asked how priests, despite all their experience, are absent-minded and allow extraneous thoughts even during the celebration of the Liturgy. The answer was: "Because of our lack of faith." We do not have enough faith if we understand faith with the Apostle Paul as the assurance of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). But it would be a mistake to think that all distracting thoughts come from our own depths: it is our incessant inner preoccupation that comes to the surface, the very thoughts that usually fill our lives; And the only way to finally get rid of unworthy thoughts is to radically change our entire attitude to life. And again, as Brother Lawrence writes in his eighth letter, "the only way to easily gather one's mind during prayer and keep it more calm is not to allow it to wander at other times; you must strictly keep it in the presence of God, and being accustomed to think of God often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm during prayer, or at least to bring it back from its wanderings."

As long as we are deeply affected by all the trivialities of everyday life, we will not be able to pray with all our hearts; they will always color the flow of our thoughts. The same must be said of our daily relationships with human beings: these relationships should not consist of mere idle chatter, but should be based on what is essential in each of us, otherwise we may not be able to rise to another level when we turn to God. We must eradicate all that is insignificant and trivial in ourselves and in our relationships with people, and concentrate on what we can take with us into eternity.

It is impossible to become a different person from the moment we start praying. But by carefully observing your thoughts, you can gradually learn to discern their value. During prayer, those thoughts in which we are immersed in our daily life irresistibly break through. Prayer, on the other hand, changes and enriches our daily lives, becoming the basis for a new and authentic relationship with God and the people around us.