What Not to Do on Your Way To Pray

My grandmother used to suffer from high blood pressure - it runs in the family.  There is a old family legend that one time, she went to see her doctor for a routine check up and the doctor was shocked by the normal, regular read on he BP and was rather puzzled as to what caused the significant drop in tension.  After asking a list of questions about her diet and exercise, the doctor isolated that the only significant change in her routine was that her copy of the New York Times did not arrive at her house that morning.

One of the hardest parts of teaching davening is helping to guide students on how to focus their mind when the room is quiet. When there is a song, it is easy to make noise or hum the tune to feel the moment or the meaning. But when the atmosphere is still, and you have only the thoughts in your head, it can be awfully difficult to quiet the mind. 

One suggestion that I just read about was to be reorient oneself as you prepare to go daven and gain more kavanah.  It is easy to see that before physical exercise you need to stretch and warm up, then is this not also the case for a spiritual workout?  The Rambam in his Laws of Prayer (4:16) asks, "How does one concentrate, and what constitutes proper intentions?  One should empty his heart of all (foreign) thoughts and view himself as if standing in front on of the Shechinah (divine presence).  Therefore, one must settle in a little before the tefilla in order to enable his heart to concentrate, and thereafter pray in peace and supplication."

This follows on the previous post of pausing - the need to really be ready to connect to something on a different level than you normally operate.  There is a minyan at my office for mincha and sometimes I have a hard time joining because I cannot immediately breakaway from the work activity I was doing just previously.  Perhaps this is like having high blood pressure, but you need to remember that there is always a natural way to control one's tension - you just need isolate the primary cause.

Pausing

In trying to share the best practices for teaching kids how to daven I find that the my constant davening is a great way to experiment.

While in shul this past Shabbat, I wandered across a small Artscroll book Praying with Joy 2.  Now I felt guilty for scanning this book during davening as well as having skipped volume 1.  Nonetheless, this work by Rabbi Daniel Yakov Travis offers daily does of inspiration, midrashim, and laws to help one improve their tefilla.  Interesting enough that the first chapters dealt with pausing and mediation.  I think the idea of pausing really can make in impact in one's tefilla for isn't the entire enterprise of davening a way of pausing life to consider one's needs, wants, and blessings?  By advocating that one pauses before a bracha or the recitation of Gd's name, it pushes the davener to get off the automatic replaying of words and adds a level of forced concentration.  It is harder than you think.  I am having trouble getting a perfect 19 out 19 when I daven!

While on the topic of mediation and training the mind to focus while davening, I wanted to let readers know that I have begun to participate in the Open Heart Project.  I am not usually "into" these kind of things but I thought I would try out this twice weekly email newsletter of content and resources that help share mediation practices.  Let's see how it goes and I am likely to share the best and worst of it.