Breath as Prayer: Ānāpānasati, Hesychasm and Dhikr

We breathe about twenty thousand times a day, almost always without noticing. Precisely because it is continuous, unobtrusive and bound up with life itself, the breath has become, in many traditions, a support for prayer and for presence. This article compares three very different paths: awareness of breathing in Buddhism, the hesychasm of Orthodox Christianity and the dhikr of Sufi Islam. It then touches briefly on India and China.

Buddhism: attention to the breath

In early Buddhism the practice is called ānāpānasati, a Pāli term made up of āna (in-breath), apāna (out-breath) and sati (mindfulness, mental presence). The key text is the Ānāpānasati Sutta, discourse 118 of the Majjhima Nikāya, one of the collections of the Pāli Canon.

The discourse describes a monk who sits down in a secluded place, keeps his body upright and observes the breath without forcing it. He knows when he breathes in long and when he breathes in short. From here a path of sixteen steps unfolds, grouped into four sets:

the body: perceiving the long and short breath, the whole body, the calming of bodily activity;
feelings: the joy (pīti) and the ease (sukha) that may arise;
the mind (citta): knowing it, gladdening it, collecting it, freeing it;
phenomena: contemplating impermanence (anicca), dispassion, cessation, letting go.

The decisive point is that here there is no one to turn to. The breath is not an invocation but an object of attention. It serves to calm the mind and, above all, to see clearly that everything that arises passes away. According to the sutta, this practice brings to fulfilment the four foundations of mindfulness and the seven factors of awakening (bojjhaṅga).

Hesychasm: the prayer of the heart

In Orthodox Christianity the path of inner stillness is called hesychasm, from the Greek hēsychía, "stillness, silence". At its centre is the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." Some versions add "a sinner".

The formula has roots in the Gospels: the cry of the blind man of Jericho, "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!" (Luke 18:38), and the prayer of the tax collector, "O God, have mercy on me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13). Underlying it, too, is Paul's call to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

The teachings of the hesychast masters are gathered in the Philokalia, an anthology published in Venice in 1782 by Nicodemus the Hagiorite and Macarius of Corinth. Some texts, including those of Nicephorus the Hesychast (13th century), describe how to unite prayer with the breath. The first half of the formula is said while breathing in and the second while breathing out, with the attention "descending" from the mind into the heart. In the 19th century The Way of a Pilgrim brought this practice to a wider public.

The tradition insists on one point, however: the breathing technique is secondary. What matters is the invocation addressed to a Person, lived in humility and within the life of the Church. For this reason it is recommended not to practise the more intense forms without a spiritual guide.

Sufi dhikr: the remembrance of God

In Islam the Arabic term dhikr means "remembrance", "mention". The Qur'an returns to it several times: "Remember Me and I will remember you" (2:152); "in the remembrance of Allah hearts find rest" (13:28); "remember Allah often" (33:41).

The Sufis, the mystics of Islam, made dhikr a regular practice. They repeat the profession of faith lā ilāha illā Llāh ("there is no god but God"), the name Allāh, the pronoun Hū ("He") or others of the ninety-nine "beautiful names" (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā). Dhikr can be said aloud (jalī), often in communal gatherings, or in silence (khafī).

The breath often plays an explicit role in it. The Naqshbandi order, for example, counts among its principles the Persian expression hūsh dar dam, "awareness in the breath": no breath should pass in distraction, that is, in forgetfulness of God. In some forms of dhikr the final sound of the divine name coincides with the out-breath, as if every breath became its echo.

Two brief notes: India and China

In the Indian tradition prāṇāyāma, from the Sanskrit prāṇa (vital breath) and āyāma (extension, control), is the fourth of the eight "limbs" of yoga described in Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras (2:49-51). Unlike ānāpānasati, here the breath is actively regulated.

In Taoism the breath is linked to qi, vital energy. The Zhuangzi (chapter 6) states that "the true man breathes from his heels", an image of depth and stillness. Later, practices such as "embryonic breathing" developed.

Similarities and differences

The three main paths have much in common:

they use the breath to unify body and mind;
they aim at a continuous practice, not limited to one moment of the day;
they call for simplicity, repetition and patience;
they recommend an experienced guide.

The underlying difference, however, is clear-cut. Ānāpānasati is attention without a divine object: it observes and knows. Hesychasm and dhikr, by contrast, are invocation of a personal God: they call upon and remember Someone. The name matters too: for the hesychast it is the name of Jesus, for the Sufi the names of God revealed in the Qur'an.

Some scholars have suggested historical contacts between hesychasm and Sufism, given the similarity of their methods. This is, however, a debated question with no conclusive evidence. Many prefer to speak of parallel developments, born of the same human experience of breathing.

What we can take from this

These traditions remind us that the inner life does not necessarily require complex tools. Something we always carry with us is enough. Each of them, however, gives the breath its own meaning. Respecting them means not mixing them superficially and not detaching the techniques from their context of faith.

Here is a simple exercise, which you can adapt to your own sensibility:

Sit comfortably, with your back upright, for five minutes.
Observe the breath as it is, without changing it.
If you belong to a tradition, you can entrust a short word of your prayer to the breath. Otherwise, simply notice the in-breath and the out-breath.
When you realise you have become distracted, return to the breath gently.
Finish by remaining in silence for a few moments.

There is no need to look for results. It is enough to remember, now and then, that you are breathing.

Breath as prayer: ānāpānasati, hesychasm and dhikr