For example, it may involve specific body postures, and be accompanied by very deliberate breathing patterns. It involves acquiring an inner stillness, ignoring the physical senses. The hesychasts interpreted Christ's injunction in the Gospel of Matthew to "go into your closet to pray", to mean that they should ignore sensory input and withdraw inwards to pray. It often includes many repetitions of the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.". While some might compare it with a Mantra, to use the Jesus Prayer in this fashion is to violate its purpose. One is to never treat it as a string of syllables for which the "surface" meaning is secondary. Likewise, hollow repetition is considered to be worthless (or worse than worthless) in the hesychast tradition.
Saint Theophan the Recluse once related that body postures and breathing techniques were virtually forbidden in his youth, since, instead of gaining the Spirit of God, people succeeded only "in ruining their lungs."
