Being and Doing: What Centering Prayer Teaches

If you practice centering prayer, you already know the dance between being and doing. You sit in silence, consenting to God’s presence. That’s being. But when thoughts arise—and they always do—you gently return to your sacred word. That’s doing. Not much doing, just a whisper of intention, a soft returning. But it’s doing nonetheless.

The practice works because being and doing aren’t opposites. They’re partners.

What Happens in the Prayer

In centering prayer, you’re not trying to empty your mind or stop your thoughts. You’re learning a different way of relating to them. A thought arises—your to-do list, a worry, a memory—and you don’t fight it. You simply notice it’s there, and gently return to your sacred word.

Notice. Return. Notice. Return.

That gentle returning is doing. But it emerges from being—from your fundamental openness to God’s presence within you.

This is what Thomas Keating meant when he said centering prayer isn’t about getting rid of thoughts but about changing our relationship to them. You’re learning that you don’t have to chase every thought, engage every worry, or solve every problem that floats through your awareness.

You can simply let them pass, like boats on a river, while you remain present to Something deeper.

What This Teaches About Life

Here’s what surprised me after years of centering prayer: the practice wasn’t just teaching me how to pray. It was teaching me how to live. That same quality of gentle noticing and returning? It works in daily life too.

You’re in a meeting and your mind starts racing toward the next task. Notice. Gently return to presence, to this meeting, to these people.

You’re washing dishes and treating it like just another chore to get through. Notice. Gently return to the experience—the warm water, the simple service, this moment.

Someone says something that triggers defensiveness and you feel the familiar reaction rising. Notice. Pause. Return to your deeper intention—to listen, to understand, to respond from love rather than react from fear. Sacred Noticing is centering prayer extended into the rest of your day.

The Same Gentle Movement

In centering prayer: Thought arises → Notice → Gently return to sacred word
In Sacred Noticing: Stimulus arises → Notice → Pause → Respond from presence

See the similarity? Both practices involve the same fundamental movement—a gentle returning to presence when you’ve drifted into autopilot. A soft choosing of being even in the midst of doing.

The miracle of centering prayer isn’t that thoughts stop coming. They don’t. The miracle is that you learn you don’t have to be controlled by them. You can notice them and choose something deeper—presence, openness, consent to God’s action within you.

The miracle of Sacred Noticing is the same. The tasks don’t stop coming. The to-do list doesn’t disappear. But you learn you don’t have to be controlled by the tyranny of productivity. You can notice what’s present and choose to engage your life from being, not just doing.

Both Require Doing

Here’s what people sometimes miss: even centering prayer involves doing.

You choose to sit. You choose your sacred word. You choose to return to it, again and again, with the gentlest intention. It’s minimal doing—a whisper, not a shout—but it’s doing nonetheless.

This is the integration: Being doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means doing from a different place—from presence, from openness, from consent rather than control. In prayer, you consent to God’s presence and action within. That consent is both being (receptive openness) and doing (active choice to return when thoughts pull you away).

In daily life, you consent to each moment as it is, bringing that same quality of receptive presence to whatever needs doing. The dishes still need washing. The email still needs sending. The difficult conversation still needs to happen. But you’re there; actually there, while it’s happening.

The Practice Extends Itself

Centering prayer taught me I could sit for twenty minutes in receptive silence, gently returning to presence whenever I drifted. That was revolutionary. Sacred Noticing taught me I could bring that same quality of gentle returning into the rest of my day. That was life-changing.

• You’re making coffee—notice you’re lost in planning, gently return to the experience of making coffee.
• You’re talking to your spouse—notice you’re formulating your response instead of listening, gently return to presence with them.
• You’re walking to your car—notice you’re already three tasks ahead, gently return to the walk itself, the air, the light, your body moving.

Same gentle movement. Same patient returning. Same integration of being and doing.

The Gift of Both

What centering prayer gives you in the silence, Sacred Noticing gives you in the noise.

• Both teach you that being isn’t separate from doing. Being is what makes your doing human, conscious, alive.
• Both teach you that you don’t have to control everything. You can trust the gentle returning, the patient practice, the accumulated moments of choosing presence.
• Both teach you that the spiritual life isn’t somewhere else, in some other moment when things are quieter or holier or more perfect. It’s here, in this moment, with these tasks, in this ordinary life.

The sacred word in centering prayer isn’t magic. It’s just a way back to presence when you’ve drifted. Sacred Noticing isn’t magic either. It’s just the same way back, extended into the rest of your day.

Notice. Return. Notice. Return.

In prayer and in life, being and doing dance together. And both are sacred.

Pause for Thought:
The gentle returning you practice in centering prayer—what if that same movement could inform every moment of your day?

Michael Cunningham, OFS
spiritualbreak.com