Oración Mental, Mindfulness and Mental Prayer: The Training of the Heart in the Iberian School of Abbot García de Cisneros of Montserrat and St Teresa of Avila

The article explores the practice of oración mental in the Iberian schools of the 16th Century ‘Golden Age’. It will focus in particular on the works of two authors: the Exercitatorio de la vida spiritual / Exercitatorium vite spiritualis of García Jiménez de Cisneros (1455 – 1510), abbot of Montserrat from 1493 – 1510 and El Libro de la Vida of St Teresa of Avila (1515 – 1582), reformer and first prioress of the Discalced Carmelite Order. The article argues that both present a notion of contemplation that deliberately circumvents the mental or cognitive faculties advocating something closer to a notion of ‘prayer of the heart’. Alongside these Iberian authors the article essays the Buddhist notion of sati, as recently popularised in the West as the practice of mindfulness. In juxtaposing the two practices it argues that oración mental, especially as presented by Cisneros and Teresa, may more fruitfully be translated by the term ‘mindfulness’ rather than the more usual and less helpful ‘mental prayer’.