Practitioners typically repeat the Jesus Prayer using a knotted prayer rope, called a komboskini in Greek usage or chotki in Russian usage, moving a knot between the fingers with each repetition rather than counting aloud. Many coordinate the phrase with breathing, saying the first half while inhaling and the second half while exhaling, though hesychast writers treat breath control as a support rather than the essence of the practice. Classical accounts describe stages of progress: the prayer begins as words on the lips, becomes a habit of the mind, and only with sustained practice descends, in hesychast language, into the heart, where it is said to continue beneath conscious attention.
Because untutored intensive repetition was understood to risk delusion, a condition called prelest, traditional teaching insists on a spiritual father or mother who can correct the practitioner's course, and most Orthodox guidance today still discourages taking up the prayer as an isolated technique divorced from that oversight. It remains part of ordinary lay devotion across Orthodox communities, said during work, travel or waiting rather than reserved for formal services, and its appeal as a discipline of continuous inward attention has drawn considerable interest from Christians outside Orthodoxy exploring contemplative prayer traditions.