Contemplation

Statue The Spirit of Contemplation by Albert Toft

Contemplation is profound thinking about something. In a religious sense, contemplation is usually a type of prayer or meditation.

Etymology

The word contemplation is derived from the Latin word contemplatio. Its root is also that of the Latin word templum, a piece of ground consecrated for the taking of auspices, or a building for worship, derived either from Proto-Indo-European base *tem- "to cut", and so a "place reserved or cut out",[1] or from the Proto-Indo-European base *temp- "to stretch", and thus referring to a cleared space in front of an altar.[2] The Latin word contemplatio was used to translate the Greek word θεωρία (theōría).

Greek philosophy

Contemplation was an important part of the philosophy of Plato; Plato thought that through contemplation the soul may ascend to knowledge of the Form of the Good or other divine Forms.[3] Plotinus as a (neo)Platonic philosopher also expressed contemplation as the most critical of components for one to reach henosis. To Plotinus the highest contemplation was to experience the vision of God, the Monad or the One. Plotinus describes this experience in his works the Enneads. According to his student Porphyry, Plotinus stated that he had this experience of God four times.[4] Plotinus wrote about his experience in Enneads 6.9.xx....

Islam

In Islamic tradition, it is said that Muhammad would go into the desert, climb a mountain known as Mount Hira, and seclude himself from the world. While on the mountain, he would contemplate life and its meaning.[5]

Christianity

A woman places rosary beads on a devotional image mounted on the wall beside her bed.[6] The Walters Art Museum.

In Eastern Christianity, contemplation (theoria) literally means to see God or to have the Vision of God.[note 1] The state of beholding God, or union with God, is known as theoria. The process of Theosis which leads to that state of union with God known as theoria is practiced in the ascetic tradition of Hesychasm. Hesychasm is to reconcile the heart and the mind into one thing (see nous).[note 2]

Contemplation in Eastern Orthodoxy is expressed in degrees as those covered in St John Climacus' Ladder of Divine Ascent. The process of changing from the old man of sin into the newborn child of God and into our true nature as good and divine is called Theosis.

This is to say that once someone is in the presence of God, deified with him, then they can begin to properly understand, and there "contemplate" God. This form of contemplation is to have and pass through an actual experience rather than a rational or reasoned understanding of theory (see Gnosis). Whereas with rational thought one uses logic to understand, one does the opposite with God (see also Apophatic theology).

Within Western Christianity contemplation is often related to mysticism as expressed in the works of mystical theologians such as Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross as well as the writings of Margery Kempe, Augustine Baker and Thomas Merton.[9] Dom Cuthbert Butler notes that contemplation was the term used in the Latin Church to refer to mysticism, and "'mysticism' is a quite modern word".[10]

Meditation

Nature contemplation

In Christianity, contemplation refers to a content-free mind directed towards the awareness of God as a living reality. This corresponds, in some ways, to what in Eastern religion is called samadhi.[11][12] Meditation, on the other hand, for many centuries in the Western Church, referred to more cognitively active exercises, such as visualizations of Biblical scenes or lectio divina – the practice of a slow, thoughtful, "savoring" reading of a Bible verse.[13]

Contemplation as a practice is finding greater resonance in the West both in business – for example, in Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization[14] – and in universities in fields as diverse as architecture, physics, and the liberal arts.

In Catholic Christianity, contemplation is given importance. The Catholic Church's "model theologian", St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: "It is requisite for the good of the human community that there should be persons who devote themselves to the life of contemplation." One of his disciples, Josef Pieper commented: "For it is contemplation which preserves in the midst of human society the truth which is at one and the same time useless and the yardstick of every possible use; so it is also contemplation which keeps the true end in sight, gives meaning to every practical act of life."[15]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos: "The vision of the uncreated light, which offers knowledge of God to man, is sensory and supra-sensory. The bodily eyes are reshaped, so they see the uncreated light, "this mysterious light, inaccessible, immaterial, uncreated, deifying, eternal", this "radiance of the Divine Nature, this glory of the divinity, this beauty of the heavenly kingdom" (3,1,22;CWS p.80). Palamas asks: "Do you see that light is inaccessible to senses which are not transformed by the Spirit?" (2,3,22). St. Maximus, whose teaching is cited by St. Gregory, says that the Apostles saw the uncreated Light "by a transformation of the activity of their senses, produced in them by the Spirit" (2.3.22).[7]
  2. ↑ pelagia.org: "Stillness of the body is a limiting of the body. "The beginning of hesychia is godly rest" (3). The intermediate stage is that of "illuminating power and vision; and the end is ecstasy or rapture of the nous towards God" (4). St. John of the Ladder, referring to outward, bodily stillness, writes: "The lover of stillness keeps his mouth shut" (5). But it is not only those called neptic Fathers who mention and describe the holy atmosphere of hesychia, it is also those known as "social". Actually in the Orthodox tradition there is no direct opposition between theoria and praxis, nor between the neptic and social Fathers. The neptics are eminently social and those in community are unimaginably neptic."[8]

References

  1. ↑ templum
  2. ↑ Online Etymological Dictionary
  3. ↑ Plato: Critical Assessments, Nicholas D. Smith, Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0-415-12605-3
  4. ↑ See the Life of Plotinus
  5. ↑ Bogle, Emory C. (1998). Islam: Origin and Belief. Texas University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0-292-70862-9.
  6. ↑ "Devotion (Contemplation)". The Walters Art Museum.
  7. ↑ Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos (2005), Orthodox Psychotherapy, section The Knowledge of God according to St. Gregory Palamas. Birth of Theotokos Monastery, Greece, ISBN 978-960-7070-27-2
  8. ↑ pelagia.org, [http://www.pelagia.org/htm/b02.en.orthodox_psychotherapy.05.htm Orthodox Psychotherapy, section on Stillness and Prayer.
  9. ↑ "Contemplation", Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent. Retrieved March 19, 2008.
  10. ↑ Western Mysticism: Augustine, Gregory and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life, by Dom Cuthbert Butler. Dover: Mineola, NY, 2003, p.4.
  11. ↑ , samannaphala sutta Digha-Nikaya-2
  12. ↑ , Patanjali, Yoga Sutras
  13. ↑ A contemporary discussion of differences between meditatio and contemplatio is available in Father Thomas Keating's book on contemplative centering prayer, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel (1986) ISBN 0-8264-0696-3. Brief descriptions of centering prayer and lectio divina are available online at http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/.
  14. ↑ The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge, Currency, 2006. ISBN 0-385-51725-4
  15. ↑ "Says Pope a Universal Voice for the World", Carrie Gross, February 1, 2008, Zenit.org.

Further reading

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