What is contemplation?
Contemplation is the practice of being with our Life, a way of trust in our essential Self. Learning to be present in this way requires us to develop a witnessing awareness, allowing us to experience our discursive thoughts and sense perceptions in a new way. ‘The way of no way’, as this practice is often know, is not anti-intellectual, but is grounded in the understanding that ultimate reality, the universal Spirit, is always present in our lives.

We can say that contemplation is a deep restful confidence, an activity of love as an embodied process, whereby fear, worry, and anxiety give way to compassion and intimacy.

“A transition is being made to a new level of consciousness in which knowing is not mediated by the sense or intellect, but by a direct intuitive vision. It is a loving awareness that knows nothing and wants nothing”. -W. Jagger

Contemplation is an attitude, not a technique
Contemplation is the practice of willingness; the willingness to be intimately attuned to our life and the world, through:

Developing a capacity to be inside our life, rather than avoiding it
Practice: ‘Just This’ practicing our life in all circumstances and conditions.
Establishing patience and faith
Connecting to our environment

“I say, as I have often said before, so far as the soul’s created nature goes, there is no such thing as truth. I say there is something higher than the soul’s created nature. But some priests cannot understand how there can be anything so nearly akin to God, and so One. It has nothing in common with anything. All that is created or creaturely is alien. It is a single one in itself, and takes in nothing from outside”. Meister Eckhart.