Welcome to The PATH — A weekly reflection with three timeless insights for daily life. This week’s reflection searches for ancient lessons on the art of contemplation (Stillness, Awareness, and Thinking Well).
1. Stillness
What does it mean to practice stillness? Where does one begin the practice? How might the ancient practice help us to see ourselves, others, and the world? These are just a few of the questions this piece attempts to explore.
In Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment, the Dalai Lama explains,
In Buddhism, we talk about cultivating three types of wisdom; those arising through listening to teachings, contemplating their meaning, and meditating on the ascertained meaning. These three types of wisdom have to arise sequentially in our mindstream. Through listening to teachings, we gain understanding; through contemplation, we deepen this understanding; through meditation, we apply the teachings to ourselves—in other words, we engage in the practice.
The three types of wisdom tools (listening, contemplation, and meditation) reveal themselves across traditions. The Zen Monk Shunryu Suzuki (author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind) believed that before something happens in the realm of calmness, we do not feel tranquility; only when something happens within it do we find peace.
2. Awareness
“How shall I help myself? By withdrawing into the garret and associating with spiders and mice, determined to meet myself face to face sooner or later,” wrote the American essayist Henry David Thoreau. Stillness and contemplation have the power to increase our awareness and understanding of our place in the world. The theologian Thomas Merton put it this way in the classic New Seeds of Contemplation:
“The life of contemplation implies two levels of awareness: first, awareness of the question, and second, awareness of the answer. Though these are two distinct and enormously different levels, yet they are, in fact, an awareness of the same thing. The question is itself, the answer. And we ourselves are both. But we cannot know this until we have moved into the second kind of awareness. We awaken not to find an answer absolutely distinct from the question but to realize that the question is its own answer.”
Contemplative practices help us realize that our highest ambition is to be what we already are. Merton wrote, “I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”
Just as no one becomes wise by chance, no one cultivates the art of contemplation by chance. In Stillness is the Key, author Ryan Holiday writes, “Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections.”
3. Thinking Well
In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote: “Reason, and the art of thinking, are powers which are complete in themselves, and their special processes. They start from their internal principle and proceed to their appointed end.”
Similarly, the Buddha observed,
“I do not see even one other thing that, when untamed, unguarded, unprotected, and unrestrained, leads to such great harm as the mind.”
“I do not see even one other thing that, when tamed, guarded, protected, and restrained, leads to such great good as the mind.”
But, perhaps Seneca put it most succinct, “Everything hangs on one’s thinking.” Training the mind is essential for practicing wise discernment. One must discern their path in life, between virtue and vice, what is in our control and not in our control, and the list goes on. We even need to discern what actually matters and what doesn’t; as Marcus Aurelius advised, “Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.”
The art of thinking well and contemplation are intertwined. In Happiness and Contemplation, theologian Josef Pieper stressed, “Repose, leisure, and peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from the harried rush, mad pursuit, unrest, and necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation?”
—
Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
Im already subscribed im just got so much to read lol