THOUGHTS IN CONTEMPLATION[1]

            In contemplation, the only work that we do is to let go of thoughts. Everything else that happens is by grace. In contemplation, “thoughts” refers to anything other than the focus of God’s presence and activity within us, and includes ideas, feelings, memories, mental images, sense perceptions, bodily sensations, etc.

Thomas Keating, in his book Open Mind, Open Heart,[2] notes that there are five kinds of thoughts that we will ordinarily deal with in the course of contemplation: 

(1)        The ordinary wanderings of the mind. “I should do the wash today”; “I wonder what I can get my spouse for their birthday”; “The birds are singing”; “I wonder if it’s going to rain”. In dealing with these kinds of thoughts, we welcome them into consciousness, then we let them go. We don’t get frustrated that we have thoughts. The point in contemplation is not to have no thoughts, but to not become attached to any thoughts and follow them down some path away from our focus.

(2)        Emotionally charged thoughts. These are thoughts that get us emotionally involved. “I’m still ticked at that driver who cut me off this morning; I should have …”; “The kids have been so naughty lately; I feel like such a failure as a parent; maybe I should …”. We register liking or disliking with these kinds of thoughts; we engage with them; we may even make plans to change things. And there we are off, or sometimes way off, down a path away from our focus. Again, our response is to notice where we’ve gone, let go of the whole package of thinking in which we have been engaged, and return to the focus (using the centring word if that helps). We don’t try fighting these thoughts - or any thoughts, for that matter. That just results in more thoughts. This is also not the time to try to deal with any situation we may have mentally wandered into by doing things like identifying and repenting of any sin or judgments involved, forgiving offenders and cutting soul ties, etc. We may choose to do that later, but for now, that would be further engagement in something other than the focus, so we just let it all go without any further action. Also, it may be helpful to remember that our mind can be very busy but our other faculties (will, spirit) may be deeply engaged with God. If this is so, then at the same time that we are aware of the busyness of our mind, we will also be aware of a well of calm and well-being deep within us. This is good. This is the start of a contemplative lifestyle, where we live in the exterior world but part of us remains in communion with God.

(3)        Insights and psychological breakthroughs. We suddenly realize how some problem in our life can be solved; we have an overwhelming urge to pray for someone; we have some great psychological insight into our past. If we pursue things like that, we will be like a friend we are conversing with who interrupts what we are saying in order to share some great idea of their own. The interruption leaves us feeling unheard and devalued. Do we really want to be doing that to God? If our insights have genuine value, we’ll remember them later and can pursue them then. However, it sometimes happens that later, what we thought was so great an idea in our time of contemplation, proves to be, when we come to consider it further, not so great at all. It was just a distraction. Either way - valuable or not - such thoughts are distractions from our time with God and should be let go so that we can continue to give our full attention to what is so much better - God Himself.

(4)        Self-reflections. These kinds of thoughts often come as we sink into the stillness of just being. Suddenly we find ourself thinking: “I’m finally getting it”; “This peace is so wonderful”; “I wonder how I got here and if I can do it again tomorrow”; “Too bad I can’t put this moment in a bottle and keep it forever”; “Look at me, God; look at what I can do”; “Wait til I tell my spouse about this experience”. Next thing we know, we’re not in that place anymore. In such a case, we need to remember patience and once more let go even of thoughts of this wonderful experience and return to the focus. On this point, a word of caution about our tendency to want to reflect on our contemplative experiences may be in order. We need to be careful about trying to put contemplative experience into words or thoughts of any kind. Remember that contemplation is about knowing the unknowable - God as He is. If we try to put that into words, we will have to significantly reduce the experience. Why would we want to do that? Mostly these experiences are best kept in silence if we want to preserve the fullness of them. If we try to tell someone else, we may find ourself going from feeling full of divine blessing to feeling quite deflated and wonder why. This is why. As Thomas Keating says: “The awareness of God is shot through with awe, reverence, love, and delight all at once.”[3] How could we ever hope to put such an experience into words and then communicate it to someone who has never had that same experience? So why do we find ourselves just bursting at times to tell? Often the reason we want to reduce our contemplative experiences to words is that we have not yet overcome our deep sense of separation from God that was our inheritance from Adam and Eve’s original sin. So we try to possess and hold tight to everything good - like the Israelites who couldn’t quite believe that God would give them manna every day. So they tried to gather enough to horde “for a rainy day”. But what they discovered next day was that what they had stored away had spoiled. On the other hand, new, fresh manna was there for the taking. Similarly, if we as Christians live in the illusion of still being separated from God in some way, we tend to think of our new spiritual experiences of God in contemplation as rare and needing to be preserved in some way. So we think on them and carefully tuck them into our memory banks. Then, we think, at a later time, when there are no new experiences of Him, we can take out our saved experiences and perhaps console ourselves with our memory of “the day when …”. But this is all lies. We are no longer separated from God, but one with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17),[4] and His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22b-23).[5] There is always “manna” from God for us to eat. As a new contemplative, you are on your way to discovering that.

(5)        Thoughts that arise from the unloading of the unconscious. This will be the topic of the next reading - “Contemplation and Healing”. 

exercises 

Days 77 to 79 

Take 30 minutes a day to practise centring prayer/contemplation as outlined in Lesson 21.