The Christian Contemplative Tradition
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have a long tradition of teaching contemplation or nondual consciousness. But its systematic teaching was primarily held in the Eastern “Greek” church; the Western “Latin” church was more extroverted and aligned with empires.
Serious contemplative teaching—very upfront in the desert fathers and mothers—is surely found in Celtic Christianity (outside of empire), and is continued by leaders of many monasteries, for example, by John Cassian (360–435 CE), Pseudo-Dionysius (5th–6th centuries), and Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141) in Paris. Later mystics like Bonaventure (1221–1274), Francisco de Osuna (1497–1541), the unknown author of The Cloud of Unknowing (late 14th century), and 16th century mystics Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) and John of the Cross (1542–1591) also taught nondual consciousness. It held on much longer in the religious orders than the ordinary local church or with the common priest or bishop—whose ministry was an occupation more than a search for God or a “school for the Lord’s service,” as St. Benedict (480–547) described. [1]
Most Western mystics exemplified contemplation, as did Jesus, much more than they directly taught it. Maybe this is part of the reason many Christians lost it, and why good theological teaching and practice is now so important today. After the fights of the Reformation, and after the over-rationalization of the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment, many of us Western Christians became very defensive, wanting to prove we were smart and could win arguments with the new secularism. We imitated the rationalists while using pious Christian vocabulary. It took the form of heady Scholasticism and rote formulas in Catholicism, and led to fundamentalism and memorized Scripture verses providing their own kind of “rationalism” among many Protestants.
Catholic doctrines (such as transubstantiation, papal infallibility, and hierarchical authority) came to be presented in a largely academic and juridical way (or, for the sacraments, with an almost magical interpretation), as opposed to a contemplative or mystical way. Frankly, all of this inspired few and drove many away from Christianity. Most priests were educated this way until the much-needed reforms of Vatican II in the 1960s. Thomas Merton (1915–1968) was very influential in reintroducing contemplation to the West. Now it is again taught in Christian arenas all over the world under different names.
What we now call contemplation—a unique way of knowing—is a rediscovery of our earlier Christian practice. Basically, contemplation is the way you know and think of yourself when you are sincerely praying and present—as opposed to thinking, arguing, or proving.
As Archbishop Rowan Williams, former leader of the Anglican Church, told the Synod of Catholic Bishops in Rome:
Contemplation is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom—freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter. [2]
Despite centuries without systematic teaching of nondual consciousness, many seekers have now come to contemplation as the fruit of great suffering or great love. These are the quickest and most universal ways that God uses to destabilize the self-referential ego. Those transformed by life and grace come to enjoy the presence of God, others, and even themselves. They have connected with their deepest Source, an identity that goes far beyond ideas of right and wrong.
Great suffering, great love, and contemplative practice can instill in us “the same mind which is in Christ Jesus” (see Philippians 2:5-11, 4:4-7, and 1 Corinthians 2 and 3). Indeed, I believe contemplative, nondual consciousness is the mind of Christ.
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Renewal of Contemplative Christianity
Monday, September 17, 2018
In the 1950s and 1960s, Thomas Merton brought renewed interest to the contemplative tradition in the West. He became a Trappist monk and “left the world” for the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where he learned the lessons of contemplation and action.
Merton was spiritual director to James Finley, one of our CAC faculty members, for five and a half years. Finley recalls that when he voiced a complaint about something, Merton would tell him, “We don’t come to the monastery to get away from suffering; we come to hold the suffering of all the world.” [1] This can only be done by plugging into a larger consciousness through contemplation. No longer focused on our individual private perfection—or what Merton called “our personal salvation project”—we become fully human and usable by opening our hearts to God.
Through contemplation—holding the paradoxes of life—Merton struggled against “the evil [that] is in us all . . . [and] the blindness of a world that wants to end itself.” He fought against violence, war, racism, poverty, and consumerism. He wrote, “Those who continue to struggle are at peace. If God wills, they can pacify the world. For [the person] who accepts the struggle in the name of Christ is delivered from its power by the victory of Christ.” [2]
Many other modern mystics have brought awareness of and tools for contemplative practice to Western Christianity, from Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), Simone Weil (1909–1943), to current teachers such as Barbara Holmes and Mirabai Starr. Cynthia Bourgeault, who is herself a contemplative leader and a CAC faculty member, describes the origins of Centering Prayer and Christian meditation in the mid-1970s:
Thomas Keating [born 1923] and John Main (1926–1982) responded to Merton’s prophetic call, developing simple meditation methods solidly rooted in the Christian spiritual tradition and suitable for use not only within the cloister walls, but in a world hungry for the recovery of its spiritual roots. All three of these men recognized meditation not as a newfangled innovation, let alone the grafting onto Christianity of an Eastern practice, but rather, as something that had originally been at the very center of Christian practice and had become lost. [3
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YOU WILL NOT FIND MY PEACE by engaging in excessive planning, attempting to control what will happen to you in the future. That is a commonly practiced form of unbelief. When your mind spins with multiple plans, Peace may sometimes seem to be within your grasp; yet it always eludes you. Just when you think you have prepared for all possibilities, something unexpected pops up and throws things into confusion.
I did not design the human mind to figure out the future. That is beyond your capability. I crafted your mind for continual communication with Me. Bring Me all your needs, your hopes and fears. Commit everything into My care. Turn from the path of planning to the path of Peace.
1 PETER 5: 6– 7; 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
PROVERBS 16: 9; In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.
PSALM 37: 5 NKJV Commit[a] your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
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