Contemplative Practice

not every type of contemplative practice is suited for inducing changes in emotional aspects of one’s self-concept. First, practices … forming the core of typical mindfulness-based intervention programs … are not sufficient to alter the emotional content of the self-concept

This passage argues that contemplative practices are functionally differentiated—mindfulness and socio-affective training alone cannot restructure the emotional self-concept, whereas perspective-taking modalities (specifically IFS-based inquiry) can.

Schwartz, Richard C, Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1995thesis

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You must be governed by both ascetic practice and contemplation. Otherwise you will be like a ship voyaging without the right sails: either it risks being overturned by the violence of the winds because its sails are too large, or it fails to take advantage of the breeze because they are too small.

The Philokalia insists that ascetic practice and contemplation are mutually regulating disciplines; neither alone constitutes the complete spiritual life, and imbalance in either direction produces characteristic failures.

Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis

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An awareness practice, such as meditation or inner contemplative inquiry, is helpful for developing the capacity to witness what we are doing without becoming caught up in judging it as good or bad.

Welwood positions contemplative practice as the foundational method for cultivating non-judgmental witness-consciousness, which is the necessary precondition for genuine self-knowledge and personality transformation.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000thesis

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To think that practice and enlightenment are not one is a non-Buddhist view. In the Buddha-dharma they are one. Inasmuch as practice now is based on enlightenment, the practice of a beginner is itself the whole of original enlightenment.

Drawing on Dogen, this passage advances the non-dual claim that contemplative practice does not produce enlightenment as a future outcome but already embodies it, collapsing the instrumental logic underlying most stage-based models.

Cooper, Seiso Paul, Zen Insight, Psychoanalytic Action: Two Arrows Meeting, 2019thesis

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mindfulness practice is not yet the totally relaxed nondoing of Dzogchen, for it still requires some effort of stepping back (from identification) and witnessing. Mindfulness practice provides a transitional step between reflection and nondual presence, incorporating elements of both.

Welwood constructs a graduated phenomenology of contemplative practice, distinguishing mindfulness as an intermediate discipline that bridges conceptual reflection and the fully non-dual awareness of Dzogchen.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000thesis

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concentration in stillness and active contemplation are regarded as complementary procedures. Certain exercises have traditionally been employed in Taoist practice to clarify, unify, and stabilize the mind so as to achieve the attunement represented as embodiment of Heaven and Earth.

The Taoist I Ching frames contemplative practice as a restorative technology aimed at reversing mental fragmentation and restoring the mind’s original undivided unity, with stillness and active contemplation treated as complementary rather than opposed modes.

Thomas Cleary, Liu Yiming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986thesis

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The three most comprehensive virtues of the soul are prayer, silence and fasting. Thus you should refresh yourself with the contemplation of created realities when you relax from prayer; with conversation about the life of virtue when you relax from silence.

The Philokalia presents contemplation of created realities as a restorative counterpart to prayer within a structured economy of spiritual practice, embedding contemplative activity within a larger ascetic discipline rather than isolating it as an autonomous practice.

Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995thesis

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Meditation doesn’t change the mind; it illuminates it. As we work with our mind, learning to witness its thoughts, beliefs, dreams, and interplay with our body and emotions, we are, in effect, cleaning house, immersing ourselves in the ever-fresh mystery of Being.

Masters distinguishes between transformation and illumination as the proper aim of meditative practice, arguing that the contemplative function is not to alter mental contents but to render them transparent to awareness.

Masters, Robert Augustus, Spiritual Bypassing When Spirituality Disconnects Us From, 2012thesis

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Singer and her colleagues recently completed a study called the ReSource Project, which included more than 300 participants in a 9-month mental training program that consisted of three modules… In the first module (called Presence) participants were trained in traditional mindfulness meditation.

This passage situates contemplative practice within empirical neuroscientific research, demonstrating that the field now operationalizes and tests specific contemplative modalities—mindfulness, loving-kindness, and perspective-taking—as distinguishable interventions with differential outcomes.

Schwartz, Richard C, Internal Family Systems Therapy, 1995supporting

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especially if one sharpens one’s attention through meditation, one may glimpse this ineffable, nonspecifiable, omnipotential open awareness that underlies specific mind-states.

Welwood argues that meditative sharpening of attention provides access to the open ground of awareness underlying all particular mental states, a dimension unavailable to ordinary discursive consciousness.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000supporting

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It was only in turning to the meditative traditions that I came to appreciate the unconditional goodness at the core of being human, and this in turn helped me understand the possibility of unconditional love and its role in the healing process.

Welwood testifies that contemplative traditions supplied what Western therapeutic psychology lacked—a grounded phenomenology of intrinsic goodness—thereby reorienting his understanding of the therapist’s unconditional positive regard.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000supporting

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the life of ascetic practice and the contemplative life, which in relation to the intellect are accidents or attributes. Hence they share completely in the experience of the intellect, because it is the intellect’s mobility that produces in them any modification which they undergo.

The Philokalia’s Third Century establishes a precise philosophical relationship between the intellect and contemplative life, treating the latter as an attribute of the intellect whose transformations are entirely conditioned by the intellect’s own movements.

Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting

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the practice of the virtues and contemplation, which he holds together without allowing the one to be in the least disjoined from the other: his actions manifest his contemplative knowledge and his contemplation is protected equally by the intelligence and by the practice of the virtues.

The Philokalia Volume 2 articulates the classical hesychast principle that contemplative knowledge and virtuous action are mutually constitutive and must never be severed, with each providing the condition of possibility for the other.

Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 2, 1981supporting

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My daily practice and that which I teach to others is mainly that of a contemplative in the world, and all the intricacies that such encompasses. Regardless of where or how one begins, a regular practice must be enjoined.

Estés proposes contemplation as a world-engaged daily discipline integral to individuation, insisting that its regularity and concentration—rather than any particular tradition—constitute its essential character.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph D, Women Who Run With the Wolves Myths and Stories of the Wild, 2017supporting

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The ultimate practice here is learning to remain fully present and awake in the middle of whatever thoughts, feelings, perceptions, or sensations are occurring and to appreciate them, in Mahamudra/Dzogchen terms, as dharmakaya.

Welwood frames the summit of contemplative practice in Mahamudra and Dzogchen terms—the recognition of all arising experience as the luminous expression of awareness itself—dissolving the duality between practice and realization.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000supporting

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The ‘gift of listening’ is based on the ability to grant deep, contemplative attention—which remains inaccessible to the hyperactive ego.

Han diagnoses the disappearance of contemplative attention as a structural consequence of the hyperactive achievement society, framing the capacity for deep attentiveness as a cultural casualty with profound consequences for both psyche and community.

Han, Byung-Chul, The Burnout Society, 2010supporting

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concentration in stillness and active contemplation are regarded as complementary procedures. Certain exercises have traditionally been employed in Taoist practice to clarify, unify, and stabilize the mind so as to achieve the attunement represented as embodiment of Heaven and Earth.

The Taoist tradition, as rendered here, presents contemplative stabilization of mind as the foundation for authentic attunement with cosmic order, framing practice as restorative rather than acquisitive.

Liu I-ming, The Taoist I Ching, 1986supporting

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Using parallel findings from various fields of science, clinical practice, and the expressive and contemplative arts, this consilient approach to understanding ‘being human’ attempts to weave a wide vision of our subjective experience.

Ogden positions the contemplative arts as a legitimate epistemological source alongside neuroscience and clinical practice, arguing for a consilient integration in which contemplative knowledge contributes to an adequate understanding of human experience and trauma treatment.

Ogden, Pat, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting

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Just as not all those who have audience with a king can also dine with him, so not all those who have attained a certain familiarity with prayer will rise to contemplation during it.

The Philokalia establishes a hierarchical distinction between prayer and full contemplation, insisting that contemplative realization is not automatically conferred by sustained practice but requires a further grace or readiness.

Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting

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Spiritual traditions often formulate the contemplative realizations of great teachers of the past into a ‘view’ that is transmitted to new students in order to help them discover the essence of spiritual realization for themselves.

Welwood notes that contemplative traditions transmit realized understanding as a ‘view’ to orient new practitioners, contrasting this pedagogical strategy with the technique-centered approach characteristic of Western cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000aside

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go slowly, in your mind, through one of the passages from the scriptures or the great mystics which I recommend for use in meditation… Do not follow any association of ideas or try to think about the passage. If you are giving your attention to each word, the meaning cannot help sinking in.

Easwaran presents passage meditation as a specifically structured contemplative method in which absorption in sacred text—without discursive association—gradually transforms consciousness through the semantic gravity of repeated attention.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside

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