Contemplation

Contemplation translates the Greek theōria, “looking at” or “beholding”, through the Latin contemplatio. For Plato and Aristotle, theōria is the activity of the mind that beholds the eternal, and the highest form of human life. Plotinus makes contemplation the activity of all reality: nature itself, he says, is a kind of silent contemplation, and every level of being produces by beholding what is above it.

In Christian tradition, contemplation came to mean a form of prayer beyond words and reasoning: a simple, loving attention to God. Medieval writers distinguished it from meditation, which reflects discursively on a text or mystery. The Carmelites, Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross, distinguished acquired contemplation, a simplified prayer the soul can practise, from infused contemplation, which God gives and the soul receives.

The word is used in comparative study for the meditative practices of other traditions. Metanoia uses it with care, since the traditions differ about what is contemplated and whether contemplation is an activity of the self, a gift, or the self’s own nature.