What is a Contemplative Practice?

When we began our research, we constructed this working definition of contemplative practice:

A practice designed to quiet the mind in the midst of the stress and distraction of everyday life in order to cultivate a personal capacity for deep concentration and insight.

Although usually practiced in silence, examples of contemplative practice include not only sitting in silence but also many forms of single-minded concentration, including meditation, contemplative prayer, mindful walking, focused experiences in nature, yoga and other contemplative physical or artistic practices. We also consider various kinds of ritual and ceremony designed to create sacred space and increase insight and awareness, such as council circle or vision quest, to be forms of contemplative practice.

Contemplative practice has the potential to bring different aspects of oneself into focus, to help develop personal goodness and compassion, and to awaken an awareness of the interconnectedness of all life.

This definition was read to research participants near the beginning of their interview. Participants were then asked how their own definitions were similar to or different from the working definition.

The working definition was intended to establish a common language between the interviewers and the research participants. It was also intended to be used as a launching point to find out how people actually define contemplative practice, so that we could capture the full spectrum of practices being used.

In developing this definition, our goal was to be as inclusive as possible without "watering down" the idea of contemplative practice. One of our intentions was to not alienate those who might feel excluded by the use of religious or spiritual terms.

Contemplative Practice as a Communal Practice

Often, contemplative practice is thought of as a solitary activity. A substantial amount of research has been conducted on the physiological and psychological benefits of meditation and other contemplative practices on individuals (Benson 1976, Murphy and Donovan 1996). But a large number of our interviewees described how they use contemplative practices in group settings. Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the Spiritual Eldering Institute, said,

Most of the time, when people do meditation, it's such a solitary thing and they're cut off from other people. But let us say a couple or two friends go into that space and they share with each other as these things are arising, and there is this kind of dialogue that comes out of deep spiritual intimacy, so it is meditative and it is contemplative, but it's also socializing. It creates a bond between people who can share such depth and integrity.

Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi calls this "socialized meditation."

Contemplative Practice as an Active Process

A number of interviewees felt it was important to emphasize that contemplative practice involves not only "quieting the mind," but also the more active process of being able to pay unswerving attention to the awareness that arises from that mind. Respondents who work in the social justice sector were especially apt to bring up this part of the definition. Joan Halifax, founder of the Upaya Foundation, said, "Compassionate action, if done in the right frame of mind and heart, is contemplative practice."

Andre Carothers, founder and director of the Rockwood Leadership Program, spoke of his work as building a bridge between inner and outer work, of bringing a contemplative approach to tasks such as organizing a meeting, negotiating with a so-called "adversary," or simply calling a colleague to discuss a program.

Often activists don't see that connection. They see the movement into the inner dialogue as sort of a vacation or a different piece of work that's difficult for them to tie to their actual campaign work.

Some of our interviewees were "thrown" by being asked to define contemplative practice as distinct from their social justice and activism work. Robert Gass, a consultant with many years of experience introducing social activists to contemplative work, said,

Everything I know how to do and teach is designed to help me and everyone I work with be conscious in the middle of action, rather than stepping out of action.

Many participants commented that, for them, contemplation and action were inseparably linked - one depends on the other. In fact, the journey of their work and lives has been to bridge the perceived division between the two. In many ways, those observations are at the heart of our findings.

What Practices are Used?

I grew up in the Jewish tradition and the Kabbalistic mystic tradition. That's my main source. But I've also studied with elders from Christianity, Sufism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Native Americans...I've participated in sweat lodges, been present at sun dances, visited ashrams, and sat in zendos. This is how I learned that there is such a thing as generic spirituality, which is the same all over. The only difference is whether you have it with curry or whether you have it with schmaltz.

-Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, The Spiritual Eldering Institute

• Participants named a large number of contemplative practices used in their work, which are outlined in the Tree of Contemplative Practices.
• The common denominator for these practices was cultivating awareness and developing a stronger connection to one's inner wisdom and or the divine/God.
• When we asked people to tell us about the kinds of contemplative practices they use in their work, they described an amazing number of practices. Certainly, contemplative practice can take the form of a lone meditator sitting on a cushion in an empty, quiet room. But it can also manifest as a group of high-powered businessmen slicing tomatoes in preparation for a dinner together, or a group of social activists listening and speaking to each other in an intense, yet focused conversation.

Father Thomas Keating noted that "contemplative practices are quite varied and they emphasize different parts of the psyche." Ed Sarath, of the University of Michigan, told us that "the particular value that each kind of contemplative discipline brings to the overall growth" of an organization and individual was important to explore and define.

In our attempt to convey the breadth of practices that are used by the research participants in their work, we were inspired to use the image of a tree as a vehicle for organizing the information and to create a kind of "taxonomy" of practices. While the act of categorizing and dividing is to some extent an arbitrary one, even so, it might be helpful in understanding how different types of contemplative practices group together and relate to one another.

 

A tree is an organic, living being. Its trunk, branches, and leaves form an eco-system that embodies interconnection. The branches are not any more or less important than the trunk, but all branches come from the trunk and the roots. In the same way, we see two factors forming the root of all contemplative practices: cultivating awareness and developing a stronger connection to one's inner wisdom and/or the divine/God.

This root encompasses and transcends differences in the religious traditions from which the practices originate and allows room for new practices that are being created in secular contexts. As Peter Senge, of the Society of Organizational Learning, put it:

Deep down, all of the contemplative traditions of the world, of which there are an extraordinary variety, stem from the same source...Before there were all the religions of the last 3,000 years or so, there was a common religion that was shared by indigenous people all around the world in different ways, but it always involved a deep experience in nature...becoming open to the influence of spirit or source, or whatever terms might have been used.

The branches of the tree represent the different groupings of practices. As organizing principles, we used both the primary mode of practice used and the quality intended for cultivation. For example, Stillness Practices focus on quieting the mind and body in order to develop stillness and stability. Generative Practices come in many different forms (i.e. prayers, visualizations, chanting) but share the common intent of generating feelings of devotion and compassion.

For more information, check out the Tree of Contemplative Practices.