Contemplative - Contemplation and Meditation

Contemplation and Meditation

In Christianity, contemplation refers to a content-free mind directed towards the awareness of God as a living reality. This corresponds, in some ways, to what in Eastern religion is called samadhi.

Contemplation as a practice is finding greater resonance in the West both in business – for example in Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization – and in universities in fields as diverse as architecture, physics, and the liberal arts.

In Catholic Christianity, contemplation is given importance. The Catholic Church's "model theologian," St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: "It is requisite for the good of the human community that there should be persons who devote themselves to the life of contemplation." One of his disciples, Josef Pieper commented: "For it is contemplation which preserves in the midst of human society the truth which is at one and the same time useless and the yardstick of every possible use; so it is also contemplation which keeps the true end in sight, gives meaning to every practical act of life."