The Contemplative Way

Here are some of  the ways that contemplatives through the ages have described contemplative life and awareness.

Contemporary Contemplatives

Looking deeply at life as it is in the very here and now.  –Thich Nhat Hanh

A continual condition of prayerful sensitivity to what is really going on.  –Douglas Van Steere

Seeing through exterior things, and seeing God in them.  –Thomas Merton

Our increasing availability to the truth.  –Gerald May

Silence opens up the unconscious; it's a kind of deep therapy, much deeper than ordinary therapy.  It's opening to who we really are. --Bede Griffiths

The world becoming luminous from within as one plunges breathlessly into human activity.  –Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Luminous depth gazing into luminous depth.  –Martin Laird

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Contemplatives Throughout History

Awareness absorbed and amazed.  –Teresa of Avila

Divine wakefulness with pure and naked intuition.  --Gregory of Nyssa

Right understanding, with true longing, absolute trust, and sweet grace-giving mindfulness.  –Julian of Norwich

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.  –Meister Eckhardt

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Dayspring SIlent Retreat Center, Germantown, MD