What Is a Contemplative? A Special Message from Eva Natanya, PhD

Dear CCR Community,

Throughout history, there have been individuals—and communities of individuals—who withdrew from what they recognized to be the confusion, darkness, and even hopelessness of their times to seek a deeper and everlasting dimension of reality, one that can be known from within the silence of a mind truly at rest.

In our present times, many luminaries have spoken of the crucial importance of the contemplative witness to a life of simplicity, humility, purity, kindness, generosity, prayer, and the steady cultivation of genuine well-being and wisdom.

But why should the contemplative training and way of life be so important when chaos abounds and there are so many crises in the world that call for our active, compassionate responses?

Here at the Miyo Samten Ling Hermitage of the CCR, we hold a very high standard for the name “contemplative,” a standard based in the 2,500-year-old Buddhist traditions of India and Tibet.

We use the term “contemplative” to translate the Sanskrit term yogin, which in its core Buddhist meaning refers to someone whose meditative concentration has reached a depth where he or she no longer perceives phenomena as possessing real characteristics from their own side. That is, a yogin’s mind is united with reality as it is, free of conceptual impositions.

 

 

It can be relatively easy to talk about phenomena not existing in the way that they appear, but it is another thing entirely to dwell in a state of unwavering meditation and realize experientially how all phenomena come into existence in dependence upon the mind, and that the mind itself is unlimited, vaster than space, and infinite in potential.

Contemplative insight into the nature of the mind and reality as a whole stands in direct opposition to the predominant modern view that mind is simply a byproduct of matter and that the objective universe exists independently of consciousness.

Typically, it takes tens of thousands of hours of meditation, cultivated over many years, to approach that kind of stability of mind unified with profound, experiential insight.

But someone trained as that kind of contemplative sees something about reality that most ordinary people cannot see; or at least cannot see consistently. And that seeing, that wisdom, can be the key to resolving catastrophic problems in our world—primarily when qualified contemplatives train others in time-tested methods for achieving exceptional mental balance. Such mental balance serves as the foundation for experiencing unprecedented dimensions of genuine well-being and gaining the ability to help heal the world and all its inhabitants from the many ills that beset humanity today, which we have inflicted upon ourselves.

 

 

Contemplative training begins with listening to teachings; it continues with applying our full intelligence to evaluating those teachings intellectually and experientially; and it comes to its culmination and final fruition through the ever-deepening practice of meditation, to open the heart and illuminate the mind.

Contemplatives-in-training come to Miyo Samten Ling already prepared with years of experience in listening, reflection, and also daily meditation. Some come initially for a retreat of 2–3 months in order to become accustomed to the experience of retreat—practicing throughout the day to further integrate teachings they have received prior to entering retreat.

Others immerse themselves in a retreat of six months to a year, testing their mettle in extended solitude and silence, dredging and purifying their psyches from the depths, and gaining life-transforming experiences in the process. Still others, who are totally dedicated to the contemplative way of life as their vocation, commit to open-ended retreats of many years. Among these, some will eventually complete a rigorous training in both theory and practice that will equip them not only as contemplatives with significant personal experience but also as teachers qualified to guide others through even the most advanced and challenging levels of practice.

Like graduate students who commit to a PhD program of 6-8 years in length in order to hone and demonstrate the skills needed to be considered a professional in their respective fields, long-term contemplatives-in-training will eventually proceed through a series of oral and written examinations assessing their full integration of theory and practice along the path to perfect enlightenment.

 

 

In keeping with Buddhist tradition, contemplatives will share the details of their meditative experience only with their personal spiritual mentors and in the rigorous context of confidential scientific studies, but will never be asked to talk about such private experience with others. Their qualifications as teachers and guides will be based on their demonstrated knowledge of the teachings and their maturity as practitioners flourishing in compassion, pure ethics, and exceptional mental balance, as well as contemplative realizations discussed only in private.

Such graduating contemplatives may then choose either to remain primarily in solitude, continuing in their contemplative way of life to achieve higher and higher realizations, or they may return to an active, socially engaged way of life, sharing their knowledge and insights in the field of education, with adults in all walks of life, and with other aspiring contemplatives.

Those who have achieved a high degree of meditative concentration imbued with insight into the nature of reality might well be termed “professional contemplatives,” ready to engage in formal research as contemplative scientists in their own right, at times in collaboration with physicists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. More on that topic to come soon…

We invite you to join us in supporting those courageously committed to the rigors and challenges of contemplative training, which is primarily carried out in solitude and silence within a community of like-minded practitioners. Humanity will rely on such realized contemplatives to become the heroes of tomorrow, when civilization will need their depths of insight and wellsprings of kindness more urgently than ever before in human history.

With abounding gratitude for your faith and generosity,

 

Eva Natanya, PhD

Co-Founder & Hermitage Director

Center for Contemplative Research