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There’s a nice interview with Prof. Michael Sheehy (@mclsheehy.bsky.social) online about contemplative practice and its study. I have some reflections...
https://contemplativejournal.org/interviews/what-is-contemplation-michael-sheehy/
Prof. Sheehy mentions, “When I think about what contemplation is, I think about it being twofold: on the one hand, techniques and practices, and on the other, experiences.”
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That makes sense of course, but, to put it playfully, it prompts me to consider ways contemplation can be something that's “onefold.”
There are some perhaps unfortunately esoteric-sounding words and phrases for this — like “non-duality,” and “the unity of practice and realization,” and “suchness.” But I think it can be helpful to look at what’s being gestured towards by those terms as something that's akin to honesty.
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And honesty isn’t exactly a technique and it isn’t exactly an experience.
To me honesty ends of being something like a living presence. It’s not so much something we generate or practice or even “do,” but more like something we uncover and allow — and we do so largely by *not* doing things.
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Honesty is about not making things up. It’s about not engaging in artifice. It's in effect a kind of allowing. An allowing of what's matter-of-factly the case before we manipulate or contrive or think things up.
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And that to me is the healthy heart of contemplation (a.k.a. meditation). It's an allowing. It’s a participation in the living truth that's always already here, before we even have thoughts or names for it. And it’s embrace with that. It’s a participation with that, and in that, and as that.
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Much of #meditation, especially in the style of #Zen shikantaza (“just sitting”) or the West’s “via negativa” — which, again, are somewhat odd-sounding words for something which is actually really basic — is about not doing things
“Just don’t contrive.” “Just don’t pick and choose.” “Just this.” You can find invitations like that at the heart of a number of contemplative traditions.
