Meditation as Contemplative Enquiry

Arthur Zajonc's earlier book, Catching the Light – an entwined history of light and mind, won the Network Book Prize some 15 years ago, and he has a wide range of interests. He is professor of physics and interdisciplinary studies at Amherst College, director of the Programme of the Center for Contemplative Mind and a senior programme director at the Fetzer Institute. In addition, he is former general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society of America, a pioneer of Goethean science and a participant in scientific dialogues held with the Dalai Lama. I say all this to indicate the scope brought to bear on this remarkable book, which has been endorsed by Peter Senge and Allan Wallace.

Many writers have remarked on the imbalance between inner and outer as a feature of modern Western culture. Correspondingly, we value outer over inner work, but the price is widespread mental, emotional and spiritual unease – even distress, calling for a rebalancing of our orientations, which Arthur richly provides in this book. This represents an extension of science, the cultivation of qualities such as humility, reverence and equanimity that give us an enhanced sense of wellbeing as we work on our thinking, feeling and willing and at the levels of body, soul and spirit. Arthur sums this up (p. 178) in the stages of contemplation: 'Contemplative enquiry rests on the sound moral foundations of humility and reverence. In addition, the practitioner cultivates his or her powers of concentrated attention, equanimity in the feeling life, and a strengthened resolve.'

The book is interspersed with instructions on many forms of meditation based on words, images, geometrical shapes, sense content from nature (sky, trees, flowers) in a process of what Arthur calls 'cognitive breathing' – alternating between concentrated attention and open awareness. This leads to a sense of more subtle dimensions of reality and the emergence of the 'Silent Self.' We reach a deeper rhythm and realise the need for constant renewal as we see in the activity of Nature. Rhythm implies repetition, and spiritual practice must become embedded in our daily lives. This is where we need to strengthen our resolve, the quality of our will, through regular small actions and bringing a finer awareness and attention into our everyday rituals. This helps overcome the inertia of inner laziness, to which we are all prone.

Inspired by John Muir, Thoreau and Goethe, Arthur offers meditative exercises in Nature and quotes Antonio Machado: 'The deepest words of the wise man teach us the same as the whistle of the wind when it blows or the water when it is flowing.' And he adds: 'No words that were ever spoken can equal the sound of the wind in the pine trees.' Arthur takes us to a mountain pond and into a process that elicits wonder, reverence, participation and self-surrender: an experience of the sacred, which, together with other techniques can lead to a greater sense of harmony and balance. A yoga of the senses takes us through the four elements and on to Light, Love and Life, which form the core of Peter Deunov's system corresponding to mind, heart and will, Wisdom, Love and Freedom. Light and Love are fundamentally intertwined, even identical in deep experience.

In this sense, we discover that knowledge or insight is an event in which we participate. The fact, as Goethe insisted, leads us to theory through a delicate empiricism in which we are fully implicated. To stand back objectively is to retreat into abstraction, to lose sight of the original meaning of 'theoria' as contemplation. Science and philosophy are both ultimately about insight and illumination. Arthur lays this all out in the nine characteristics of contemplative inquiry: respect, gentleness, intimacy, participation, vulnerability, transformation, organ formation, illumination, insight. Organ formation requires a little more explanation and comes from Goethe's saying that 'every object, well contemplated, opens up a new organ in us.' As we attend to the object, we form a circuit that creates a new form of perception through participation.

We also come to understand the process, activity and even agency that gives rise to the varying appearances and forms of nature, 'natura naturans' rather than the more passive 'natura naturata'. In the plant, this formative activity constitutes a 'breathing' consisting of expansion and contraction: the seed becomes leaf, flower and fruit, containing in turn the new seed. From potential to actual and back again, as Arthur puts it, with agency behind. As Goethe said: 'The highest we receive from God and nature is Life.' For him this leads to an understanding of cycles summed up in his phrase 'die and become'. 'Wenn du dass nicht hast, stirb und werde, dann bist do nur ein trueber Gast auf der dunklen Erde.' (Unless you understand this, die and become, then you are only a dismal guest on the dark earth). By the end of this enriching book the reader can appreciate how contemplative enquiry can extend and refine science while balancing the inner life of the scientist in the process. It is a book to savour, a point of departure to a refined range of practices for mind, heart and will.