many give up too soon and frankly never truly meet the other—much less the
Other. They just keep meeting themselves over and over again. In
Contemplation 201, you begin to see there’s a correlation between how you do
anything and how you do everything else, which makes you take the moment
in front of you much more seriously and respectfully. You catch yourself out of
the corner of your eye, as it were, and your ego games are exposed and
diminished.
Such knowing does not contradict the rational, but it’s much more holistic
and inclusive. It goes where the rational mind cannot go, but then comes back
to honor the rational too. In our Living School, we call this “contemplative
epistemology.” Contemplation is really the change that changes everything—
especially, first of all, the seer. If I try to “know” or understand the present state
of American politics, for example, I only become disheartened, angry, and start
making absolute statements, which helps nobody. If I “take it to prayer,” as we
used to say, I really do receive the data on a screen much bigger and kinder than
my small screen, which is always filled with irritating static and electrical
charges.