{"id":14548,"date":"2015-12-27T12:36:09","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T16:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/carlmccolman\/?p=14548"},"modified":"2018-11-26T16:48:05","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T20:48:05","slug":"emptiness-and-non-attachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/carlmccolman\/2015\/12\/emptiness-and-non-attachment\/","title":{"rendered":"Emptiness and Non-Attachment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last week I wrote about the difference between how Catholics understand meditation and contemplation<\/a>, based on material found in the Catholic Catechism. A reader left the following comment<\/a> on that post:<\/p>\n

We rest in God. But we do not empty our minds. We are always in communication with God. Prayer is focusing on God and we praise him for who He is, we intercede for others, and we put our requests to Him. We align our wills with His in prayer. Never do we make our minds a \u2018spiritual vacuum\u2019 for something else other than the Holy Spirit to fill it.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am in agreement with everything that is said\u00a0here, but I am left wondering\u00a0why some folks\u00a0go out of their way to insist that meditation and contemplation are not about \u201cemptying\u201d the mind. I think it has to do with critics who think that Christians should have nothing to do with non-Christian practices (like transcendental meditation\u00a0or yoga), and consequently are uncomfortable with interfaith-friendly\u00a0contemplative methods\u00a0(like centering prayer). For some reason, opponents of centering prayer \u2014 and more broadly, of non-Christian meditation practices \u2014 really seem to believe that these practices promote emptying the mind.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s simply not true. The best one could say is that it represents\u00a0a misunderstanding of both Christian and non-Christian forms of meditation.<\/p>\n

Over the past thirty years I have studied meditation and contemplative practices in a variety of settings, Catholic, non-Catholic, and non-Christian. And I have\u00a0never\u00a0<\/em>been instructed to \u201cempty my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many meditative and contemplative practices involve paying attention to silence, focussing awareness on one\u2019s breath (or on a prayer word or scripture phrase), or learning to be non-attached to thoughts and images that arise during the practice. The key term here is\u00a0non-attachment<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Contemplation:<\/a>
Contemplation: It\u2019s Not What You Think (Photo Credit: Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Silent, contemplative prayer is an exercise in resting in God\u2019s love and God\u2019s presence, so nothing less than God \u2014\u00a0including our thoughts and mental images\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 will do. Mystics like St. John of the Cross or the anonymous author of\u00a0The Cloud of Unknowing<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>point out that even religious or pious thoughts, thoughts about God or Christ or Mary or the saints, can get in the way when we seek the prayer of silent adoration and non-attachment. Contemplation does not call us to suppress such thoughts, but to learn to be non-attached to them: to let them come and go in the openness of our inner silence, which is ultimately what we are offering to God in contemplative prayer.<\/p>\n

So emptying the mind or creating a spiritual vacuum is not part of the Catholic contemplative experience. But no one is saying that it is.<\/em>\u00a0Meanwhile, non-attachment to all created things \u2014 even the chatter in our heads \u2014\u00a0is\u00a0<\/em>an important part of contemplation.<\/p>\n

Some folks, because of this (erroneous) idea that contemplation involves emptying the mind, then jump to the conclusion that it is dangerous. The logic goes like this: if we empty our minds, then we become susceptible to demonic attack.<\/p>\n

But there are two problems with this line of thinking. First, as I have pointed out, contemplation is\u00a0not<\/em> about mind-emptying. So it\u2019s a straw man argument. But second, it\u2019s a bogus argument because it does not address the real vulnerability that most people have to temptation: it comes to us not in silence, but in our thoughts.<\/p>\n

Among the desert fathers of the 3rd and 4th century \u2014 early Christian spiritual teachers like Evagrius Ponticus or John Cassian \u2014 there was a clear recognition that\u00a0thought<\/em> is the way in which temptation to evil and sin manifests in our lives. Evagrius even wrote an entire manual of recommended scripture verses to memorize and recite whenever one faces demonic attack \u2014 as evidenced by unhealthy thoughts, such as thoughts of anger, lust, greed, or pride (Evagrius identified eight\u00a0\u201cdeadly thoughts,\u201d which Pope Gregory the Great streamlined into the more familiar list of seven deadly sins). Since we are more likely to be tempted\u00a0not in silence, but in thoughts, therefore\u00a0learning to be\u00a0non-attached\u00a0<\/em>to our thoughts is actually a very safe and spiritually beneficial practice. So far from being spiritually dangerous, silent forms of prayer are perhaps the safest way to simply bask in the love of God.<\/p>\n

While it is important to acknowledge that contemplation is about non-attachment rather than mind-emptying, I do want to point out that\u00a0emptiness<\/em> is an important spiritual value in its own right. We see this in St. Paul\u2019s letter to the Philippians:<\/p>\n

Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus,
\n\u00a0<\/sup>Who, though he was in the form of God,
\ndid not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
\nRather, he emptied<\/strong><\/em> himself,
\ntaking the form of a slave,
\ncoming in human likeness;
\nand found human in appearance\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Philippians 2:5-7; emphasis added)<\/p>\n

The Greek word St. Paul uses here is\u00a0kenosis<\/em>, and it\u2019s an\u00a0important concept for Christian spirituality. Christ emptied himself of his claim to \u201cequality with God\u201d in order to embrace human form in the incarnation. Likewise, we are all called to the imitation of Christ. But how do we \u201cempty\u201d ourselves, since we make no claim on being equal with God? We empty ourselves in a variety of ways. In repentance, we\u00a0seek to empty ourselves of our sin. We seek to empty ourselves of our will, to create room for the will of God to direct our lives. And if we are willing to embrace the fullness of the mystical life, we recognize that we are called to empty ourselves of everything that is not God<\/em>. Which, frankly, is probably not that far afield from the non-attachment at the heart of contemplative prayer.<\/p>\n

To summarize: in silent prayer we do not seek to \u201cempty\u201d our minds (which is after all is impossible) but to be non-attached<\/em> to everything in our awareness (including thoughts, imaginations, and feelings) that might come between us and God\u2019s deep silence. But because Christ did in fact\u00a0empty<\/em>\u00a0himself in becoming human, we might profitably reflect on how the contemplative practice of non-attachment really does invite us to the most radical emptiness of all: emptying the self of all that is not-God.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> A wonderful conversation in response to this post is taking place on Facebook, with folks quoting Benedict XVI, the Philokalia, Garrigou-Lagrange and others to reflect on both the promise and challenge of \u201cemptiness\u201d as a category of contemplative practice. You can find the conversation (and join in) by clicking here:\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pan.cogito\/posts\/10104731461390348<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 at least so far the conversation has spirited but civil (thank heaven). What seems to be emerging is a sense that the Catholic\/Orthodox contemplative tradition speaks of emptiness in various ways \u2014 in response to Matthew 12:43-45, emptiness-as-void is criticized in the Philokalia, even while non-attachment (grounded in Christ) is lauded. What I\u2019m taking from this conversation (aside from a humbling recognition of how little I know the tradition myself!) is the importance of wise spiritual counsel, so that when we engage in contemplative practice, we have a spiritual father (mother) to whom we can turn for guidance, support, questions answered, warnings, and loving accompaniment. Meditative and contemplative prayer may seem to be a solitary practice, but Christian spirituality always happens in community \u2014 even if just a \u201ccommunity\u201d of two.<\/p>\n

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Last week I wrote about the difference between how Catholics understand meditation and contemplation, based on material found in the Catholic Catechism. A reader left the following comment on that post: We rest in God. But we do not empty our minds. We are always in communication with God. Prayer is focusing on God and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1658,"featured_media":14551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[5850,1349,58,5862,1578],"class_list":["post-14548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemplation","tag-contemplation","tag-emptiness","tag-meditation","tag-silence","tag-silent-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\nEmptiness and Non-Attachment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Last week I wrote about the difference between how Catholics understand meditation and contemplation, based on material found in the Catholic Catechism. 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