«A sound of sheer silence»: Interior silence as listening, openness, and communion
While maintaining a great respect for Eastern non-Christian thought and technique, he does not utilize these sources in the writings we researched for this chapter. Cf. Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation (New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2006),
Silence of the Mind: The Quest for Inner Stillness in the Christian Tradition
Daniele Gunetti, PhD, MATP
Torino, Italy
ABSTRACT: Most spiritual traditions have developed practices to still the mind and foster silence
within, often considered a fundamental step along the spiritual journey. These practices are commonly
associated with Eastern traditions, but the search for inner silence is also an important aspect of the
Christian contemplative mysticism known as the apophatic or negative way, according to which
silence of the mind is a fundamental condition to make room for the coming of God within. The
objective of this article is to review some of the most representative pathways of the apophatic
tradition of the past: Evagrius Ponticus and the subsequent development of Hesychast monasticism in
the Orthodox Church from the 4th century onward; Meister Eckhart and The Cloud of Unknowing in
the 14th century; and the popular movements of Recollection (which greatly influenced St. Teresa of
Avila) and Quietism in the 16th and 17th century. Sadly, as a consequence of the condemnation of
Quietism for heresy, contemplation, as it was understood and practiced for centuries, became
marginalized in favor of a spirituality hinged on vocal prayer and discursive meditation. Nevertheless,
the whole potential of contemplative prayer deserves to be rediscovered and reacknowledged as a
fundamental practice of spiritual growth.
Keywords: Christian tradition, apophatic way, inner silence, recollection, contemplation
In 2005 a strange movie debuted in European and American theaters. Although
not a silent film, it had no soundtrack and almost no speech, and the only sounds
in the film were those of the daily life of Carthusian monks of a monastery high
in the French Alps. The movie was very well received by critics, and the
following year it won several awards, including the Special Jury Prize at the
Sundance Film Festival. The film was titled Into Great Silence and had the merit
of bringing to the attention of the general public an issue with which many feel
uncomfortable: silence. Not just the silence of speech or as an escape from the
uproar of modern life—these are often preconditions for something much more
important and profound: inner silence.
In most spiritual traditions, silence within plays a fundamental role, and for hundreds,
if not thousands, of years meditative techniques designed to limit or suspend inner
chatter and quiet the mind have been developed and refined. Some of these
techniques, originating from Eastern spiritual traditions, are still today widely taught
and practiced all over the world, within and without religious contexts. Concentrative
meditation, such as Buddhist samatha and the practice of dharan: a in Patanjali’s Yoga-
Sutras, is explicitly devised to quiet the mind. In advanced stages, even possible
objects of meditation are removed, leaving the mind in a condition of contentless
stillness. Mantras rarefy thoughts, so much so that the mantra itself falls apart and the
mind can rest unmodified and still. The quest for inner silence does not need much
explanation. It is a means to escape from “the trance of ordinary life” (Deikman, 1983,
p. 119), where the mind is often, if not always, lost in a habitual ruminative thought
process populated by a cloud of fragmented perceptions, attentions, fantasies,
dialogical self, inner speech, language, Christianity, Daoism, Meister Eckhart, wu-wei
S9.1.3 - Active while in Contemplation: the Integration of Contemplative and Active
Life in the Christian Tradition
Daniele Gunetti 1
1 University of Turin
Summary
The integration of the contemplative and the active life is an important goal in the Christian mystical
tradition. Arguably, this notion reached its highest expression in 16th-century Spain, and was based on a
spiritual practice known as “recollection”. This work aims to highlight the remarkable similarities
between mindfulness-based meditative practices and the original teaching of recollection.
Details
BACKGROUND:
A fundamental tenet of Buddhism is that the state of presence and un-distraction cultivated during
meditation should be gradually integrated into ordinary life. Albeit less known, a similar principle has
been formulated within the Christian tradition at least since Meister Eckhart and, very likely, it reached
its highest expression in the Spain of XVI century, when Ignatius of Loyola coined the expression "active
while in contemplation". The main contemplative practice leading to this state was known as
“recollection”, a term that, today, has unfortunately lost most of its original meaning.
Recollection was extensively practiced both by lay and ordained people, including mystics of the rank of
Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, and it inspired some of the greatest masterpieces of the mystical
literature of the time. Recollection was understood as a practice for stabilizing consciousness, and to
prevent it from being at the mercy of inner and external events. In the most important and widespread
manual on recollection, written in 1527 by Franciscan friar Francisco de Osuna, the author teaches that
“the opposite of recollection is distraction, or wandering thoughts”, and that we can be recollected even
while engaged in daily chores, no less than when we kneel in solitude.
AIMS AND CONCLUSIONS:
“Soft perennialism” claims that differences between mystical experiences occur more at the level of
interpretation and conceptualization than in phenomenology. This standpoint is strongly supported by
recognizing similar practices within different traditions. If we want to foster cross-cultural understanding,
and contrast any sectarian and divisive view of the contemplative path, it is fundamental to rediscover
and underline what spiritual traditions have in common, beyond their socio-cultural and doctrinal
differences. Therefore, this presentation aims to highlight the remarkable similarities between
mindfulness-based meditative practices and the original teaching of recollection.
The inner dialogues that accompany almost every moment of our waking life, often referred to as “inner speech,” have received increasing attention from philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists since the end of the 19th century. In particular, within American Pragmatism, the idea of “dialogical self,” the sense of identity that arises from our inner conversations, has been explored in depth. However, since ancient times, these silent conversations have been the target of psycho-spiritual regimens developed within most religious traditions in order to restrain, silence, and overcome the discursive, and often wandering, mind. The goal of this article is threefold. First, I will review the relevant literature on the notion of the dialogical self. Second, I will provide an explanation for the peculiar tendency of inner speech to continue ceaselessly and be difficult to stop. Finally, I will show that in the literature of two spiritual …
