Contemplation comes from the latin root for temple, and means to enter an open or consecrated place. In a religious sense it is type of prayer or meditation. Within Chritianity it is related to mysticism, and portrayed by the works of authors such as Teresa of Avila, Margery Kempe, Augustine Baker and Thomas Merton. Many religions share the concept of contemplation. Naropa University, for example, offers a Master's program in contemplative education in the context of Buddhism studies. The word temple has different meanings in the fields of architecture, religion, geography, anatomy, and education. ... Prayer is an effort to communicate with God, or to some deity or deities, or another form of spiritual entity, or otherwise, either to offer praise, to make a request, or simply to express ones thoughts and emotions. ... Meditation refers to any of a wide variety of spiritual practices (and their close secular analogues) which emphasize mental activity or quiescence. ... Mysticism, from the Greek (muo, to conceal), is the pursuit of achieving communion with or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than rational thought; the belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that... Teresa of Avila by Peter Paul Rubens Saint Teresa of Avila (known in religion as Teresa de Jesús, baptised as Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada) was a Spanish Roman Catholic mystic and monastic reformer; born at Avila (53 miles north-west of Madrid), Old Castile, March 28, 1515; died... Margery Kempe (ca. ... Dom David Augustine Baker (1575-1641), was a Welsh Benedictine monk and ascetical writer, author of many treatises on Contemplative prayer. ... Thomas Merton Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk and author, born in Prades in the Pyrénées-Orientales département of France. ... Naropa University is a private, liberal arts university in Boulder, Colorado, which was founded in 1974 by Chogyam Trungpa. ...

Other usage

In a non-religious sense, contemplation can also mean:

• an act of considering with attention;
• the act of regarding steadily.

See also

meditation Meditation refers to any of a wide variety of spiritual practices (and their close secular analogues) which emphasize mental activity or quiescence. ...