Contemplation - The Most Important Tool Summary

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

The defining characteristic of a sage is his ability to get at the core of nature and reality. They do this by contemplation.

The most important question that a sage can ask is “What is it?”.

You replace the “it” with the object you want to inquire about. So, what is contemplation? From the dictionary, it is defined by “a state of mystical awareness”, “an act of considering with attention” or “the act of thinking deeply about something”. It is openly pondering a question that you are interested in with focus and without bias with the goal of inquiring into the nature of that thing.

How do you contemplate” Sit down, set aside some time and select one question you are really curious about, define what that question is and sit there, openly pondering it from ground zero. Maintain that question steadily for at least 5 or 10 minutes straight. Be careful about your monkey mind. What could you contemplate about:

 

1.       What is society?

2.       What is life?

3.       What is color?

4.       What is sound?

5.       What is love?

6.       What is happiness?

7.       What is anger?

8.       What is desire?

9.       What is suffering?

10.   What is hatred?

11.   What are emotions?

12.   What is ignorance?

13.   What is fear?

14.   What is death?

15.   What is meditation?

16.   What is mind?

17.   What is disagreement?

18.   What is pain?

19.   What is success?

20.   What is failure?

21.   What is a thought?

22.   What is experience?

23.   What is the number 0?

24.   What am I?

25.   What is duality?

26.   What is non-duality?

27.   What is Truth?

28.   What is non-existence?

29.   What is consciousness?

30.   What is awareness?

31.   What is God?

32.   What is reality?

33.   What is knowledge?

34.   What is logic?

35.   What is language?

36.   What is science?

37.   What is maths?

38.   What is culture?

39.   What is the devil?

40.   What is government?

41.   What is art?

42.   What is free will?

43.   What is selfishness?

44.   What is karma?

45.   What is creativity?

46.   What is evolution?

47.   What is relationship?

48.   What is leadership?

49.   What is power?

50.   What is goodness?

51.   What is evil?

52.   What is philosophy?

53.   What is spirituality?

54.   What is personal development?

55.   What is business?

56.   What is the subconscious mind?

57.   What is a guru?

58.   What is masculinity?

59.   What is fame?

60.   What is sex?

61.   What is birth?

62.   What is the ego?

63.   What is honesty?

64.   What is communication?

65.   What is objectivity?

66.   What is wisdom?

67.   What is rationality?

68.   What is religion?

69.   What are beliefs?

70.   What is humor?

71.   What is attraction?

72.   What is purpose?

73.   What is meaning?

74.   What is life purpose?

75.   What is understanding?

76.   What is space?

77.   What is time?

78.   What is the past?

79.   What is the future?

80.   What is matter?

81.   What is energy?

82.   What is motivation?

83.   What is writing/architecture/entertainment?

84.   What is technology?

85.   What is a computer?

86.   What is economics?

87.   What is pickup?

88.   What is education?

89.   What is good cuisine?

90.   What is fun in a video game?

91.   What is a good story telling?

92.   What is drama?

93.   What is intimacy?

94.   What is neurosis?

95.   What is health?

96.   What is disease?

97.   What is materialism?

98.   What is another?

99.   What is history?

100.  What is a distinction?

101.  What is learning?

102.  What is dogma?

103.  What is organization?

104.  What is systems thinking?

105.  What is design?

106.  What is management?

107.  What is lying?

108.  What is a symbol?

109.  What is psychology?

110.  What is insight?

111.  What is depression?

112.  What is mysticism?

113.  What is an object?

114.  What is strategy?

115.  What is enlightenment?

116.  What is compassion?

117.  What is a model?

118.  What is value?

119.  What is money?

120.  What is stress?

121.  What is mastery?

122.  What is illusion?

123.  What is a Zen devil?

124.  What is a problem?

125.  What is hurt?

126.  What is nothingness?

127.  What is infinity?

128.  What is paradox?

129.  What is work?

130.  What is discipline?

131.  What is freedom?

132.  What is courage?

133.  What is passion?

134.  What is skepticism?

135.  What is atheism?

136.  What is prayer?

137.  What is open-mindedness?

138.  What is terrorism?

139.  What is intuition?

140.  What is beauty?

141.  What is surprise?

142.  What is information?

 

 

In every domain of life, at every level, you can keep asking what all of it is. You can contemplate question about your life purpose and career, your particular medium, the wordings of your life purpose, your area of mastery. If you want to be successful in any domain, you need to understand the essence of what you are doing, the tools and distinctions you are using.

There are different questions that you can ask that will make you see the subject in slightly different angles.

-          What is it?

-          And what is that?

-          What is its true nature?

-          You are going to come up with examples and you will need to discover the commonalities between them

-          How did it come into being? (probably need to read some history)

-          Why did it come into being?

-          What elements does it have?

-          What is its purpose?

-          What is its substance?

-          What is its significance and why it is important?

-          Examples are good to get into the essence of the matter

-          Keep asking and asking and going deeper into the nature

There are some nuances:

·         Contemplation vs Meditation: When you meditate, you don’t have any goal or objective, you are just freeing your mind. Contemplation is an intellectual activity. When you become good, your contemplation is going to become a sort of meditation because your focus is really strong.

·         Contemplation vs Self Inquiry: Self inquiry is a very specific form of contemplation about the nature of who you are.

·         Contemplation vs Concentration: When you concentrate, you do it on something that doesn’t have an intellectual question behind it.

·         Notice that contemplation can be between a personal and an existential spectrum.

o   What do I want out of my life?

o   What do I want out of my relationship?

o   What is my deepest passion in life?

o   What is my life purpose?

·         You can have insights at the level of thought and the level of being: Some answers will go past the intellect and mind. You can breakthrough on the being level with:

o   What another is?

o   What love is?

o   What God is?

o   Etc.

Most of existential questions are going to start with the intellectual level but with time you will get into the existential level.

·         Don’t confuse contemplation with thinking. You can go beyond thinking

·         Don’t confuse contemplation with speculating and theorizing about stuff. In contemplation, it is key to be open-minded, aware and honest with yourself. Be careful with your ego because it will distort your train of thought.

·         There are many levels of understanding of different subjects, so don’t get too hung up with your current answers. The answers that will come up in the first hundred hours of contemplation will be probably wrong or incomplete at best.

Ignorance is the source of every problem!

If you think you know what you will find, you are a fool. You cannot know the answer of something that you are going to research. That is the point of research!

Your quality of your life is directly proportional to how clear you are in what the truth is in a particular situation and how aligned you are with it.

You are not going to contemplate effectively if you are addicted to porn, or play videogames, and you eat garbage food and work 60 hours a week. You need to create a contemplative life.

[CreativeInertia]

Thanks!

[Nic]

Thank you Juan, you are the man!