Contemplation has fallen out of sight in recent decades. For centuries, it was a large part of Christianity, especially Catholicism and Orthodoxy, but since Vatican II (1962–1965) it has not been emphasized. How many times have you heard a homily or sermon on contemplation, or even prayer?

The practice of contemplation is actually older than Christianity. Ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, practiced contemplation. Contemplation has also been valued outside Christianity in recent centuries: there is philosophical contemplation, for one thing, and aesthetic contemplation, for another. There are different ways of contemplating, and contemplation has distinct objects. One thing that’s common to them all is seeking “quiet of mind”: stilling the hive of the mind and allowing oneself to attend freshly and deeply to life. Kevin Hart discusses this and more in his book Contemplation: The Movements of the Soul.

Q: So what’s your new book about?

Kevin Hart: It’s about the ancient practice of contemplation or what the Greeks called theoria. We get the word “contemplation” from the Latin word templum. When the Romans wanted to see if they would have a military success or a good harvest, augers would go to the north part of the Forum and draw an imaginary rectangle in the sky. They would make predictions on which birds flew into the rectangle and from which direction, and that would give them clues as to what the future held. Contemplation is the viewing or beholding of something. In Christianity, one contemplates God; and there are various ideas as to what this means and how to go about it. It’s also possible to contemplate the structures of reality (philosophical contemplation) and to contemplate beautiful things, like nature or art. When one reads very slowly, one reads contemplatively.

Q: What’s all this about “the soul,” then?

Hart: It’s nothing to be frightened of! The word “soul” comes from the Old High German seula, which itself goes back to the Greek word psyche. None of these words bespeaks a disembodied part of a person; rather, each one points us to the life, spirit, or consciousness that we are. Even in the Bible a person is a whole, not a divided being made of body and soul. So contemplation is about nurturing the life within us, giving us the means to attend better to what is around us and within us. We often associate the word with Eastern religions, especially Buddhism and Hinduism. I talk about those religions in the book, and how we can learn from them, but I mostly show that in the West we also have a rich heritage of contemplation from which we can draw. Back in the late fifth century, a Syrian monk wrote about the movements of the soul: linear, circular, and spiral. I talk about what he had in mind in the book.

Q: Is this what’s called “mysticism”?

Hart: Yes and no. Contemplation is much older than what we call mysticism, which has come to mean having spiritually altered states of consciousness or even peculiar experiences of God, like levitation. Some contemplatives have had “mystical experiences,” including intuitions of God, which make them one with the deity; but many have not. Some people have practiced contemplation for decades and, in doing so, have both broadened and deepened their prayer lives. Others have undertaken it at first just to improve their health. The practice can reduce blood pressure and blood glucose levels, for example. But most of all, nonreligious persons have done it to gain more inner peace in their lives. Many people, beginning with the Greeks, have simply wanted to transform themselves so that they have the strength of mind to cope with adversity when it comes.

Q: Isn’t this called “mindfulness”?

Hart: Mindfulness comes from Buddhism, and all too often it’s badly digested Buddhism. In mindfulness one is commended to live in the present moment, which can be helpful for many people. After all, much of life leaks away in worrying about what we can’t change in our pasts and in anxiety about what’s in store for us. Yet we cannot simply live in the present moment, if only because it retains a trace of what’s past while also leaning into the future. For Buddhists, though, the past and future are mental constructions that impede our meditations on reality. Some Buddhists, especially those in the West, look askance at Christianity. They think it’s overly bound up with the past (one’s sins) and relegates true life until after death. Worse, they think, the religion makes one judgmental. So one never really lives. All this adds up to a highly reductive view of the religion. Much of Christian spirituality is about discerning divine love in the present moment and learning how to love better. You realize this once you begin to practice contemplation. You start to see that Christianity is not just a matter of knowing creeds or catechisms; it’s a concrete way of living fully with God and others.

Q: Interesting! Do you talk in the book about how to contemplate?

Hart: I haven’t written a “how to” book, but I outline several practices of contemplation. There are different theories of how to do it, and competing practices as well. If you read the book, you can find out about these, including “spiritual exercises,” sacred reading (lectio divina), as well as aesthetic contemplation. For example, ordinary Greeks in the ancient world would practice “overflight,” imaginative looking down upon their situation so as to see it in perspective; it prevented them from getting distraught over relatively small things that would quickly pass. The nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer used to contemplate trees and so remove himself from the tight chain of causality and from the confines of middle-class morality; it was the only way he could refresh himself and find peace in a world that otherwise made him into a strict pessimist.

Q: So you don’t have to contemplate God?

Hart: No. There are people who have thought that God is the only proper object of contemplation (Thomas Aquinas, for example) but there are others, including Christians, who think that one can also contemplate things in the world. In the twelfth century, Richard of St. Victor wrote a wonderful treatise entitled The Ark of Moses in which he shows how one can contemplate a blade of grass and, in doing so, gradually ascend to contemplate God. In recent centuries, people have practiced eco-contemplation, the contemplation of artworks, and even slow reading as a form of contemplation. The split between religious and nonreligious contemplation occurred in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and I talk about it in the book.

Q: Is contemplation a big commitment?

Hart: Well, reading my book isn’t! Anyone at all can read it and benefit from it. You just have to be a bit curious about the topic. Reading the book will show you that if you practice one or another form of contemplation for fifteen or twenty minutes each day, you will slowly be changed. If you’re a religious person, your relationship with God will deepen. If you’re not, you will find yourself becoming a calmer, gentler, more thoughtful person. It takes time and patience, and sometimes the discipline can be dry; but if you stick to it, like working out at the gym, you’ll notice a big change in a few weeks.