Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [58]
Contemplation is unconcerned with means or agents
Fourthly, our attention to the object—unlike the linear direction towards a purpose—can unfold in its full breadth without being altered by our concern with means; it is undivided attention.
In the fifth place, the contemplative attitude—as contrasted to action in all its stages, including that which precedes the final fulfillment of the end—is ruled entirely by the thematicity of the object as such. The aspect of a realization through my action is absent; the object acquires full thematic value.
Contemplation is reposeful attention to an object
Further, contemplation implies an inward penetration of the object, a communing therewith in awareness of everything it means, as though the object turned its full face to us. Whereas, in action, including even its final phase, we only touch the object from the outside intent on accomplishing it rather than facing it in all its plenitude.
Again, contemplation represents a specifically restful attitude, in which we, free from the circumscribing function of acting as agent, actualize our entire being. Finally, contemplation contrasts with action owing to its basic trait of receptivity.
Contemplation differs radically from relaxation
We have just described contemplation as a reposeful attention to an object fully present; this must not be construed in the sense of crediting every reposeful or relaxed state of mind with a contemplative character. Relaxation as such need not have anything to do with contemplation. I may dream, muse, or take a walk free from all particular purpose, without the slightest trace of contemplation proper. Nor is the relaxed state which denotes recreation—a state of mere rest, without any actual direction towards an aim—in any sense in the nature of contemplation. For all these forms of relaxation involve a temporary extinction of wakeful, alert spiritual life; they entirely lack intensity and are not far distant from a cessation of all intellectual activity. Nor are they consonant with the express attitude of intentional reference to an object. In these forms of relaxation, the dialogic situation between subject and object which is constitutive for all higher mental life cannot possibly thrive.
Contemplation, on the other hand—as has been explained by Jacques Maritain in his study on “Action and Contemplation” (Revue Thomiste)—represents spiritual activity in the most eminent sense of the word; only it is an immanent (in contraposition to a transitive) activity. All activity which in some way intervenes in the events happening outside its subject, all work in the broadest sense of the term, we call transitive. In contrast, an act of loving adoration, for example, is a purely immanent form of spiritual activity. Here, the actualization of the mind and the intense realization of a mental attitude take place within the person himself, devoid of any operation beyond the range of his own being—be it a fact brought about by action, an object produced, or a change effected in some object already existing. Yet, for being thus limited in range, immanent activity is by no means a less noble or intense form of activity.
Contemplation involves intense spiritual activity
It would be a gross error indeed to confuse contemplation with trivial or recreative relaxation as described above. On the contrary, it embodies activity of the highest degree, the fullest actualization of the person, and the most wakeful, genuine, and intense form of spiritual life. True, it is distinguished from action