To become proficient in the discipline of contemplation, we must be willing to live in the midst of paradox. For we can only know the Mystery by letting go of knowing, and by putting aside our reason, our thinking, our too quick words. We must sit still, doing nothing at all. We must wait, allowing things to reveal themselves to us, and seek by allowing ourselves to be sought. In contemplation we must take Thou in by allowing ourselves to be taken in. By doing these things, we will gradually become "modern" contemplatives and find ourselves living at the still point of the turning world.
...Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from intelligences other than our own. Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve in a raindrop. The drop swells on the tip of a cedar and I catch it on my tongue like a blessing.