Simply put the "practice" of a monk/hermit/mendicant towards this goal consists of the following:
(
a)
ascesis: which means essentially "spiritual discipline". Involves fasting, chanting,
lectio divina (spiritual reading of scripture) and most importantly of all something called
watchfulness, as described by Abba Evagrius:
"...If there is any monk who wishes to take the measure of some of the more fierce passions so as to gain experience in his monastic art, then let him keep careful watch over his thoughts. Let him observe their intensity, their periods of decline and follow them as they rise and fall. Let him note well the complexity of his thoughts, their periodicity, with the order of their succession and the nature of their associations. Then let him ask from Christ the explanations of these data he has observed..."
Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), early desert father, in "The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer"
One hopes to attain "
ascetic purity" through this practice i.e.
"...
What is ascetic purity, in a nutshell? A heart which burns with compassion for every thing in creation - not only for human beings, but for birds, animals, reptiles, and everything that is, even for demons, for the enemies of truth, and for those who cause you harm - all as a result of an intense compassion, like God's own, infused in one's heart without measure..."
- Saint Isaac the Syrian (died c. 700), Christian mystic, bishop & theologian
(
b)
meditation: refers to discursive prayer relying on images, ideas, thoughts, even statues and icons to aid the person.
(c) contemplation: non-discursive or imageless prayer, the highest practice.
This is the cultivation of an awareness that is
not ordinary because our ordinary mode of perception is to chatter, obsess and think:
"...After seasons of practice, the fruit is the stillness, inner focus, and recollection of that dimension of human awareness that thinks, chatters, obsesses, and swarms like a plague of gnats..."
- Fr Martin Laird, modern Catholic contemplative writer & priest
Here is a quote from an academic book written in the early 1920s by a Benedictine monk, giving a good definition of the "practice" of contemplation:
"...The preliminary condition for contemplation is that the mind has been through a process of spiritual training, whereby it is able to empty itself of images and sense perceptions...
One sets oneself to pray, say for the regulation half-hour; empties the mind of all images, ideas, concepts - this is commonly done without much difficulty; fixes the soul in loving attention on God, without express or distinct idea of Him, beyond the vague incomprehensible idea of His Godhead; makes no particular acts, but a general actuation of love, without sensible devotion or emotional feeling: a sort of blind and dumb act of the will or of the soul itself.
This lasts a few minutes, then fades away, and either a blank or distractions supervene: when recognized, the will again fixes the mind in loving attention for a time. The period of prayer is thus passed in such alternations, a few minutes each, the bouts of loving attention being, in favourable conditions, more prolonged than the bouts of distraction..."
- Dom Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monk in "Western Mysticism: Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard on Contemplation and the Contemplative Life" (1922), p69
Here also is a classic description from
Pope St. Gregory the Great:
"...[In contemplation] the mind must first have learned to shut out from its eyes all the phantasmata [mental images or representations of objects] of earthly and heavenly images, and to spurn and tread underfoot whatever presents itself to its thought from sight, from hearing, from smell, from bodily touch or taste, so that it may seek interiorly as it is without these sensations...
If our mind be distracted by earthly images, it can no way consider itself or the nature of the soul, because by how many thoughts it is led about, by so many obstacles it is blinded. And so the first step is that it collect itself within itself (recollection); the second, that it consider what its nature is so collected (introversion); the third, that it rise above itself and yield itself to the intent contemplation of its invisible Maker (contemplation).
But the mind cannot recollect itself unless it has first learned to repress all phantasmata of earthly images, and to reject and spurn whatever sense impressions present themselves to its thoughts, in order that it may seek itself within as it is without these sensations. So they are all to be driven away from the mind's eye, in order that the soul may see itself as it was made...
When the soul raised up to itself understands its own measure, and recognizes that it transcends all bodily things, and from the knowledge of itself passes to the knowledge of its Maker, what is this, except to see the door opposite the door?..."
- Pope. St Gregory the Great (Homilies on Ezechiel II.V.), published in AD 593
The Desert Fathers and Mothers were the 'pioneers' of the 'structured', model of the contemplative life that would later come to predominate in the Catholic and Orthodox worlds. They are sort of like the Christian equivalent to the Hindu sages who took to the forests of India in the 7th - 5th centuries BC and authored the Upanishads.
They were respectively given the honorific titles of '
Abba' (father) and '
Amma' (mother) for their profound wisdom and holiness.
One of the later Desert Fathers named
Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) systematized and harmonized the disparate teachings, sayings and practices of his predecessors into a clear 'system' that became highly influential with later contemplatives. His disciple
St. John Cassian was instrumental in the foundation of Western monasticism through his book
The Conferences.
Abba Evagrius' structure of the contemplative life as beginning with the "
purgative", proceeding to the "
illuminative" stage and then concluding with the "
contemplative" proper is the same basic tripartite structure that hasbeen employed by all subsequent contemplatives till the present day:
http://timiosprodromos2.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/tpl-commentary-2.html
What Evagrius is saying is that the mystical ascent has three stages: the practical, the natural and the theological stages. Moreover, he is implying that this mystical ascent is not something apart from Christian dogma but an integral part of it. This is what we mean when we say that Evagrius places his mystical doctrine in a soteriological framework: the mystical ascent is how we work out our salvation; it is not something apart from our program of working out our salvation.
This tripartite division of the mystical life will become forever standard even in the West. There it is known as the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive stages. This terminology corresponds exactly to Evagrius’ basic meaning and can provide us with an interpretation of his terms.The practical life—of the monk—is the purgative stage, and theTreatise on the Practical Life[1] is devoted to it. We shall see as we go on just how Evagrius intends the term.
The natural part is the stage of the natural contemplation of existent things, subdivided into the natural contemplation of such existent things as do not possess mind (nous) and into the natural contemplation of such existent things as do possess mind (nous). The first are rocks and trees and animals; the second are the angels. By the time we have finished, this will have become clear.
The third stage, Theology, is the contemplation of God himself.
How do different orders of monks and nuns differ?
That's a big topic, I'll get onto it tomorrow.
Do Christian monks adhere to special diets?
Yes. I'll get onto that tomorrow.
