The Ignatius Examen

In Ignatius Spirituality (依納爵靈修), Examen (意識省察）is another important way to pray to God.

Examen refers to the process of reviewing one's own experience, say, in the previous one day or half, identifying a grateful and perhaps also an ungrateful experience, clarifying and understanding the associated emotions, and based on these, praying to God.   There follows a plan for the way forward for the next day.

This may seem like what we are told when we were little, to reflect one's own doings in the day and find ways to improve oneself in the near future.

In the spiritual context, it is perhaps part of the process of opening to God one's deepest feelings and emphasizes the togetherness with God during the reflection.

For both the Examen and the Contemplation of Gospel, there are two essential requirements.

First, as they are both a form of prayers, one needs to invite the Holy Spirit to guide the prayer.

Second, the prayer involves a conversation, or called "colloquy", between one who prays and Jesus, or the Father, or Mary, or any of the saints.  Because of the conversational nature, there needs to be the elements of both speaking and listening.  The former is to express one's emotions accurately, and the latter to give time for silence for listening.

Reference:
1. Ignatius Spirituality.  The Daily Examen.  (http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/)

2. Wright VH.  Three ways to pray Ignatian.  At Days of Deepening Friendship.  (http://deepeningfriendship.loyolapress.com/2014/07/30/three-ways-to-pray-ignatian/)

3. 依納爵靈修空間 (http://www.ignatian.org)

Ignatius way of contemplative prayer

Attended a workshop recently and had the chance to walk through the Ignatius way of contemplative prayer.

In contrast to "meditation" （默想）, the Ignatius way of "contemplation" (默觀）emphasizes using imagination to go into the scenarios described in the gospel to experience Jesus as if a member actually present in that scene.   When one has his mind and heart are fully engaged in the scene, he is asked to pay special attention to his thoughts and emotions aroused by the presence.

The purpose of the process is to explore the meaning of the section of the gospel to one's own life.   In Ignatius tradition, it is the way to communicate with God in a personal way.  A pre-requisite is to pray and invite the Holy Spirit to lead one into the journey.

Although it is said to be best used in experiencing Gospel passages, some also considers those in the Old Testament can be well experienced through Ignatius Contemplation.

One piece of passage good for Ignatius Contemplation is Jesus curing the blind man as described in Luke 18:35-43.

Note: "Contemplation" may be used in some other spiritual tradition to refer to praying without thoughts and images.

Reference:
http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/what-is-ignatian-spirituality/

Mysticism

When we talk about mystics, reference is often made to people such as Saint John of the Cross, Saint Therese of Lisieux, and also the recently canonised Saint John Paul II.  But what is mystics?  What is mysticism? 

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, mysticism refers to "the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by the mystics", or "the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience as intuition or insights."

The online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy considered "mysticism" as "a constellation of distinctive practices, discourses, texts, institutions, traditions, and experiences aiming at human transformation, variously defined in different traditions."  As such, the study of mysticism covers the classification of mystical experiences, their nature in different religions and mystical traditions, and how they are modified by language and culture, as well as whether there is evidence for the truth of contents of the mystical experiences.

Mystical experience is therefore further defined in a wider sense as "a purportedly super sense-perceptual or sub sense-perceptual experience granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection."  However, more commonly, it refers to a subset of the above focusing on a "unitive" experience which involves a "de-emphasis, blurring, or eradication of multiplicity."

Examples of unitive experience are the "oneness of all nature", "union with God" of Christianity, Atman if Brahman (the the self/soul is identical with the eternal, absolute being) in Hinduism, and that in Buddhism.  Such unitive experience is in contrast with a dualistic experience of God when the subject and God remain strictly distinct.  On example quoted by the website for the latter is the Jewish tree of life kabbalistic experience.

Mystical experience is considered not equivalent to but a subset of "religious experience".  The latter refers to any experience having content or significance appropriate to a religious context, such as religious visions and auditions, non-mystical Zen experiences, various religious feelings, as well as the "feeling of absolute dependence".

Reference:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mysticism/)