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Contemplation
An old Christian Tradition
Contemplation is the word that was used throughout the Middle Ages for prayer with no concrete object. It was the highest form and the goal of all instruction in prayer.
Three forms of prayer were distinguished: oratio (oral prayer), meditatio, and contemplatio. Teresa of Avila handed down to us a still more precise classification: oral prayer, mental prayer, meditation (possibly with reading), and the prayer of recollection (active and passive). After these forms, Teresa tells us, begins actual contemplative prayer: the prayer of quiet and contemplation (also called mystical union, immersion, or the art of loving).
Teresa's four forms address the intellectual and sensory endowment of human beings. That is, they involve the senses, feelings, and reason. These forms of prayer are concerned with the contents of consciousness, that is, with images, words, metaphors, or nature, through which the powers of the soul are stimulated. Mystics call this meditation.
Contemplation, on the other hand, is possible only when reason, memory, and will have come to rest. All psychic forces behave passively in contemplation. No cognitive contents are accepted; religious images, visions, inner speeches, and pious thoughts are left behind. Contemplation is pure gazing. Something happens to the prayer. It is an awakening to one's true divine essence.
(Jäger, "Search for the Meaning of Life", p.81,f)