CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE

The contemplative life, the life of a monk, for instance, is actually a misnomer.  A monk lives his life not pondering God but being with God.  This is to say, a monk is already a believer.  He doesn't need to figure out God any longer, and be convinced of Him.

Alan Watts, by contrast, said that he preferred the word contemplation over, say, meditation, not surprising considering that he was a philosopher and an intellectual.  For Watts, God was a topic to be thought about, analyzed, and discussed as opposed to a presence to simply be amidst.