To deal with these unconscious forces, Au and Cannon suggest a number of specific practices of centering and meditation that direct attention to transcendent sources of beauty and goodness. These practices are in the tradition of Teresa of Avila and Ignatius Loyola, who taught ways to use the imagination contemplatively to enter into the scenes portrayed in Scripture. So long as we are preoccupied with comfort and survival, we have little energy for generosity and compassion. It is true that some forms of contemplation can lead to quietism and withdrawal from the world s problems. But that is not the whole story.
Spiritual practices can contribute to an ethical vision.
Many Westerners are discovering in Buddhist meditation practices a respect for the cosmos that can counteract the arrogance that has despoiled the environment. By deepening their awareness of being one with the rest of nature, they find a new reverence and compassion for all the other parts of the ecosystem. Still, spirituality is no substitute for ethics. Normative reflection and public discourse about values require a certain level of abstraction and detachment. Standards of justice, for example, should have a common meaning that does not depend on a particular definition of spiritual or transcendent meaning.