“In genuine contemplation one normally begins with quiet and detached intuitions, simple peace, interior silence. There is little or no preoccupation with self. If one finds himself reflecting too much on himself, he instinctively breaks the false absorption by turning to a book, a picture, or some external reality or, interiorly, to some objective thought. The contemplative, too, on a bad day, can fall into a daze. But it takes the form of weariness and sleep. His deepest absorption is not trancelike, but something clean and wakeful, with nothing strained or pathological about it.”

Merton, Thomas. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. Edited and with an Introduction by William H. Shannon. NY: HarperOne, 2003, pp. 112-113.