What is Contemplative Writing?
Contemplative writing is a practice that integrates meditative awareness with the act of writing. Rather than focusing solely on producing polished prose or publishable work, contemplative writing emphasizes process over product—using writing as a tool for self-inquiry, present-moment attention, and deepening one’s understanding of mind and experience. The practice is more a way of approaching writing (the how) than the type of writing we do (the what). Practitioners typically write without stopping, suspending editorial judgment, and maintaining awareness of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations as they move the pen across the page.
The practice shares roots with contemplative practices across religious traditions but has evolved in secular academic and creative contexts. Contemplative writing is most commonly one aspect of carefully constructed contemplative pedagogies and integrated into classes in scaffolded and deliberate ways that might encourage nonjudgmental awareness, embodied or spiritual experience, honor for the interconnectedness of all beings, and more.
Origins & Lineage
Contemporary contemplative writing emerged from two intersecting movements in the late 20th century: Buddhist-inspired creative writing instruction and the contemplative pedagogy movement in higher education.
Natalie Goldberg’s 1986 book Writing Down the Bones sold over two million copies and is considered an influential work on the craft of writing. Goldberg studied Zen Buddhism for more than thirty years and practiced with Dainin Katagiri Roshi for six years. In her groundbreaking first book, she brings together Zen meditation and writing in a new way, with writing practice being no different from other forms of Zen practice—“it is backed by two thousand years of studying the mind”. Katagiri Roshi said to Goldberg, “Natalie, make writing your practice”, explicitly linking the discipline of sitting meditation with the discipline of writing.
Parallel to Goldberg’s work, Julia Cameron introduced “morning pages” in her influential book The Artist’s Way, first published in 1992. Morning Pages invite you to do three pages daily of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness, which provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand.
In academia, the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society (CMind), founded in 1997, organized conferences, retreats, and the annual Summer Session on Contemplative Learning in Higher Education. The Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education (ACMHE) was founded in 2008 by the Center, with an international membership of over 750 faculty, administrators, and higher education professionals, hosting annual conferences on contemplative education since 2009. These initiatives legitimized contemplative writing as an academic pedagogy rather than solely a creative practice.
How It’s Practiced
Contemplative writing typically involves several key principles:
Continuous movement: Keep your hand moving—don’t pause to reread the line you have just written, as that’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.
Non-editing: Don’t cross out, as that is editing as you write; even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.
Present-moment attention: At its core, contemplative writing asks us to slow down, know ourselves better, and bring intention to all communicative acts: reading and writing, listening and speaking, witnessing and testifying.
Process orientation: The focus is on process, not outcome, with practitioners often assured their writing need not be shared.
Sessions typically last 10–30 minutes. Practitioners may write in response to a prompt, a word, an image, or simply whatever arises in consciousness. The physical act of handwriting is often emphasized over typing, as it slows the process and increases embodied awareness.
Contemplative Writing Today
Contemporary seekers encounter contemplative writing in multiple contexts:
Academic settings: Universities increasingly integrate contemplative writing into composition courses, writing centers, and writing-across-the-curriculum programs. This issue focuses on the use of contemplative writing as a practice (or set of practices) used in the context of writing across the curriculum and in the disciplines.
Creative writing workshops: Teachers influenced by Goldberg and Cameron lead weeklong retreats combining silent meditation, walking practice, and timed writing sessions.
Therapeutic contexts: Mental health professionals and journaling facilitators adapt contemplative writing for stress reduction, self-exploration, and emotional regulation.
Individual practice: Many writers maintain daily contemplative writing practices—morning pages, freewriting sessions, or contemplative journaling—independent of formal instruction.
Common Misconceptions
It’s just freewriting: While contemplative writing shares techniques with freewriting, it explicitly integrates mindfulness and emphasizes awareness of the writing process itself, not just uninhibited expression.
It replaces meditation: Contemplative writing complements but does not substitute for silent sitting practice. Katagiri Roshi told Goldberg, “Writing and Zen are parallel paths, but not the same”.
It’s only for creative writers: Contemplative writing is practiced across disciplines—from physics to philosophy—as a tool for deepening inquiry and connecting personal experience with academic material.
Quality doesn’t matter: While the practice de-emphasizes conventional craft during the writing itself, many practitioners later mine their contemplative writing for publishable work. The distinction is temporal: judgment is postponed, not eliminated.
It requires religious belief: Though rooted in Buddhist contemplative traditions, contemporary contemplative writing is practiced in entirely secular contexts and requires no specific spiritual commitments.
How to Begin
Start with a simple daily practice: Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write by hand without stopping, crossing out, or rereading. When you notice your attention wandering or your inner critic speaking, note it and return to the movement of the hand. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or coherence. If you don’t know what to write, write “I don’t know what to write” until something else emerges.
For structured guidance, consult Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones (1986) or Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (1992). Academic practitioners should explore Daniel Barbezat and Mirabai Bush’s Contemplative Practices in Higher Education (2014). Many universities and retreat centers offer contemplative writing workshops; search for programs through the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education or look for teachers trained in Goldberg’s or Cameron’s methods.