“We must close the eyes of the body, to open another vision, which indeed all possess, but very few employ…
…But how shall we train this interior vision? At the moment of its first awakening, it cannot contemplate beauties too dazzling. Your soul must then first be accustomed to contemplate the noblest occupations of man, and then the beautiful deeds, not indeed those performed by artists, but those (good deeds) done by virtuous men. Later contemplate the souls of those who perform these beautiful actions. Nevertheless, how will you discover the beauty which their excellent soul possesses? Withdraw within yourself, and examine yourself. If you do not yet therein discover beauty, do as the artist, who cuts off, polishes, purifies until he has adorned his statue with all the marks of beauty. Remove from your soul, therefore, all that is superfluous, straighten out all that is crooked, purify and illuminate what is obscure, and do not cease perfecting your statue until the divine resplendence of virtue shines forth upon your sight, until you see temperance in its holy purity seated in your breast. When you shall have acquired perfection; when you will see it in yourself, when you will purely dwell within yourself, when you will cease to meet within yourself any obstacle to unity, when nothing foreign will any more, by its admixture, alter the simplicity of your interior essence, when within your whole being you will be a veritable light, immeasurable in size, uncircumscribed by any figure within narrow boundaries, unincreasable because reaching out to infinity, and entirely incommensurable because it transcends all measure and quantity, when you shall have become such, then, having become sight itself, you may have confidence in yourself, for you will no longer need any guide. Then must you observe carefully, for it is only by the eye that then will open itself within you that you will be able to perceive supreme Beauty.”
– Plotinus, Ennead I.6 Of Beauty
Purify yourself of all that is not beautiful. Close your eyes, dwell within yourself. “The eye will then open itself within you.” This seems to be as close as Plotinus gets to a meditative method.
Flowerly language aside, Plotinus’ emphasis on striving to perfect oneself morally as a precursor to “the contemplative experience” is another common element among the world’s contemplative traditions.