Contemplation may lead eventually to bliss, but first it will give us the pain of knowing that some of our dearest convictions are shallow, inadequate, wrong. Contemplation first deprives us of the familiar comforts. Then it replaces them with an inner emptiness in which new truth, often alien and unsettling truth, can emerge. The contemplative journey from illusion to reality may have peace as its destination, but en route it usually passes through some fearsome places.