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A common source of the hardness is pride. A person refuses to hold in abeyance assumptions to allow entrance of a new truth or more whole view of the truth she already adheres to.
The beginner's mind, knowing by unknowing, is central to the Christian path of contemplation. The early monk, likely Syrian, Pseudo-Dionysius, is the most prolific influence in the Christian faith on the apophatic path. Here is reading from his Mystical Theology.
Once more, ascending yet higher we maintain that It is not soul, or mind, or endowed with the faculty of imagination, conjecture, reason, or understanding; nor is It any act of reason or understanding; nor can It be described by the reason or perceived by the understanding, since It is not number, or order, or greatness, or littleness, or equality, or inequality, and since It is not immovable nor in motion, or at rest, and has no power, and is not power or light, and does not live, and is not life; nor is It personal essence, or eternity, or time; nor can It be grasped by the understanding since It is not knowledge or truth; nor is It kingship or wisdom; nor is It one, nor is It unity, nor is It Godhead or Goodness; nor is It a Spirit, as we understand the term, since It is not Sonship or Fatherhood; nor is It any other thing such as we or any other being can have knowledge of; nor does It belong to the category of non-existence or to that of existence; nor do existent beings know It as it actually is, nor does It know them as they actually are; nor can the reason attain to It to name It or to know It; nor is it darkness, nor is It light, or error, or truth; nor can any affirmation or negation apply to it; for while applying affirmations or negations to those orders of being that come next to It, we apply not unto It either affirmation or negation, inasmuch as It transcends all affirmation by being the perfect and unique Cause of all things, and transcends all negation by the pre-eminence of Its simple and absolute nature ~ free from every limitation and beyond them all.
*Dionysius the Areopagite: The Divine Names and Mystical Theology. Clarence Edwin Rolt.
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