Contemplating surrounding us with expensive pottery (6)
I believe the answer is:
musing
'contemplating' is the definition.
('muse' can be a synonym of 'contemplate')
'surrounding us with expensive pottery' is the wordplay.
'surrounding' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'with expensive pottery' becomes 'ming' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'us' inserted into 'ming' is 'MUSING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for musing that I've seen before include "Reflecting in silence" , "Pondering, thinking" , "Reflecting or pondering" , "Cogitation" , "reflection" .)