fear

At the root of all war is fear, not so much the fear men have of one another as the fear they have of everything. It is not merely that they do not trust one another. They do not even trust themselves.... They cannot trust anything because they have ceased to know  God.

It is not only our hatred of others that is dangerous but also and above an our hatred of ourselves: particularly that hatred of ourselves which is too deep and too powerful to be consciously faced. For it is this that makes us see our own evil in others and unable to see it in ourselves....

As if this were not enough, we make the situation much worse by artificially intensifying our sense of evil, and by increasing our propensity to feel guilt even for things that are not in themselves wrong. In all these ways, we build up such an obsession with evil, both in ourselves and in others, that we waste all our mental energy trying to account for this evil, to punish it, to exorcise it, or to get rid of it in any way we can.

~ Thomas Merton

excerpt from his 1962 essay: The Root of War is Fear

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peace

Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for,

or "fight for."  It is indeed "fighting for peace" that starts all 

the wars.  What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold

War crisis, but "fighting for peace"?  Peace is something you have

or do not have.  If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least 

some peace in the world.  Then share your peace with everyone,

and everyone will be at peace.  Of course I realize that arguments

 like this can be used as a pretext for passivity, for indifferent 

acceptance of every iniquity.  Quietism leads to war as surely as 

anything does.  But I am not speaking of quietism, because quietism 

is not peace, nor is it the way to peace.

~ Thomas Merton

from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

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how

Pardon all runners,

All speechless, alien winds,

All mad waters.

Pardon their impulses,

Their wild attitudes,

Their young flights, their reticence.

When a message has no clothes on

How can it be spoken.

~ Thomas Merton

from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton

with thanks to love is a place

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to see things as he sees them

To love another as a person we must begin by granting

 him his own autonomy and identity as a person. 

We have to love him for what he is in himself, 

and not for what he is to us. 

We have to love him for his own good, 

not for the good we get out of him. 

And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love 

which ‘transforms’ us, so to speak, into the other person, 

making us able to see things as he sees them, love what he loves, 

experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own. 

Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible. 

But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation 

‘into the other’ 

while remaining ourselves, 

we are not yet capable of a fully human existence.

~ Thomas Merton

from Disputed Questions

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prayer of the heart

In meditation we do not seek to know about God as though he were an object like other objects which submit to our scrutiny and can be expressed in clear scientific ideas. We seek to know God himself, beyond the level of all the objects which he has made and which confront us as “things” isolated from one another, “defined,” “delimited,” with clear boundaries. The infinite God has no boundaries and our minds cannot set limits to him or to his love. His presence is then “grasped” in the general awareness of loving faith; it is “realized” without being scientifically and precisely known, as we know a specimen under a microscope. His presence cannot be verified as we would verify a laboratory experiment. Yet it can be spiritually realized as long as we do not insist on verifying it. As soon as we try to verify the spiritual presence as an object of exact knowledge, God eludes us.

In a word, God is invisibly present to the ground of our being: our belief and love attain to him, but he remains hidden from the arrogant gaze of our investigating mind which seeks to capture him and secure permanent possession of him in an act of knowledge that gives power over him. It is in fact absurd and impossible to try to grasp God as an object which can be seized and comprehended by our minds.

The knowledge of which we are capable is simply knowledge about him. It points to him in analogies which we must transcend in order to reach him. But we must transcend ourselves as well as our analogies, and in seeking to know him we must forget the familiar subject-object relationship which characterizes our ordinary acts of knowing. Instead, we know him insofar as we become aware of ourselves as known through and through by him. We “possess” him in proportion as we realize ourselves to be possessed by him in the inmost depths of our being. Meditation or “prayer of the heart” is the active effort we make to keep our hearts open so that we may be enlightened by him and filled with this realization of our true relationship to him. Therefore the classic form of “meditation” is repetitive invocation of the name of Jesus in the heart emptied of images and cares.

Hence the aim of meditation in the context of Christian faith, is not to arrive at an objective and apparently “scientific” knowledge about God, but to come to know him through the realization that our very being is penetrated with his knowledge and love for us.

~ Thomas Merton

from On Meditation

with thanks to the value of sparrows

sketch by the author

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the empty boat

He who rules men lives in confusion;

He who is ruled by men lives in sorrow.

Yao therefore desired

Neither to influence others

Nor be influenced by them.

The way to get clear of confusion

And free of sorrow

Is to live with Tao

In the land of the great Void.

If a man is crossing a river

And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,

Even though he be a bad-tempered man

He will not become very angry.

But if he sees a man in the boat,

He will shout at him to steer clear.

If the shout is not heard, he will shout again,

And yet again, and begin cursing.

And all because there is somebody in the boat.

Yet if the boat were empty,

He would not be shouting, and not angry.

If you can empty your own boat 

Crossing the river of the world,

No one will oppose you,

No one will seek to harm you.

The straight tree is the first to be cut down,

The spring of clear water is the first to be drained dry.

If you wish to improve your wisdom

And shame the ignorant,

To cultivate your character

And outshine others;

A light will shine around you

As if you had swallowed the sun and the moon:

You will not avoid calamity.

A wise man has said:

"He who is content with himself

Has done a worthless work.

Achievement is the beginning of failure.

Fame is the beginning of disgrace."

Who can free himself from achievement

And from fame, descend and be lost

Amid the masses of men?

He will flow like Tao, unseen,

He will go about like Life itself

With no name and no home.

Simple is he, without distinction.

To all appearances he is a fool.

His steps leave no trace.  He has no power.

He achieves nothing, has no reputation.

Since he judges no one

No one judges him.

Such is the perfect man:

His boat is empty.

~ Chuang Tzu

translation by Thomas Merton
from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton

art by Nancy Poucher

To deliver oneself up,

to hand oneself over,

entrust oneself completely to the silence

of a wide landscape of woods and hills,

or sea and desert; to sit still while

the sun comes up over the land

and fills its silences with light.

...few are willing to belong completely

to such silence, to let it soak into their bones,

to breathe nothing but silence, to feed

on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life

into a living and vigilant silence.

~ Thomas Merton

from Thoughts in Solitude

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when I am not present to myself

When I am not present to myself, 

then I am only aware of that half of me, 

that mode of my being which turns outward to created things. 

 And then it is possible for me to lose myself among them. 

 Then I no longer feel the deep secret pull 

of the gravitation of love which draws my inward self toward God. 

 My will and my intelligence lose their command of the other faculties. 

 My senses, my imagination, my emotions, 

scatter to pursue their various quarries all over the face of the earth. 

 Recollection brings them home. 

 It brings the outward self into line with the inward spirit, 

and makes my whole being answer the deep pull of love 
that reaches down into the mystery of God.

~ Thomas Merton

from No Man is an Island

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invitation

Sabbath observance invites us to stop. It invites us to rest. 
It asks us to notice that while we rest, 
the world continues without our help. 
It invites us to delight in the world’s beauty and abundance.

~ Wendell Berry

The time for contemplation is the spring that feeds our action, 
and our action will be as deep as the spring. 
We need time to allow the spirit to clear the obstacles 
– the clinging debris and mud – 
that keeps the spring from flowing freely from its clear, 
deep source. And we need time for the spring to 
overflow into insightful and compassionate action.

~ Thomas Merton

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quenching darkness

God

pours light

into every cup,

quenching darkness.

The proudly pious

stuff their cups with parchment

and critique the taste of ink

while God pours light

and the trees lift their limbs

without worry of redemption,

every blossom a chalice.

Hafiz, seduce those withered souls

with words that wet their parched lips

as light

pours like rain

into every empty cup

set adrift on the Infinite Ocean.

~ Hafiz
with thanks to http://www.parabola.org/

The solitary is one who is aware of solitude in himself as a basic and inevitable human reality, not just as something which affects him as an isolated individual. Hence his solitude is the foundation of a deep, pure and gentle sympathy with all other men, whether or not they are capable of realizing the tragedy of their plight. More - it is the doorway by which he enters into the mystery of God, and brings others into that mystery by the power of his love and his humility.

- Thomas Merton

  from Disputed Questions

Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude

with thanks to http://fatherlouie.blogspot.com/




photo by Thomas Merton

What the solitary renounces is not his union with other men, but rather the deceptive fictions and inadequate symbols which tend to take the place of genuine social unity - to produce a facade of apparent unity without really uniting men on a deep level.  We are all alike in our aloneness at the deepest level, yet most of us try to distract ourselves from awareness of this in the ways Pascal called "divertissement," the "occupations and recreations so mercifully provided by society, which enable a man to avoid his own company for twenty-four hours a day."

~ John Barbour

from The Value of Solitude

here quoting Thomas Merton

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “universe,” 

a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, 

as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. 

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires 

and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. 

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison 

by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures 

and the whole of nature in its beauty.

~ Albert Einstein

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the still point of the turning world

~ Thomas Merton

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thomas merton and the pratyekabuddha

by Jeremy Holiday through Professor Rev. Dr. James Kenneth Powell II, opensourcebuddhism.org This excellent work by my grad student Jeremy Holiday demonstrates his many talents: intellectual, aural, visual and an empathetic ability to understand other cultures. He investigates the relationship between Trappist monk Thomas Merton and his Asian adventures, specifically the relevance of his meeting with Chatrul Rinpoche of the Nyingma Tradition. This work also reveals the Buddhist attitude towards those of other faiths who have attained some higher realization.

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the frontiers of language

Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? 

He is the one I would like to talk to. 

~ Chuang Tzu

But before we come to that which is unspeakable and unthinkable, 

the spirit hovers on the frontiers of language, 

wondering whether or not to stay on its own side of the border, 

in order to have something to bring back to other men. 

This is the test of those who wish to cross the frontier. 

If they are not ready to leave their own ideas and their own words behind them, 

they cannot travel further. 

~ Thomas Merton

from No Man is an Island

The unconsciousness

And entire sincerity of Tao

Are disturbed by any effort

At self-conscious demonstration. 

~ Chuang Tzu

In The Way of Chuang Tzu, Merton is communicating his own joy from his spirit’s tower. He has found a new friend who has taught him the irony of words as well as the value of irony. Like the best of Merton’s words, The Way of Chuang Tzu points to an experience of contemplation, while it reverently and wisely backs away from providing or insisting upon such an experience. Just as Merton kicks away Chuang Tzu like a ladder after experiencing the unknowing Chuang Tzu describes, Merton invites us to climb his own words and to forget them as well. 

~ commentary from slow reads

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my own being is often hidden

The deep secrecy of my own being is often hidden from me by my own estimate of what I am. 

My idea of what I am is falsified by my admiration for what I do. 

And my illusions about myself are bred by contagion from the illusions of other men. 

We all seek to imitate one another’s imagined greatness.

If I do not know who I am, it is because 

I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants to be. 

Perhaps I have never asked myself whether I really wanted to become 

what everybody else seems to want to become. 

Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, 

I would really begin to live after all. 

I would be liberated from the painful duty of saying what I really do not think 

and of acting in a way that betrays God’s truth and the integrity of my own soul.

~ Thomas Merton

 from No Man is an Island

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Le Secret

.

Since I am 

Somebody’s dream, 

I have a good life.

Sometimes I go away in my sailboat on a cloud 

and take a quiet little trip.

I have a secret

which I have learned how to read inside myself;

if I told it to you,

it would make you laugh.

My heart is naked

and no one can put clothes on it, 

and nothing can be put on

that will not immediately fall off.

My secret is ignorant, 

it doesn't sing songs,

no lie,

it has nothing to tell you.

My two eyes

are maps of the planet—

I see everything

and nothing upsets me.

Just now

I was in China

and saw there a great piece of happiness 

that belonged to one man.

And I have been to the center of the earth, 

where there is no suffering.

If on your loneliest nights, 

I visit other planets

and the most secret stars of all,

besides being no one, 

know that I am you 

and everybody.

But if I go away

without giving you a name to remember me with,

how will I find

the right dream to return to?

You won’t have to mark down

on your calendar that I am coming back; 

don’t bother to write me into your notebooks. 

I will be around

when you aren't thinking about me,

without hair or a neck, 

without a nose and cheeks 

no reputation—

there won’t be anything.

I am a bird 

which God made.

.

~ Thomas Merton

 from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton

 translation by William Davis

with thanks to noornalini

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cooperation in violence

.

The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, 

perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. 

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, 

to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, 

to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. 

More than that, it is cooperation in violence. 

The frenzy of the activist...destroys his own inner capacity for peace.

It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work,

 because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

.

~ Thomas Merton

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the beginning of love

.

The beginning of love 

is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, 

and not to twist them to fit our own image. 

Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

~ Thomas Merton

sketch by the author

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to find himself in another

.

No, the great business of our time is this: 

for one man to find himself in another one who is on the other side of the world. 

Only by such contacts can there be peace, 

can the sacredness of life be preserved and developed 

and the image of God manifest itself in the world.

.

from  A Life in Letters

It is as if we met on a deeper level of life 

on which individuals are not separate beings...

it is as if we were known to one another in God.

...

Although we are separated by great distances and even greater barriers 

it gives me pleasure to speak to you as to one whom I feel to be a kindred mind....

...

It is true that a person always remains a person and utterly separate and apart from every other person. 

But it is equally true that each person is destined to reach with others an understanding and a unity which transcend individuality, and Russian tradition describes this with a concept we do not fully possess in the West- "sobornost."

from his letters to Boris Pasternak

~ Thomas Merton

art by Tony Karp

with thanks to ascending the hills

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to sing

.

.

To sing is to begin a sentence

like "I want to get well.

I am not born for nothing

and neither are you:

Heaven never wept

over nothing."

~ Thomas Merton

from an untitled poem

thanks to whiskey river

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learn to be detached from the results of our own activity

.

.

It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. 
In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being 
we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. 
We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, 
from effects that are beyond our control 
and be content with the good will and the work 
that are the quiet expression of our interior life. 
.
We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, 
to work without expecting immediate reward, 
to love without instantaneous satisfaction, 
and to exist without any special recognition.

.

~ Thomas Merton

from  No Man is an Island

with thanks to love is a place

.

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they did not hear

.

.

They did not hear my children

Singing in the jungle

They did not hear my sons

Singing in the tropical rain

They did not see my chosen ones

Dance to my dream.

.

~ Thomas Merton

from The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton

.

.

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