Thomas Merton: Union and Division

"We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord."

If you read these posts, and think perhaps, that the blog is misnamed, think carefully, look deeply, because the raft is not the shore. The way to enlightenment may be fast as Suzuki, or it may be slow; the simple mind sees in possibility. Revelation is ongoing in Buddhist commentary, as indeed it is in the oral Torah of Judaism, or in the Christ revealed. Thomas Merton, an important 20th century theologian, a member of the Catholic Christian sect, or order, the Cistercians, whose roots date back nearly a thousand years.

Thomas Merton was French, born in Prades, France. His parents, artists, Ruth and Owen Merton died when he was young. His early years were spent in the south of France; later, he went to private school in England and then to Cambridge University. By the time Merton was a young teen, he moved to his grandparents' home in the United States to finish his education at Columbia University in New York City.

Merton's active social and political conscience was also informed by his conversion to Catholic Christianity in his early twenties. In December 1941, he resigned his teaching post at Bonaventure College, Olean, NY, and journeyed to the Trappist (Cistercian) monastery, Abbey of Gethsemani, near Louisville, Kentucky.
There, Merton undertook the life of a scholar and man of letters, in addition to his formation as a Cistercian monk.

The thoroughly secular man was about to undertake a lifelong spiritual journey into faith and monasticism, and the pursuit of his own spirituality. His importance as a writer in the American literary tradition is becoming clear. His influence as a religious thinker and social critic is taking its place. His explorations of the religions of the east initiated Merton's entrance into inter-religious dialogue, placing him in worldwide ecumenical movements, in the spirit of Saint Peter (I Peter 3:15), "to give an explanation for the reason of our hope [that we may be as one]."
Excerpt from the website, Thomas Merton Society of Canada:

Union and Division

"In order to become myself, [my original face] I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be, and in order to find myself, I must go out of myself, and in order to live, I have to die [to myself].
The reason for this is that I am born in selfishness and therefore my natural efforts to make myself more real and more myself, make me less real and less myself, because they revolve around a lie."--Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Merton writes in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, that "people who know nothing of God, and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambitions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appropriating... and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and the other men who have less than they, or nothing at all... they conceive of only one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off... and building a barrier of contrast and distinction... they do not know that reality is to be sought not in division, but in unity, for we are members of one another.'

"The man who lives in division is not a person but only an individual. I have what you have not; I am what you are not... thus I spend my life admiring the distance between you and me... The man who lives in division, lives in death.
He cannot find himself because he is lost; he ceases to be a reality...
Once he has started on this path, there is no limit to the evil his self satisfaction may drive him to..."

Finally Merton notes, the start of the Way for this man begins in emptiness; "I must look for my identity, somehow, not only in God, but in other men. I will not ever be able to find myself if I isolate myself." Co-union in support, in Sangha, is the beginning of the Way.

Culture Needs Eastern Wisdom

"The horizons of the world are no longer confined to Europe [or the West]."
  -- A Thomas Merton Reader, essays by Thomas Merton

While some visitors here may be confounded by the name of this blog and its stated aims, be no mistake, the "raft is not the shore, nor is the wave without the water."  The winds are in the waves. This is everyday mind. Writing in his collected essays, Theologian, and great friend of Eastern philosophy and wisdom, Cistercian monk, Thomas Merton speaks to a subject increasingly important in modern life. He writes in an essay that "we have to gain new perspectives, and on this our spiritual and even our physical survival may depend... Does Christian culture need Oriental wisdom?" It is, he says, absolutely essential to introduce into our studies, the Humanities and a dimension of wisdom oriented to contemplation as well as to wise action.... It is no longer sufficient to go back over our European and Christian traditions."

Merton asks if Christian, western culture needs Asian wisdom. He asks if the current lack of Humanities education by the vast majority of educators and students leads to a great, gaping void. While many think of the Humanities to be synonymous with the Arts such as painting, drawing, music or theater, it is, in fact, so much more. This is moreover what Merton ponders. He says, "while it would certainly be rash to state this without further qualification. We may ask ourselves a few pertinent questions on the subject...
Firstly, it is quite clear that non-Christian religion has anything that Christianity needs, so far as it is a supernaturally revealed religion. Yet from the point of incarnation, of revealed Christian truth, we know how much of Greek and Roman patrimony there is in the faith. We know also of the breadth of Aristotle's use of Arabian commentators and mystics; we know of similar use of Asian philosophy and wisdom."

"Have we not been too ready to dismiss Oriental philosophy without really attempting to understand it? Do we not shrug it off? Can we be content to leave it at the level of comparative religion, like we might saunter through the Louvre in Paris comparing paintings? Do we simply study these systems from an a-priori logic, judging them false, but interesting anyway?"
To these musings Merton writes decidedly, "we cannot arrive at an understanding of any wisdom, natural or super-natural by arguing for or against it. Wisdom is not penetrated by logical analysis." The values in [Oriental] religion reveal themselves only on the plane of spiritual experience, or in the least, on a plane of aesthetic experience. They belong [also], to the natural order with deep affinities to super-naturalism, of course. A firm grasp of them leads us to both a deeper understanding of Eastern and Western values." This Merton says is vital to us in our modern, everyday lives.

Seeds and Meditations

"Despair is the absolute self extreme of self-love, reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help, so as to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost."--New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

Merton writes in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, on various topics meant for self-reflection and meditation. He says we are to read at our individual pace, not to feel compelled to take the author's pace or the author's conclusion. For in each of us there are seeds of contemplation which grow fruits different and unique as we are in Creation. Regarding humility he says that self-love and its result, despair are the opposite of humility. "But if a man is truly humble he cannot despair... because in the humble man there is no longer any such thing as self-pity... the man lives no longer for himself alone." Looking outward to others he lives in an "other focused" existence partaking in the joys of everyday life.Thus in complete humility selfishness is replaced by self-forgetfulness. Merton writes, "If there were no humility in the world, everybody would long ago have committed suicide."

Self confidence Merton writes is "a precious natural gift, a sign of health. But it is not the same thing as faith. Faith is much deeper, and it must be deeper if we are to subsist when we are weak, when we are sick, when our self confidence is gone, when our self respect is gone. Correspondingly a humble man is "not disturbed by praise." Since he is no longer concerned merely with himself, and since he knows the good (karma, if you like) that in him is for all benefit, he does not refuse praise because it is for the greater good, the greater joy.

About obedience and acceptance, Merton explores the values of both. "We must be convinced that it is very profitable for us to exercise ourselves in obedience, even to commands that are not perfectly rational or prudent. In doing this, we are not blinding ourselves or telling ourselves lies about the case. We simply accept the situation as it is, with all its defects, and obey for the love of God [the Creator]. In order to do so, we  have to make a fully rational and free decision, which in some cases may be quite difficult."

As for beginning in meditation, Merton writes:  "After they have acquired the discipline of mind that enables one to concentrate on a spiritual subject and get below the surface... acquire the agility and freedom of mind that will help find the light, warmth, ideas and love for God that are everywhere, in where they go and what they do...'

"Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn to contemplate works of art." Pray while in the streets of the city, or in the countryside. Meditate not only with book in hand. When meditation gets "beyond the level of your understanding and your imagination, it is really doing its work... then you must reach out into the fog and darkness with blind faith, filled with hope and love."