Merton’s reputation was growing because of his contributions to the world, the Church, and the society through his prolific writings and prophetic voice. Though
throughout his monastic life Merton received many invitations from different parts of the world to deliver talks and attend conferences, Dom James did not encourage him in this regard. In 1967, Dom James resigned as abbot of the monastery and became a hermit. In 1968, under a new abbot Fr. Flavian Burns, Merton was able to travel to Asia and
immerse himself for a short while in the various religious traditions he had been studying for a long time.237
As he listened to the voice of God, his religious sphere expanded beyond Catholicism to an embrace of other religious traditions.238 The story of his historic journey is depicted in many of his writings, especially The Asian Journal. He found it fascinating to visit various places and meet distinguished scholars of other religions. At the same time, he was saddened and shocked to witness the overpopulation, poverty,
235
Zuercher, 12.
236
Robert Royal, “The Several-storied Thomas Merton,” (February 1, 1997); accessed on January 6, 2018, http://content.bangtech.com/thinking/thomasmerton.htm. Margie Smith returned to Ohio and married to a medical doctor and raised sons. She did her advanced studies in nursing and was in contact with Louisville friends who were the friends of Merton.
237
Rakoczy, 25
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starvation, and disease in different parts of India. As a social critic, Merton was stunned to see the sacred land corrupted and manipulated by Westerners.239
Merton had a desire to sink deep into the wellsprings of Eastern mysticism, and especially Buddhism. In Calcutta, Merton participated in the World Conference of Religions in 1968, in which Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains and Christians shared their faith. During the conference, while delivering the talk, Merton expressed, “I come as a pilgrim who is anxious to obtain not just information, not just ‘facts’ about other monastic traditions, but to drink from ancient sources of monastic vision and experience. I seek not only to learn more about religion and about monastic life but to become a better and more enlightened monk myself.”240 He became immersed in the rich religious traditions and spiritualities of the people of India.
On his journey to Asia, Merton met many Tibetan spiritual masters and spent fruitful time in prayer, meditation and dialogue. One of his significant encounters was with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama speaks of Merton with great approbation: “I could see he was a truly humble and deeply spiritual man. This was the first time I had been struck by such feeling of spirituality in anyone who professed Christianity.”241 The Lama was delighted to meet Merton, and considers this meeting to be one of his “happiest memories . . . it
239 Ibid., 274. 240
Rice, 131; Shannon, SL, 279; Thomas Merton, Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, edited from his original notebooks by Naomi Burton, Brother Patrick Hart and James Laughlin, Consulting editor Amiya Chakravarty (New York: New Directions Book, 1973), 313.
241 14th Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiographyof Dalai Lama: (Toledo, U.S.A: Harper San
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was Merton who introduced me to the real meaning of the word ‘Christian.’”242
Merton found the Dalai Lama very human, “alert and energetic . . . simple and outgoing.” 243 They discussed meditation, Samadhi (concentration), higher forms of prayer, Tibetan Mysticism, and the mysticism of Christian monks in monasteries. Merton recounts that the Dalai Lama kept insisting that no one can attain deep spiritual life without total dedication, continued effort, experienced guidance, and discipline.244
In December, seven days before his death, Merton visited the Sri Lankan shrine at Polonnaruwa to see the amazing statues of the Buddha. Here he had a profound
experience of sunyata, or emptiness, in which he was carried beyond all binary
oppositions and the need for “well-established positions,” to a place of silence, peace, and utter clarity.245 As he recounts in The Other Side of the Mountain,
Looking at these figures, I was suddenly, almost forcibly jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious. . . All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear . . . everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. . . 246
What he concluded about his Asian pilgrimage was surely prescient—he had come to the end of his journey having finally attained a measure of the
illumination he sought throughout his life: “I mean, I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for. I don’t know what else remains but I have now seen 242 Shannon, SL, 274. 243 Rice, 126. 244 Ibid.
245 Thomas Merton, The Other Side of the Mountain: The End of the Journey, ed. Patrick Hart (New York:
Harper Collins Publishers, 1998), 323.
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and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise.”247
After his rich experience of visiting the sacred sites in India, Merton travelled to Bangkok in Thailand for a conference with Catholic monastics, to share his thoughts on the future of the monastic life in Asia. The theme of his talk, given on December 10, 1968, was “Marxism and Monastic Perspectives.” In it, he emphasized the differences and similarities between Marxism and Monasticism, contending that monastics and Marxists both make an important contribution to the world. While the Marxist assigns importance to the “material and economic structures of life,” seeing religion as mystifying and alienating, the monk is “committed to bringing about a human transformation that begins at the level of consciousness.”248
After concluding his talk, he told the participants that questions would be engaged during the evening meeting and closed the session with the cryptic remark, “So I will disappear.”249
Merton went to his room, and at about 3 P.M., Father Francois de Grunne, who had the room next to Merton’s, heard the cry of someone and knocked at Merton’s door, “but there was no response.” Francois “looked through the louvers in the upper part of the door and saw Merton lying on the terrazzo floor. A
standing fan had fallen on top of him.”250
The police confirmed through a test of
247 Merton, The Other Side of the Mountain, 323; Merton, The Asian Journal, 233-236; Rackoczy, “The
Dynamics of Discernment in the Life of Thomas Merton,” 25.
248 Merton, The Asian Journal, 329; See also in Forest, Living with Wisdom, 212. 249
Ibid., 343; see also Forest, Living with Wisdom, 214.
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the fan that a “defective electric cord was installed inside its stand” and that “the flow of electricity was strong enough to cause the death of a person if he touched the metal part.”251
Twenty-seven years ago to the day of his death, on December 10, 1941, Merton had arrived at the gates of Gethsemani with a heart full of longing for the life inside her walls, a life he would never forsake.
Merton’s body was flown back to the United States along with those of American service members killed in Vietnam.252 The funeral Mass for Merton was conducted on December 17, in the late afternoon, in the Abbey Church at Gethsemani. On the cover of the booklet for the liturgy was a passage from The
Sign of Jonas: “I have always overshadowed Jonas with My Mercy. . . . Have you
lost sight of Me, Jonas My child? Mercy within mercy within mercy.”253
Death could not separate him from the Lord whom he had sought his entire life. In the beautiful words of the Trappist delegates at the Bangkok Conference: “In death Father Louis’ face was set in a great and deep peace and it was obvious that he had found Him Whom he had searched for so diligently.”254
CONCLUSION
This chapter has examined Thomas Merton’s life, considering how the historical, social, cultural, educational, aesthetic, and spiritual forces in his environment shaped him as a contemplative monastic in the world, one who prophetically engaged the social and cultural realities of his era. Though he experienced deep insecurity, confusion, and 251 Ibid., 214-215. 252 Ibid. 253 Ibid., 215. 254 Rice, 138.
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restlessness in life, and sought the wisdom and beauty of the great mystical traditions of the East, his spirituality remained Christ-centered. The way in which Merton lived his consecrated life can serve as a vital resource for the renewal of religious life in India, as consecrated men and women of India seek to discover the true relevance and purpose of our mission. Merton shows us that consecrated life will be meaningful and fruitful only when it is rooted in a form of contemplation that engages the concrete historical realities of its time and place. Chapter Three will explore in greater depth the contemplative dimensions of Merton’s spirituality.
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CHAPTER THREE
THE CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF THOMAS MERTON INTRODUCTION
Thomas Merton was ever grateful to God for the three major gifts he received in his life: his Catholic faith, his monastic vocation, and his call to be a writer—to share his faith and contemplative spirituality with others.1
Contemplation is the foundation of Merton’s spirituality. In his words,
It is the highest expression of man’s intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is
spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.2
In contemplation, Merton thus found his true identity in God as the source of his life. In this chapter, which examines Merton’s contemplative spirituality, I will unpack some key aspects of the foregoing description.3 Part One considers the essential elements of Merton’s contemplative spirituality. These include his quest for silence, passion for solitude, search for God, and “prayer of the heart.” Part Two examines the various thinkers and spiritual writers who influenced Merton’s approach to contemplation: William Blake, Aldous Huxley, Thomas Aquinas, and St. John of the Cross. Part Three explores the various themes upon which Merton focused in contemplation: growth in the
1
Thomas Merton, The Road to Joy: The Letters of Thomas Merton to New and Old friends Selected and Edited by Robert E. Daggy (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1989), 89.
2
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1961), 1.
3
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knowledge of Christ, le pointe vierge (the virgin point), discovery of the true self, the search for freedom, and wisdom— sapientia.
3.1. THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF CONTEMPLATION