What are your feelings on Thomas merton

[AmericanFighter]

I went to a university that Thomas merton was closely associated with in his life and I learned a great deal about him though my college life. Thomas merton is kind of a polarizing figure. Some people think his vocation to unity and acceptance of zen philosophy with christianity is great. However some think It is blasphemous and see him as a terrible person. I personally don’t see anything that bad about him but what are your feelings about him and why.

AF

 

[mikecash]

I told my Priest I was reading Merton and he looked very concerned! So I said, his early works and Father said, “Ohh that is fine. He just got a little too Buddhist for me!” I think his early stuff is very good, but I don’t see any reason to read his Zen stuff. I mean, there is SO much out there to read already.

CA has a good Merton article:
catholic.com/magazine/articles/can-you-trust-thomas-merton

 

[TiggerS]

I like Thomas Merton’s early writing, am very wary of his latter years. I think one has to have a good grasp indeed on what The Church teaches and what might be contrary.

 

[po18guy]

Merton is held by many in the Church to have been seduced by Buddhism. The mystery surrounding his accidental death by electrocution does not help. Since there are so many other spiritual masters, why devote time to one whose writings gradually became controversial?

 

[TimothyH]

Thomas Merton was a Cistercian monk, a member of the largest Cistercian community in North America… He was vowed to obedience and under spiritual guidance for the whole time he was a monk. Nothing he did after entering the monastery was on his own but was always approved by his Abbot, as was everything he wrote.

Most Catholics know little to nothing about Trappist/Cistercian spirituality yet criticize Cistercians up and down. They call them left-wing buddhists, and all sorts of vile names and accuse Thomas Merton of blasphemy without having read hardly a word he wrote.

Cistercians do a lot of meditation. So do buddhists. What helps buddhists mediate can help Catholics mediate, and where it is not counter to Catholic doctrine and belief, it can be integrated into the spiritual life. For this Thomas Merton is called blasphemous. It is unfair.

-Tim-

 

[AmericanFighter]

Merton is held by many in the Church to have been seduced by Buddhism. The mystery surrounding his accidental death by electrocution does not help. Since there are so many other spiritual masters, why devote time to one whose writings gradually became controversial?

I didn’t on my own it was part of school for me when I was getting my undergrad.
I read conjectures of a guilty bystander, essential writings and contemplative prayer.

I don’t know much about merton’s later years but I thought his vocation to unity and he was trying to bring the two religions together Personally I dont see meditation (closing eyes focusing on breathing and visualize) as a bad thing (i use it for sports or when I am stressed) and there are zen principals (like the beginners mind) that are good to know but I stay away from any Buddhism idolatry and mantra.

 

[po18guy]

I didn’t on my own it was part of school for me when I was getting my undergrad.
I read conjectures of a guilty bystander, essential writings and contemplative prayer.

I don’t know much about merton’s later years but I thought his vocation to unity and he was trying to bring the two religions together Personally I dont see meditation (closing eyes focusing on breathing and visualize) as a bad thing (i use it for sports or when I am stressed) and there are zen principals (like the beginners mind) that are good to know but I stay away from any Buddhism idolatry and mantra.

Fr. Anthony De Mello also wrote many good things, but also strayed in his later years. The blurred distinction between orthodoxy and dissent is a spiritual danger zone. And, this should be the concern with Merton. We just don’t know.

With Doctors of the Church like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross and their timeless spirituality, who needs 20th century sources? Unless required for a course of study, what is the point? To me, it is like chasing alleged apparitions in search of some innovation. Just saying.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

I love Merton though at time he gets too academic for me. His reflections ar emuch more interesting to me. His *Seeds of Contemplation *is a classic.

Merton was well grounded in his faith and extremely well educated in history and philosophy. He came to a point where he could see the transcendency of Christ beyond Christianity, present in all life and cultures. His life in solitude with nature gave him a holy insight into the sacred silence and he became friends with people in other traditions who also knew this silence.

Some Catholics feel threatened by this insight and friendship. As your priest friend said, “He just got a little too Buddhist for me.” Well, that is a matter of preference. Merton never betrayed the Catholic faith nor watered it down. He only recognized the Buddhist value of the present moment, the experience of the here and now in one’s spiritual life.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I just finished reading a collection of interviews with Walker Percy, who was (along with his friend Flannery O’Connor) one of the great Catholic novelists to arise out of the American south. He knew Merton, whom he said came out of the same secular agnostic tradition at Columbia University as Percy (who attended medical school there.) They had read each other’s works, and when they met personally, Percy said he wanted to talk to Merton about his interest in Eastern monasticism but the circumstance didn’t really present itself.

Percy, from the viewpoint of a novelist, was very impressed with Merton’s discipline in writing so much, which was considered by his abbot to be part of his vocation as a Trappist, just as other monks earn money for their abbey in making wine and cheese.

Percy recommended listening to a series of tapes Merton made, titled “Talks to the Novices” which he (Percy) had listened to in a library at a Jesuit retreat he attended in New Orleans. Merton was a Novice Master, responsible for the spiritual formation of the other monks at his monastery. There were about 5 years worth of these tapes, and Percy, who was a very orthodox Catholic, was very impressed with them (I don’t know if they are still available) and with Merton’s teaching abilities and knowledge of the Faith.

He also said that Merton’s biographers have created an impression that Merton was a tortured soul who was unhappy with his life as a monk and was seeking other traditions. Percy said Merton seemed to be happy and content with his life in the monastery, and thought it funny that the only comment he made that seemed less than happy was a crack about how the monastery put too much emphasis on cheese production.

 

[adawgj]

I enjoy Merton he had a very interesting testimony that brought him to the Church.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

There are now, I think seven volumes of Mertons journals availible and I was reading one of them. His crtiique had more to do with the Abbot’s management style than anything else. Perhaps also the emphasis on monastic routine that he felt kept them too busy and away from contemplation.

I think the value in his writtings is best found when we read them slowly, a little at a time. I justy found an old edition of Thoughts in Solitude.

“Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality.”