Christian Mysticism · 1915–1968
Thomas Merton
Trappist · Cistercian of the Strict Observance · New Seeds of Contemplation · No Man Is an Island
A twentieth-century monk who gave contemplation back to a noisy world. A bridge between the silence of the cloister and our own lives.
The essence of the teaching: True solitude is not a flight from people, but an inner depth of thirst for God – the very thing that makes real love for others possible. The deepest actions are born in silence.
Transmission
Merton went into a Trappist monastery, into silence – and it was from there that he spoke to the whole world. He drew a line between the false self and the true. The false self is what we build out of roles, successes, opinions about ourselves; it is like clothing we hide under, even from God. The true self is the one God knows us as, hidden in Him. You can find yourself only by losing that false self in God. Contemplation is not an achievement and not a technique, but the sudden gift of awakening, in which you come to know: you are already one with what you were searching for. And solitude is needed not in order to run from people, but to find the source of love, without which you have nothing to give them.
The full transmission — for members of the School. Here is its essence and its taste.
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Christian Mysticism
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