Examining the Contemplative Life

In this final post, we look at how I described this period of my life on the back cover of my books: “living a quiet contemplative life.” The “way of the contemplative,” could also be described as the path of the mystic; or a life dedicated to reflection and prayer; or a way of being that emphasizes solitude, silence, and spiritual practice; or a dedication to simplicity and the Remembrance of Unity Consciousness; or an orientation that prioritizes the inner Self over transitory external experiences; or a life that accentuates meditation and developing inner peace with the goal of Self-Realization; or a mostly solitary road that cultivates the Knowing of our True Nature – The Light of Awareness. I could go on but by now hopefully you get the picture, and my guess is that most of you who are reading this will not need any of these pointers, as you’re already living your own vision/version of this Way of Being. Still, for those who may be new to some or all of this, my aim with the above pointers is not to wrap up contemplative living in a nice-looking box only to be objectified, concretized, and then proudly put on the shelf as a new identity/lifestyle for all to see and admire. No. My purpose for these descriptors is to evoke the feeling of what is often entailed in one’s (non)method(s) to see through the illusory veil of separateness and abidingly settle in and as a unique modulation of Eternal and Infinite Beingness…going about Its business of Being Itself!

There has been a great deal written about “the contemplative way” by Thomas Merton, and probably just as much written about his views on the subject by many other excellent writers. Therefore, I am going to share a heaping helping of it with you here, as I continue in my efforts to provide a sense of what this ultimately ineffable “Way” is.

Who is a Contemplative?

This first powerful passage quoting Merton is from The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton, edited by Merton’s last secretary and the literary executor of Merton’s works after his passing, Brother Patrick Hart, O.C.S.O.:

The contemplative is not just a man who sits under a tree with his legs crossed, or one who edifies himself with the answer to ultimate and spiritual problems. He is one who seeks to know the meaning of life not only with his head but with his whole being, by living it in depth and in purity, and thus uniting himself to the very Source of Life – a Source which is … too real to be contained satisfactorily inside any word or concept or name assigned by man … Contemplation is the intuitive perception of life in its Source … it is an obscure intuition of God Himself, and this intuition is a gift of God Who reveals Himself in His very hiddenness as One unknown.

In Merton’s book of essays titled Contemplation in a World of Action, which lays the foundation for personal transformation through faithfulness to “our own truth and inner being,” as well as in his extraordinary book, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation (both published posthumously), we see through these two excerpts that he clearly felt that the contemplative path is not for monastics only:

When I speak of the contemplative life I do not mean the institutional, cloistered life … I am talking about a special dimension of inner discipline and experience, a certain integrity and fullness of personal development … Discovering the contemplative life is a new self-discovery. One might say it is the flowering of a deeper identity on an entirely different plane …

Let anyone desire it, provided only he is sincere and prudent and remains open to the truth.

What is the Essence of Contemplation?

These next four selections are again by John Moses from his excellent book, Divine Discontent:

Contemplation was the heartbeat of Thomas Merton’s life. He wrote early in his monastic life that ‘My vocation is contemplative and I simply must fulfill it.’ He knew the contradictions with which he wrestled, but he found some resolution in interior solitude, and he acknowledged towards the end of his life ‘the absolute primacy and necessity of silent, hidden, poor, apparently fruitless prayer.’ The contemplative life was central to all that Merton had to say. It was a constant point of reference.

It is perhaps as a contemplative that Merton is best known. He was concerned to affirm the importance of the contemplative dimension in human experience and to plead for a far greater contemplative orientation in the life of the church. Contemplative living and contemplative prayer were directly related in his understanding to the identity, the integrity, the freedom of each individual; they represented ‘a sudden gift of awareness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real.’

He rejected any idea of the contemplative life as ‘esoteric knowledge or experience,’ or even in his later years any thought that it was something removed from the realities of daily life. It would be necessary to secure an appropriate degree of detachment from the confusions of the world, but Merton’s appetite for life and for God was too generous, too extravagant, to permit any distortion. He was emphatic that ‘The true contemplative is not less interested than others in normal life, not less concerned with what goes on in the world, but more interested, more concerned.’ Contemplation provides an entirely different perspective. Awareness, intuition, apprehension, perception: these are the words that captured for Merton something of the meaning of the contemplative life.

Merton set his face firmly against any kind of religious syncretism, but he believed that contemplatives had a major contribution to make to the peace of the world and the unity of humankind. They might be isolated and misunderstood, but they could still hold in their individual lives whatever is most valuable in all the great traditions of faith. Indeed, he believed that the Christian faith, significantly different in important respects from other world faiths, might none the less realize its full potential only through a serious encounter with the religions of the East. It was the measure of his openness that he looked for the things that are held in common, pleading for a contemplative ecumenism which could witness to the shared experience of the divine presence.

Contemplative Do’s and Don’ts

Next, we see that Merton wasn’t reticent about sharing what he thought was necessary to be successful – and what should be avoided – in one’s contemplative endeavors. In the following four selections, he provides a great deal of useful advice that I’m including here, again from his posthumous book, The Inner Experience:

Avoid everything that will bring unnecessary complications into your life. Live in as much peace and quiet and retirement as you can, and do not go out of your way to get involved in labors and duties, no matter how much glory they may seem to give to God. Do the tasks appointed to you as perfectly as you can with disinterested love and great peace in order to show your desire of pleasing God. Love and serve Him peacefully and in all your works preserve recollection. Do what you do quietly and without fuss. Seek solitude as much as you can; dwell in the silence of your own soul and rest there in the simple and simplifying light which God is infusing into you. Do not make the mistake of aspiring to the spectacular “experiences” that you read about in the lives of great mystics.

… The great obstacle to contemplation is rigidity and prejudice. He who thinks he knows what it is beforehand prevents himself from finding out the true nature of contemplation, since he is not able to “change his mind” and accept something completely new. He who thinks that contemplation is lofty and spectacular cannot receive the intuition of a supreme and transcendent Reality which is at the same time immanent in his own ordinary self. He who needs to be exalted and for whom mysticism is the peak of human ambition will never be able to feel the liberation granted only to those who have renounced success. And since most of us are rigid, attached to our own ideas, convinced of our own wisdom, proud of our own capacities, and committed to personal ambition, contemplation is a dangerous desire for any one of us. But if we really want to get free from these sins, the desire for contemplative freedom and for the experience of transcendent reality is likely to arise in us all by itself, unobserved. And it is also likely to be satisfied almost before we know we have it. That is the way a genuine contemplative vocation is realized.

Contemplation must not be confused with abstraction. A contemplative life is not to be lived by permanent withdrawal within one’s own mind. The diminished and limited existence of a small, isolated, specialized group is not enough for “contemplation.” The true contemplative is not less interested than others in normal life, not less concerned with what goes on in the world, but more interested, more concerned. The fact that he is a contemplative makes him capable of a greater interest and of a deeper concern. Since he is detached, since he has received the gift of a pure heart, he is not limited to narrow and provincial views. He is not easily involved in the superficial confusion which most men take for reality. And for that reason he can see more clearly and enter more directly into the pure actuality of human life. The thing that distinguishes him from other men, and gives him a distinct advantage over them, is that he has a much more spiritual grasp of what is “real” and what is “actual.”

This does not mean that the contemplative mind has a deeper practical insight into political or economic affairs. Nor that the contemplative can beat the mathematician and engineer at their own games. In all that seems most practical and urgent to other men, the contemplative may distinguish himself perhaps only by ineptitude and near folly. But he still has the inestimable gift of appreciating, at their real worth, values that are permanent, authentically deep, human, truly spiritual, and even divine.

The Contemplative Way is Universal

In my ongoing explorations into Merton, I discovered that later in his life he seemed to go further and further into the contemplative traditions of the East, but in doing so he never strayed from the conviction that, first and foremost, he was a Christian monk.

These next two passages are from the book, Thomas Merton’s Encounter with Buddhism and Beyond: His Interreligious Dialogue, Inter-Monastic Exchanges, and Their Legacy by Jaechan Anselmo Park, a Korean Benedictine monk. I found this book particularly interesting as it largely focuses on Merton’s trip to Asia, his immersion into Buddhism, and his meetings with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Dzogchen Master Chatral Rinpoche, who impressed Merton so much that he later observed, “If I were to settle down with a Tibetan guru, I think Chatral would be the one I’d choose.” It was during this trip to Asia that Merton was graced with what was possibly the most powerful mystical experience of his life. He wrote in his Asian journal that, when he stood before the ancient Buddha statues in Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka, he suddenly Realized that “the rock, all matter, all life, is charged with Dharmakaya [The Absolute or Divine Essence] … everything is emptiness and everything is compassion.”

As we examine his pioneering works in Buddhist-Christian dialogue, his inter-monastic dialogue, and what he considered to be the center of monastic life, namely, contemplation, we can formulate the following hypothesis: through the lens of Zen, Merton saw the value and possibility of “contemplative dialogue” ^* between monastics or contemplatives of different religious traditions, those men and women who look primarily to a transformation of human consciousness and a spiritual awakening from within their respective traditions. With regard to the future, he hoped that through contemplative dialogue, monastics would strive for “intermonastic communion” ^* and a bonding of the broader “spiritual family” ^* and thus become witnesses of the fundamental unity of humanity to a world that was becoming ever more materialistic and divided. ^* Merton’s terms.

His dialogue with monastics or contemplatives in other religions was focused on spiritual communion beyond the realm of doctrine. He believed that if inter-monastic encounters were anchored in monastic contemplative dialogue, it could lead to a true heart-to-heart dialogue and a mutual affirmation of the wisdom of other traditions. In a “state of trans-cultural maturity,” he realized, “we are already one,” and contemplative dialogue and inter-monastic exchanges could help to retrieve humanity’s original unity-in-diversity.

Conclusion

In his preface to the Japanese edition of Seeds of Contemplation, Merton reflected upon the contemplative life. He described it as a “journey without maps,” which leads us into “rugged mountainous country” where we are increasingly required to travel alone. Despite this, he wrote that thanks to God’s Grace, we will meet “other travelers on the way” who will assist us as we make our way through this often difficult and mysterious inner terra incognita. I feel that since I first discovered Thomas Merton some 25 years ago, he has been an enjoyable and wise companion who has periodically accompanied me on/in/as my journey. If what I have shared in these blogs speaks to you, then please see them as an invitation to allow Merton to walk with you and guide you as needed, as you traverse the undiscovered landscape of your own unique path inward, toward the unconditional love and peace of God that has always been there waiting.

In closing, from the Second Edition of Merton’s The Way of Chuang Tzu, I am sharing this remarkably moving excerpt from a memorial for Father Louis, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama:

From the point of view of a religious practitioner, and in particular as a monastic, Thomas Merton really is someone that we can look up to. From one point of view, he had the complete qualities of hearing – which means study, contemplating, thinking on the teachings – and of meditation. He also had the qualities of being learned, disciplined and having a good heart. He not only was able to practice himself, but his perspective was very, very broad. Thus it seems to me that in this memorial or recollection of him, we should seek to be following his example that he gave to us. In this way, even though the chapter of his life is over, what he was hoping to do and seeking to do can remain forever. Not only is his wonderful model being followed in this monastery, but it seems to me that if all of us followed this model, it would become very widespread and would be of very great benefit to the world.

I always consider myself as one of his Buddhist brothers. So, as a close friend – or as his brother – I always remember him, and I always admire his activities and his lifestyle. Since my meeting with him, and so often when I examine myself, I really follow some of his examples. Occasionally, just as at this meeting, I really have a deep satisfaction knowing that I have made some contribution regarding his wishes. And so, for the rest of my life, the impact of meeting him will remain until my last breath.