The Inner Experience : Notes on Contemplation

Rating:
Summary: What a jewel after all these years!
Review: I became a Christian in 1978. Though not a Catholic one of the first books I read after my conversion was Merton's Seeds of Contemplation. I don't claim to have understood it all at that time. As a new Christian I was just trying to learn. I didn't even have the slightest idea who Thomas Merton was, I just found the book in the community college library and started reading. In the intervening years I have gone through many changes and have read many Christian authors. I have come to the point where I am not so concerned with the denomination of the writer or whether or not he or she shares my particular background. What has become important to me is that if I can detect true reverence and submission to God in the writer's words then I will read and benefit. Though I am Protestant and, theologically speaking, Reformed in my thinking, I love Thomas Merton with all my heart.

A few months ago I listened to his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain on tapes. Before that I listened to The New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton stirred up things in me and gave a voice to private thoughts that, unfortunately, can hardly be expressed even in most churches. When I ran across this new book, The Inner Experience, I bought it immediately. I finished it in a couple of weeks, savoring it slowly. Merton is not bound by any lables, denominational or otherwise, yet he remains Christian. This does not make him an enemy of the non-Christian and he never comes off that way. He is wide ranging, yet Christian. In this new work Merton is like someone who pulls you to the side and fills you in on all the details that are really important but were left out of what we've been told is really important. He never hides weakness, never claims to have the definitive answer. He let's you know he's acting as more of a guide, as someone who is clearing mental debris so that you can get a better picture of not so much what he is telling you but what you can become by following God yourself if confusion is lessened. I found myself constantly underlining passages and putting the book down just to let cetain words sink into my thoughts. When I finished the book I knew I would have to read it again. I felt a tinge of sadness as if I was saying goodbye to a friend, but also joy that one who has been dead for over thirty years still spoke with such quiet strength. And isn't that precisely what Scripture says about those who were truly faithful, that they being dead yet speak?

I also found William Shannon's scholarship and guidance helpful. He relates to you the circumstances surrounding the writing of this book, which was actually a rewrite of an earlier work of Merton's (What is Contemplation?) that took on a new form and thrust. Mr. Shannon used different type fonts to let the reader know when the words were part of Merton's revision. These are cataloged neatly by chapter in the back of the book. Merton speaks to our time just as poignantly, maybe even more so, than he did to his own. There are certain people who are ready, indeed who hunger, for the words in this book. You will know who you are when you read it. As Merton says on page 3...

"But if in some sense you are already a contemplative (whether you know it or not makes little difference) you will perhaps not only read the book with a kind of obscure awareness that it is meant for you, but you may even find yourself having to read the thing whether it fits in with your plans or not. In that event just read it......and pray for me, because from now on we are, in some strange way, good friends."

Though Merton is gone I do feel that in some stange way we are good friends. And I feel a little saner in a mad world.

Rating:
Summary: The Inner Experience.
Review: The introduction by editor William Shannon is certainly helpful in terms of explaining what this text is. It was something of a labor of love for Merton who recurrently fine-tuned it for a period of several years. Unless you are interested in the process of bringing such a work to publication, you might be better served to simply leap into Merton's thoughts, which begin uneasily with "A Preliminary Warning." If the reader has come to the text "intent on 'becoming a contemplative' you will probably waste your time," says Merton, "this book in no sense aspires to be classified as 'inspirational'." To gain anything from this study one must immediately recognize the difference between the exterior "I", bound to sensory influence and desperately false self-seeking, and the interior "I", the true and hidden self that is free, in God, from exterior desire. The book is an appropriately economical and yet broadly ranging consideration of Christian contemplation -- which the author contrasts early with Zen Buddhism. For this reviewer to dissect the text for the purpose of critical analysis would most likely be misleading. (This might be obvious to any contemplative and to any serious writer and to any serious reader.) Here, then, is a simple view to the texts:

From "Kinds of Contemplation" (chapter 5): "In active contemplation, a man becomes able to live within himself. He learns to be at home with his own thoughts. He becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports. His mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside himself -- diversions, entertainments, conversations, business -- but by its own constructive activity. That is to say, that he derives inner satisfaction from spiritual creativeness: thinking his own thoughts, reaching his own conclusions, looking at his own life . . . in meditation and under the eyes of God. He derives strength not from what he gets out of things and people, but from giving himself to life and to others. He discovers the secret of life in the creative energy of love -- not love as a sentimental or sensual indulgence, but as a profound and self-oblative expression of freedom." p59

From Merton's "essential elements of mystical contemplation" in chapter 6:
". . . an intuition that on its lower level transcends the senses. On its higher level it transcends the intellect itself.
. . . is characterized by a quality of light in darkness, knowing in unknowing. It is beyond feeling, even beyond concepts.
In this contact with God, in darkness, there must be a certain activity of love on both sides. . . a liberation of the mind and imagination from all strong emotional and passionate clinging to sensible realities. 'Passionate thinking' distorts our intellectual vision, preventing us from seeing things as they are. . .
Contemplation is the work of love . . . a development and a perfection of pure charity." p72, 73

From chapter 14: "All life presupposes the ability to act, to work, to think for yourself, to break out of the cocoon, to get free from the womb. No life requires a more active or more intense formation, a more ruthless separation from dependence on exterior support, than the life of contemplation." p127

Rating:
Summary: He May Very Well Have Literally, "Saved The Best For Last"
Review: This is Thomas Merton's last work before his untimely death in Thailand. Even though it was started in 1959, he had been working on this examination of the contemplative life still in 1968(the year of his death). It's somewhat like a bridge between his earlier works on mysticism and monasticism and his later works on eastern thought, namely his fascination with Buddhism. Some of the subjects touched on here you will see familiarity with insights he touched on also in "New Seeds of Contemplation". He talks a lot in this book about the inner self and our relationship to society, as well as taking aim at some of the actual problems of a contemplative life, as well.

Whether talking about Taoism or Zen, or the Desert Fathers, Merton interlaces the wisdom of various religious traditions here, thus proving himself to be an advocate of interfaith dialogue. The contemplative life is a life lived in a kind of mystery, in a sense of awe. Not a life of spiritual gaining or possession. This take on spirituality has from time to time been likened to Chogyam Trungpa's most prominent book, "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism." Merton talks here about something he often did, "the sublime life." This he says, is planted in every soul from the moment of baptism. And perhaps the most wonderful aspect of this book is the fact that Merton is able to appeal to people of all walks of life. Be that a Christian, Buddhist, or even a Jewish person. There is always something to be learned and contemplated when reading Tom, and without a doubt he is greatly missed. But, if it cheers us up any, we do have his wonderful literature. In that sense, Thomas Merton hasn't really gone anywhere. He is right within the heart of our true selves. Enjoy this magnificent book.