Thomas Merton: “Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself” cannot construct a new world by itself”
Thomas Merton, in the introduction to the Spanish language edition to his complete works: Contemplation cannot construct a new world by itself. Contemplation does not feed the hungry; it does not clothe the naked… and it does not return the sinner to peace, truth, and union with God. But without contemplation we cannot see what ...
Of Gods and Men
Listen to an NPR story about the film. Listen to an NPR story about the film.
Jesus Lama
…the encounter between Catholicism and Buddhism cannot take place at the level of the Magisterium, it can only take place at the level of two contemplatives talking together in private. —Harold Talbott, paraphrasing Dom Aelred Graham, in “Thomas Merton in the Himalayas, An Interview with Harold Talbott” from Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Summer, 1992. If the ...
“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum…
“The monastery is neither a museum nor an asylum. The monk remains in the world from which the monk has fled, and the monk remains a potent, though hidden, force in that world. Beyond all the works which may accidentally attach themselves to the vocation, the monk acts on the world simply by being a ...
More on “5 Leadership Secrets of a Trappist Monk”
A comment by someone named “elizdelphi” on the Washington Post page for the “5 Leadership Secrets of a Trappist Monk” caught my attention, even before I read the article (I wonder how often I scan comments before reading an article online, and what this says about me): As a Secular member of the Carmelite Order, which ...
Getting the questions right
Examples of the secular world learning from the world’s ancient contemplative and spiritual traditions abound. Neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, cognitive scientists and cosmologists are learning from inner technologies of meditation and contemplative practice. But what of the outer, visible, measurable technologies of those traditions? How are we learning from those technologies that fit into what is ...
