To deliver oneself up, hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hill, or sea, or desert: to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silences with light. To pray and work in the morning and to labor in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and special vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence.—Thomas Merton Photograph by Edward Sheriff Curtis (February 16, 1868 – October 19, 1952) via: parabola-magazine.

To deliver oneself up, hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hill, or sea, or desert: to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silences with light. To pray and work in the morning and to labor in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and special vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence.
—Thomas Merton

Photograph by Edward Sheriff Curtis (February 16, 1868 – October 19, 1952)

via: parabola-magazine.

When we live superficially … we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions … we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives. —Thomas Merton Photograph by Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton. In his twenty-seventh year at Gethsemani Monastery, wrote to his friend novelist John Howard Griffin, in 1968, shortly after he received the gift of a camera: “It is fabulous. What a joy of a thing to work with.The camera is the most eager and helpful of all beings, all full of happy suggestions. Reminding me of things I have overlooked and cooperating in the creation of new worlds. So Simply. This is a Zen camera.” via: parabola-magazine.

When we live superficially … we are always outside ourselves, never quite ‘with’ ourselves, always divided and pulled in many directions … we find ourselves doing many things that we do not really want to do, saying things we do not really mean, needing things we do not really need, exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning in our lives.

—Thomas Merton

Photograph by Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton. In his twenty-seventh year at Gethsemani Monastery, wrote to his friend novelist John Howard Griffin, in 1968, shortly after he received the gift of a camera: “It is fabulous. What a joy of a thing to work with.The camera is the most eager and helpful of all beings, all full of happy suggestions. Reminding me of things I have overlooked and cooperating in the creation of new worlds. So Simply. This is a Zen camera.”

via: parabola-magazine.

The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.
Thomas Merton
The Dalai Lama visits Thomas Merton’s grave in 1997 at the Abbey of Gethsemani “And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech,and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”—Thomas Merton from his Asian Journals. Thank you, merkurie & reflejos.

The Dalai Lama visits Thomas Merton’s grave in 1997 at the Abbey of Gethsemani

“And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech,and it is beyond concept. 

Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”

—Thomas Merton from his Asian Journals.

Thank you, merkurie & reflejos.

The Inner Law

He whose law is within himself
Walks in hiddenness.
His acts are not influenced
By approval or disapproval.
He whose law is outside himself
Directs his will to what is
Beyond his control
And seeks
To extend his power
Over objects.

He who walks in hiddenness
Has light to guide him
In all his acts.
He who seeks to extend his control
Is nothing but an operator.
While he thinks he is
Surpassing others,
Others see him merely
Straining, stretching,
To stand on tiptoe.

When he tries to extend his power
Over objects,
Those objects gain control
Of him.

He who is controlled by objects
Loses possession of his inner self:
If he no longer values himself,
How can he value others?
If he no longer values others,
He is abandoned.
He has nothing left!

There is no deadlier weapon than the will!
The sharpest sword
Is not equal to it!
There is no robber so dangerous
As Nature (Yang and Yin).
Yet it is not nature
That does the damage:
It is man’s own will!

—Chuang Tzu, translation by Thomas Merton. With thanks to The Beauty We Love.

It seems to me that, as a contemplative, I do not need to lock myself into solitude and lose all contact with the rest of the world; rather this poor world has a right to a place in my solitude. It is not enough for me to think of the apostolic value of prayer and penance; I also have to think in terms of a contemplative grasp of the political, intellectual, artistic and social movements in this world—by which I mean a sympathy for the honest aspirations of so many intellectuals everywhere in the world and the terrible problems they have to face.
Thomas Merton, William Shannon, ed., The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1979)

(Source: veareflejos)

To deliver oneself up, hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hill, or sea, or desert: to sit still while the sun comes up over the land and fills its silences with light. To pray and work in the morning and to labor in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and with stars. This is a true and special vocation. There are few who are willing to belong completely to such silence, to let it soak into their bones, to breathe nothing but silence, to feed on silence, and to turn the very substance of their life into a living and vigilant silence.
Thomas Merton is 97 today. (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was a 20th century Anglo-American Catholic writer. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis. (via parabola-magazine)

Alienation begins when culture divides me against myself, puts a mask on me, gives me a role I may or may not want to play. Alienation is complete when I become completely identified with my mask, totally satisfied with my role, and convince myself that any other identity or role is inconceivable.

The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.
Thomas Merton, The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton edited by Patrick Hart. New York: New Directions, 1981, p 381. Thank you, louie, louie.
Do not depend on the hope of results. … you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.
Thomas Merton in a letter to Jim Forest dated February 21, 1966, reproduced in The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters by Thomas Merton. Thank you The Beauty We Love.
May we all grow in grace and peace,
and not neglect the silence that is printed
in the centre of our being.
It will not fail us.
Thomas Merton (Thank you dreaminginthedeepsouth)

(via silencesounds)