The time will come when the pursuit of contemplation will be a subversive activity. Daniel Berrigan - America is Hard to Find
1 Merton and the Contemplative Quest
Thomas Merton turned to the Roman Catholic Tradition, and to the monastic and Cistercian way within such a Tradition, in search of an older and forgotten contemplative path. The vita activa had come to dominate the modern world, and the vita contemplativa had been banished or subordinated to the active life. In short, Martha had trumped Mary, and there were serious consequences to be faced in both soul and society as a result of this inversion of the ancient and time tried way.
There is little doubt that at the core and centre of Merton’s heart and soul a contemplative was longing to be born. Merton’s deeper thirst and hunger went beyond the active way, and he sought to reverse centuries of addiction to the vita activa. The turn to the contemplative way begs a deeper question,
though. What does it mean to be a contemplative, what are counterfeits of the contemplative quest, and what is the nature of the mature and integrated contemplative pilgrimage? These were questions Merton attempted to answer again and again in his short journey through time. This essay will, by walking in the well trod footsteps of Merton, attempt to ponder some of the conclusions Merton came to as he sent out probe after probe on his faithful journey.
Thomas Merton was a Cistercian monk and priest, and this is essential to remember when trying to make sense of his contemplative quest. Some of Merton’s earliest books in the 1940s were about the contemplative way of the Cistercian order, a history of Gethsemani and important Cistercian nuns such as Mother Berchmans and Saint Lutgarde. The language of ‘contemplation’ occurred often in the titles of his books in the mid-late 1940s. Seeds of Contemplation (1949) was, in time, to become New Seeds of Contemplation. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation was very much at work in the womb of Merton’s soul in those early years. There is no doubt, therefore, Merton was struggling in the 1940s to understand what it meant to be a contemplative.
II Merton, Bernard and the Cistercians
Pope Pius XII published an encyclical in 1953 called Doctor Mellifluus. The purpose of the encyclical was to honour and make more public the work of Bernard of Clairvaux. Bernard was not the founder of the Cistercian order, but he was certainly the inspiration and driving force behind the first generation of Cistercians. Bernard died in 1153, so the Pope saw fit to hold high the memory of Bernard in 1953 (800 years after his death). The Cistercian order at Merton’s time, and the Trappists of the Strict Observance (where Merton lived, moved and had his being), had withdrawn into a sort of monastic solitude and isolation. This was not always the way with the Cistercians. The first generation of Cistercians, although committed to the contemplative way of Mary, were also active like Martha in the larger social and political events of their time. Merton had, in many ways, entered the order at a time when both the depth of the contemplative way had been forgotten, and the public responsibility of the active way had dissipated like a cloud. The encyclical by Pope Pius XII had an important impact on Merton. The life, teachings and writings of Bernard (and other first generation Cistercians) could certainly be used as a standard from which to measure the rather thinned out Cistercian order of the time. Bernard had no doubt about the contemplative-active distinction. Mary was the queen, and Martha was always to be her servant. This distinction and ordering of the inner-outer life appealed to Merton. Merton could throw a rope across the centuries of time, and he drew forward the insights of Bernard for his
context.
Merton was asked to write a book on Bernard to fill out the encyclical of Pope Pius XII. The Last of the Fathers: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and the Encyclical Letter, Doctor Mellifluus (1954) was Merton’s attempt to engage the challenge of Bernard in a variety of ways. The Last of the Fathers is a must read for those interested in understanding Merton’s contemplative quest. The book is not long, but there is much in it to ponder. There is a ‘Preface’, a ‘Letter from the Cardinal Protector’, a ‘Letter from the Abbot General’ (Gabriel Sortais who attempted to silence Merton in the early 1960s), ‘The Man and the Saint’, ‘Saint Bernard’s Writings’, ‘Notes on the Encyclical’ by Merton and the ‘Encyclical Letter’. Three important and not to be missed points emerge in The Last of the Fathers. Merton was to hold these learned lessons close to him for the rest of his contemplative journey.
Bernard had taught him well, and much of Merton’s life was a working out of these insights. First, the contemplative should not retreat from the world into an enclosed and insulated piety. This was not the vision of Bernard and the early Cistercians, and it was a distortion of the contemplative vision. Second, the contemplative way had to be seen as the foundation, root and source of the active way. Bernard was most clear about this. Activism was the fruit and first born child of contemplation. Mary must be on the throne rather than Martha. Third, the content of Bernard’s active life did raise some concerns for Merton. The Last of the Fathers borders on hagiography at times, but Merton veers from taking this path when it comes to Bernard’s political activism and the crusades. Bernard did pen ‘The Praises of the New Knighthood’ on the Knights Templar, and he did preach vehemently for the second Crusade against the Muslims in 1145. Bernard and Pope Eugene III were very much hawks and crusaders. In 1153, when Bernard was nearing his end, he was quite to prepared to rise from his bed and preach another war. It is one thing, therefore, to insist that the contemplative way must wed the active way. It is quite another thing to, in such a marriage, birth warlords and hawks. This is where Merton would part company with Bernard and, in time, many in the Cistercian order.
Bernard could write the most exquisite and evocative tracts on the love of God, and God’s drawing love into nuptial union, but, when such contemplative union was fleshed out into the social and political world of the time, Bernard was very much the military hawk. The Last of the Fathers ponders these contemplative dilemmas from within the Cistercian tradition.
The Cold War was very much at its most intense phase in the 1950s, and Merton had to make sense of all this. He had learned much from Bernard in The Last of the Fathers.
III Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal
If Bernard of Clairvaux and Merton agreed that Cistercians must live in the tensions of the contemplative-active, and both agreed that the contemplative must take priority over the active, then they did differ on the content of the active life. There is no doubt that Bernard was more the hawk, and Merton much more the dove.
Ernesto Cardenal was a novice at Gethsemani monastery from 1957-1959. Cardenal had come from Nicaragua, and like many Central Americans, he knew what it meant to live under the oppressive nature of American foreign policy in the area. The Nicaraguan comprador and colonial class in Nicaragua served their masters in El Norte well, and Cardenal, like many, questioned and opposed such capitulation. Cardenal studied with Merton as a novice, and in their many discussions, Merton made it plain that Cardenal should return to his people. Ernesto Cardenal left the monastery in Kentucky in 1959, and he studied in a seminary in Cuernavaca, Mexico for a few years. It was while Cardenal was in Cuernavaca that his correspondence began with Merton.
Cardenal returned to Nicaragua and started the community of Our Lady of Solentiname in 1965. The letters between Merton and Cardenal are published in The Courage for Truth (110-163). The correspondence between these two men highlights how the contemplative path can be interpreted in a variety of directions once it is fleshed out in the world of politics and activism.
Cardenal began as a contemplative monk as a novice under the guidance of Merton. Merton encouraged Cardenal to return to his people and live out his contemplative calling in alternate communities. Cardenal committed himself to such a vision, and in the 1980s, he was involved with the Sandinistas. The
USA was not impressed with such a left wing state that opposed it, and they supported the Contras. The Sandinistas, for the most part, attempted to be a non-violent revolutionary movement-state that worked for the oppressed and marginalized. They embodied the meaning of liberation theology within the
Nicaraguan context.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal were all committed to living the tension of the contemplative-active. All three men were equally committed to priorizing the way of Mary rather than the way of Martha. In short, the contemplative way was meant to be on the throne. The active way was the attentive servant. The content and application, though, of the contemplative-active was quite different. Bernard tended to be much more militaristic and hawkish in his interpretation of the contemplative, whereas Merton and Cardenal were more dovish.
I was on staff with Amnesty International in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Amnesty had released a report on the Sandinistas and the Misquito Indians, and the clash between the two groups. I met with Ernesto Cardenal in Vancouver (he was Minister of Culture for the Sandinistas at the time), and we discussed the report. After the firm and frank discussion, I asked him about his time with Merton. Cardenal’s eyes lit up, and his soul sang. He waxed unceasing praise for Merton, and Merton’s impact on his contemplative and active life in a most lyrical Spanish. When we parted he gave me, as a gift, a copy of his recent book of poetry, The Music of the Spheres.
It is one thing to argue that the contemplative must take priority over the active life. This reversal, in principle, of centuries of the protestant work ethic is needful and necessary. It is an imperative of the soul. It is quite another thing, though, to ponder the content of both the contemplative and active. Bernard, Merton and Cardenal might all agree on the Mary-Martha tension and priorizing at the level of principle, but would they agree at the level of practice, application and interpretation? This is the contemplative dilemma.
IV Merton, the American Beats and Catholic Anarchists
There is little doubt that the American Beats such as Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen and Allen Ginsberg were in search of a deeper and more meaningful way of knowing than the frantic and driven American work ethic. This is why all of them turned to the contemplative East in search of a more nourishing way. I have tracked and traced the close connection between Merton and the Beats in my missive, Thomas Merton and the Beats of the North Cascades (2006).
The Orient, particularly India and Japan, became meccas and sites of inspiration and wisdom for the American Beats that birthed the counter culture of the 1960s. The interest in the East was, in principle, a quest for a deeper way of knowing the self and living a more contemplative, integrated, ecological and holistic life. Merton had many an elective affinity with many of the American Beats and their subversive questioning of the American establishment and mainstream way of thinking. Merton’s definition of a monk was that of a person that was on the margins of power and privilege, and, in this sense, many of the counter culture were monks. This more metaphorical read of the monastic way placed Merton much more on the same trail as the Beats.
The turn by many of the Beats to various forms of Buddhism meant that most had a keen interest in calling into question the Western and American notions of self and identity. The contemplative and meditative traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism called for an emptying of the ego and false images of the self and a probing much deeper for that which is like a diamond within. Such a contemplative bend on the trail meant that the activist notion of success was more an illusion and opiate than anything else.
Many of the American Beats called into question both American foreign policy and much American domestic policy when the contemplative vision was translated into public action. The politics of the Beats tended to be, for the most part, protest and advocacy politics. There was little serious engagement with party politics. It was this anarchist tradition that held high social criticism and activism that Merton had some affinity with also. The retreat the country by many Beats had important points of convergence with the monastic tradition.
The American Beats, like the Roman Catholic anarchist tradition of Dorothy Day and Dan/Phil Berrigan, had three important things in common that Merton shared. Both sought to return to the depths of the contemplative way, both sought to engage the hard questions of American injustice at a variety of levels, and both tended to resort to anarchist politics as a way of being political and prophetic. This was the positive side of Merton, the Beats and the Roman Catholic anarchist way, and the limitations of such a tradition. Merton, the Beats and the American Roman Catholic anarchists never seriously engaged the political process at a substantive and sophisticated level. Ernesto Cardenal was much more involved at a formal political level with the Sandinista government than was Merton, the Beats or the Roman Catholic anarchists within the USA. Merton’s understanding of the contemplative and active was much more aligned with the tradition of anarchist activism than with the party politics of either the republican or democratic types. It is important that questions are asked about this rather reductionistic way of being political.
Merton’s attempt to think through and live forth the tensions of the contemplative-active had less in common with those in his Cistercian order such as Bernard of Clairvaux, and his Abbot General, Gabriel Sortais, than with the insights of the American Beats and Roman Catholic anarchists. Merton was a reformer within the monastic tradition, and this is what he shared with the other well known monk of the 20th century, Jean LeClercq. Survival or Prophecy? The Letters of Thomas Merton and Jean LeClercq (2002) tells such a tale well.
V Merton, Suzuki and Gandhi
If the contemplative journey is about nothing else, it is certainly about the quest to see through the ego, to let go of false consciousness, to bid adieu to the conditioned and socialized self, to wake from sleep and to leave the cave of unknowing into the light if insight and wisdom. There is a dilemma in this transition that needs to be noted for the simple reason that there are serious consequences for taking the wrong path. Most contemplative traditions make it more than plain that something within must be left behind so that something deeper within might be found. What must be left behind? What must we die to? What do we find on the other side of the ego and death to it?
Martin Heidegger was, probably, one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Heidegger challenged the dominant western tradition of philosophical rationalism and empiricism and pointed the way to a more mystical and contemplative way of knowing and being. Heidegger argued that we must let go (gelassenheit) of conditioned ways of being and knowing so that our true being (dasein) will emerge in all its clarity and fullness. Heidegger dipped his well deeply in the pre-socratic tradition and the leads of Nietzsche. Some of Heidegger’s classic books and articles such as What is Thinking? and ‘Memorial Address’ make it abundantly clear that serious rethinking must be done about the meaning of thinking and thought. A more meditative, contemplative, mystical and receptive way must replace the more dominant technical, calculative and aggressive way of knowing that had come to drive the western way of doing and knowing. It was in an openness to being that the real Self could and would emerge. The problem was this, though. It is one thing to let go of the ego and false consciousness, to clean and clear the house of dated furniture and much dirt and dust. But, what will the home of the soul be decorated with after the purge takes place? It is, in short, one thing to state what we are to be free from. It is another thing to state what we are to be free for. Heidegger’s lack of a deeper sense of Being, and a more substantive understanding of Being, meant that the content of Being was most malleable and plastic. Heidegger bent the language of letting go and openness to Being to serve the interests of the Nazis in the 1930s-1940s. The contemplative, if not properly grounded, can be used to serve some rather questionable means and ends. This dilemma is seriously pondered in two books by Richard Wolin: The Politics of Being: The Political Thought of Martin Heidegger (1990) and The Heidegger Controversy (1991). Thomas Merton had seen this dilemma played out in Bernard of Clairvaux.
Merton’s interest in Zen began with some keenness in 1956. D.T. Suzuki had become one of the most important teachers of Japanese Zen in the West both before and after WW II. Merton began a correspondence with Suzuki in 1959, and they met for two visits in New York in 1964. Merton had hoped that Suzuki would write a foreward to a book he was writing on the Christian Desert tradition, but in the pre-Vatican II days, this was frowned on, although a dialogue did appear in the New Directions Annual (1961). The fullest and finest exchange between Suzuki and Merton emerged in Zen and the Birds of Appetite (1968).
D.T. Suzuki, like Martin Heidegger, made it more than clear that much must be let go of for real insight to occur. It is in emptiness (sunyata) that the Isness and Suchness of reality will be experienced. It is, in Christian terms, in the dying and emptying (kenosis) that life will be fully lived. Most in the West know and admire Suzuki for his gentleness and fine work on Buddhism and Zen. Many in the counter-culture in the 1950s-1960s thought that D.T. Suzuki was the Zen man that brought the much needed medicine from Japan to an ill, faltering and failing western ethos and culture.
Who were D.T. Suzuki and his teacher (Shaku Soen) before they became important East-West bridge thinkers? These connections do need to be made. Both men were deeply committed to the Zen way, and such a path makes it more than clear that emptiness, no thinking, no mind and no self are at the core of Zen. Until this basic truth is realized, illusion and a sleep like existence dominate the day. But, what lies on the far side of emptiness? Few are aware that both D.T. Suzuki, Shaku Soen and many other Zen Masters in Japan were trainers of the Japanese military and staunch Japanese nationalists. This often hidden and forgotten fact is well articulated and documented in Brian Victoria’s Zen At War (1997).
Thomas Merton was probably not aware of both D.T. Suzuki’s pre-war tendencies and the teachings of his master, Shaku Soen. This is not the point, though. The much more problematic issue is this. It is one thing to argue that the ego and false face must be exposed and die. If there is not substantive content with which to replace that which must go, then anything can enter the home of the soul. There is no doubt a cleaning out and emptying must occur. This truth can be found in all the mystical and contemplative traditions in the world. The real differences begin to emerge and become more obvious when the issue of the new being or self on the far side of the ego is brought onto front stage.
Thomas Merton’s book on Gandhi, Gandhi on Non-Violence, holds high a way of being and knowing. D.T. Suzuki had his problems with Gandhi’s non-violent way. Merton was not a particularly systematic thinker, but if a dialogue had ever happened between Gandhi and Suzuki, some serious differences would have become clear in their understanding of the active and contemplative ways. Gandhi, like Merton and Suzuki, agreed that much had to be let go of before truth, wisdom and insight could occur. Gandhi’s notion of satyagraha (holding Being) is quite different than both Heidegger’s notion of Being and Suzuki’s. Merton, it seems to me, is much closer to Gandhi than he was to either Heidegger or Suzuki. In fact, in some ways, Bernard of Clairvaux has affinities with Suzuki and Heidegger. Merton is closer to Cardenal and Gandhi.
VI Merton and Signs of Peace
The publication of Signs of Peace: The Interfaith Letters of Thomas Merton (2006) make it obvious where Merton tipped his cap when it came to the application and interpretation of the contemplative-activist way. The Interfaith letters in this missive between Merton and Abdul Aziz, Amiya Chakravarty, John Wu, Abraham Heschel, D.T. Suzuki, Glenn Hinson, Thich Nhat Hanh, June Yungblut and Dona Luisa Coomeraswamy speak a way of peace rather than war. The dove is welcomed rather than the hawk.
Merton’s turn to the contemplative as a way of knowing and being was a way of building more solid and sure foundation stones for the soul and society. The edifice of activism had to be raised on the firm base of contemplation. The larger question, of course, is this: whose interpretation of the contemplative and the active should be heeded and why? Bernard, Heidegger and Suzuki had their own interpretation of how to renovate and do a spring cleaning of the soul and society. The rebuilt house could be more problematic than the older dwelling. A worrisome form of nationalist crusading dominated the day in their thinking and activism. Ernesto Cardenal and Gandhi offer a way of interpreting Being that is much more rooted in a dovish quest for justice. These two men, also, go beyond Merton in their understanding of justice and peace. Merton deserves high marks as a social critic, but he deserves much lower marks as a social activist and, more importantly, as a political theorist and activist. Merton, as mentioned above, stands much more in the anarchist line and lineage of the American Beats and Roman Catholic anarchists than he does with Cardenal and Gandhi. Cardenal and Gandhi were at the centre and core of serious party politics and political activism in a way that Thomas Merton, the monk, could never be.
Hannah Arendt in her classic book, The Human Condition, highlighted how ‘the Reversal of Contemplation and Action’ (41) took place. Merton attempted to reverse the reversal. He attempted to walk Mary to the throne again and dethrone Martha. There are larger questions that follow such a setting aright of the Mary-Martha tension. Much hinges on how the contemplative and active is interpreted and applied. Bernard, Heidegger and the younger Suzuki take us down one path on the contemplative journey.
Merton, the American Beats and the Roman Catholic anarchists take us down yet another part of the trail. Cardenal and Gandhi walk us to a fuller clearing as the tension is unpacked. This is, very much, the contemplative dilemma, and Merton tried, in his way, to make sense of this perennial dilemma in his all too short journey through time.
RSD
When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.
Posted by: coach sale | June 25, 2010 at 12:37 AM
This is interesting. So, is the contemplative dilemma also the Mertonian dilemma? The latter phrase came up in a friend's dissertation, and, as I am helping her with that dissertation, I would like an answer to that question. Perhaps someone who visits this site can help.
I come to this discussion, personally, from a Buddhist point of view. I admire Merton and the Catholic contemplatives. From my perspective, and having spent some time in retreat (and knowing individuals who have spent many years in retreat), I can only add that we can't "be" in the world, or act efficiently on behalf of others without a period of retreat or soul cleansing and reorganizing of thought beforehand. Coming to consciousness as adults means essentially that we have to recognize our inner worth as much as our talents -- and you can't do that attached to the TV, computers and our current American lifestyles.
Yours is a very big question -- Once you empty out (the first step), what do you put in? In my case, it is study and a deep understanding of the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, from which I stem and to which I am deeply committed. They hold the key to my liberation and the liberation of humanity, I believe.
Religion and spirituality are the clarion call humans must heed. And if they cannot heed it, perhaps they can just embrace kindness as the first step to self acceptance and acceptance of the world beyond. For you can't heal self or other without acceptance.
We live in a technological madhouse, with most people driven to work like mad even as they rip apart relationships to their spirituality, families and significant others in the attempt to "do" more. A societal reorganizing and cleaning of house is in order. I hope in the process, religions find occasions to converge in meaningful dialogue even as spiritual leaders pave the way for individuals to accomplish "house-cleaning" on a mass scale.
Posted by: a. f. jenkins | June 09, 2009 at 01:24 PM