Thomas Merton (1915-1968) and Alan Watts (1915-1973) are
often seen as two of the more important Western religious thinkers who called
the frenetic West back to a deeper and more contemplative way of being. Both
men emerged from the Christian Tradition, both men sought to refind and
rediscover the mystical roots of the Western Tradition, and both men turned to
the East in their contemplative journey. There is no doubt that Merton and
Watts shared many of the same concerns, but they do hike down different paths
by the time day is done. This short essay will briefly touch on the important
points of concord between Merton and Watts and the equally important points of
divergence and discord.

Alan Watts had deep and firm roots in the Church of England.
The English Anglican way is grounded in a contemplative way of knowing and
being, Watts knew this and, in his earliest writings probed the contemplative
theology of the Western Tradition. Watts, though, was most interested Buddhism
from an early age, and, in many important ways, he leanings were more Buddhist
than Christian. Watts mentioned, quite clearly in his autobiography, In My Own Way, his interests and
leanings. “It was thus at the age of fifteen, as a scholar supported by the
foundation of Canterbury Cathedral, the heart of the Church of England, I
formally declared myself to be a Buddhist” (p.62). Needless to say, this approach
to doing theology ran against the grain in the post WW II era and ethos. Most
who taught or studied theology at the time were more concerned with
confessional, dogmatic, Biblical, systematic or historic theology. Interfaith contemplative
theology was, sadly so, missing at most seminaries. Watts sensed this lack both
in himself and society, and he wondered why this was the case. It was just a
matter of time, as Watts immersed himself in the fullness of the Christian
Tradition, that he discovered that both Christian and the East was profoundly
mystical and contemplative. The publication of Behold The Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion (1947),
by Alan Watts, was a groundbreaking work at the time. Watts had clearly
established himself as a mystical theologian of note and worth. Behold the Spirit was a sustained
meditation and reflection on the Christian mystical way, and a firm and steady
call to return to such a way. Watts was, also, even at this time, attempting to
synthesize the Eastern Tradition with the West. He thought both, at the centre
and core, shared the same mystical and contemplative vision of the unity of all
things.

Thomas Merton, like Alan Watts, was in search of the
contemplative way. Merton, unlike Watts, was a monk. Watts became an Anglican
priest for a few years, but this was never to be his final stopping point..
Both men thought the role of the priest, at the deepest and truest level, was
to know and be one with God, and, in a most significant way, tell others how
they might taste of the same fruit. The publication of Merton’s Seeds of Contemplation (1949) emerged at
almost the same time as Watts Behold the
Spirit. There is no doubt both men were thinking the same contemplative
thoughts at the same time, and both men were not quite understood for thinking
such thoughts. Contemplative theology was not front and centre at the time.
Both men, interestingly enough, did much to revive contemplative theology as a
valid and vital aspect of the Christian journey. Seeds of Contemplation was a much more cautious, tamer and safer
work than Behold the Spirit. Watts
was venturing into areas that Merton would not reach until the late 1950s and
1960s. Merton dug, throughout most of the 1950s, ever deeper into the Western
contemplative way. There were hints of more to come, but they were only hints. Books
such as Bread in the Wilderness (1953)
and Living Bread (1956) walked the
extra mile to unpack and unravel the contemplative way, but such books were
thoroughly grounded in the Roman Catholic tradition. There were hints in these
books that something was afoot, but it would take a few more years for one and
all to see just what that was.

Alan Watts by the mid-late 1950s had, increasingly so,
turned from the West to the East. Watts had become somewhat cynical of the
Western way, and he became, for many, a guru of the East. Watts became, for
many, the leading interpreter of Zen Buddhism for the West, and he became a
spiritual mentor for the “beat generation”, the “hippy culture” and the Human
Potential Movement. Watts spoke often at the major counter cultural sacred
sites of the time such as Esalen and Big Sur. He very much rode the crest of
the 1950s and 1960s interest in the Oriental contemplative way. Books such as The Art of

Contemplation, The Way
of Zen, The Spirit of Zen, The Way of Liberation in Zen Buddhism to name
but a few rolled off the press in a hasty and rapid manner. Watts, at this
period of his life, did not turn totally against the Western Tradition. He
merely attempted to argue that the West and East needed to come together in a
more harmonious way. The mystics of the East and West, Watts argued, were
thinking many of the same core thoughts. The fruit from the tree of Watts life
did bear a thick harvest, and the fruit appeared early. Watts moved more in the
direction of a mystical unity between religions, and he had less and less
interest in the institutions and dogmas that were an integral part of most of
the religions he spoke so convincingly about. In short, Watts, like many in the
past and present, tended to pit the contemplative, mystical and spirituality
against dogmas, creeds, doctrines and institutions. The former was idealized
and elevated, whereas the latter was either denigrated or subordinated. This, of
course, is just another dogma and creates its own institutions.

Merton was, like Watts, in the 1950s and 1960s, keen and
eager to probe more deeply the contemplative depths and the Western and Eastern
Traditions. Merton was as drawn to Zen as was Watts. Merton’s friendship with
D.T. Suzuki, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama are well known. Merton also had
a great deal of interest in Sufism, the Kabbalah and First Nations
spirituality. Merton could be as critical as Watts of the debilitating nature
of religious institutions and an inadequate understanding of the role of dogma,
creeds and doctrines, but he never brushed them aside in quite the same way as
Watts. Merton remained, until the end, a Cistercian monk and Roman Catholic.
Watts left behind his Episcopalianism and entered more and more into the trendy
mystical and contemplative eclecticism of the time. This is something Merton
could and would not do.

Merton, unlike Watts, also took a passionate and responsible
interest in some of the larger social, political and economic questions of the
time. He had a great deal of affinity with the work of Dorothy Day, the
Catholic Worker, the Berrigan brothers and Roman Catholic protest and advocacy
politics. This was something that did not really hold Watts in quite the same
way it held Merton.

There is little doubt that in the last decade of Merton and
Watts lives they were moving in different directions. Watts’ autobiography, In My Own Way: An Autobiography: 1915-1965 (1972)
tells its own tale. Watts had turned against Christian creeds and dogmas; he
had little patience for Christianity as an institution. Watts was an
evangelist, like Huxley, for the philosophia
perennis. Christianity, from within such a perspective, at its deepest, was
mystical and contemplative. All the other great religions were the same. At the
core and centre, so this argument goes, all the mystics agree and are one.
Watts wrote a final book on Christianity in the last few years of his life. Myth and Ritual in Christianity (1968)
was a fine and sensitive probe of the deeper mythic meanings within the much
older Christian Tradition and how such myths, when rightly understood, were
embedded in the liturgies and rituals. Watts also argued, like Joseph Campbell,
that such myths and rituals, at their deepest and most pertinent and pressing
levels, were the same in other religions. Watts, as I mentioned above, did not
really have a well worked out approach to the larger issues of politics of the
time other than a few platitudes.

Thomas Merton inched more and more, in the 1960s, to ever
deeper levels of Western and Eastern contemplative ways. New Seeds of Contemplation, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, Mystics and
Zen Masters and The Inner Experience:
Notes on Contemplation tell their own convincing tale. Merton turned to the
East for wisdom and insight, but, unlike Watts, he remained firmly grounded and
rooted in his own tradition. We can also seriously question how far Merton
would have gone down the philosophia
perennis path. Merton died in 1968, but he died still a Cistercian and
Roman Catholic. It is important to note that Merton in The InnerLife: Notes on Contemplation, makes it quite clear, in a
thoughtful and probing way, where and how Christian mysticism and Eastern
mysticism converge and diverge. There is a very real sense in which The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation
is Merton’s most thoughtful work of comparative spirituality, and it is obvious,
in this missive, where and why Merton and Watts part company   

Thomas Merton was, probably, the finest Roman Catholic
contemplative theologian of the 20th century. Merton was both a
critic of the church but committed to it. Merton was also concerned about many
of the injustices in the 1950s and 1960s, and he never flinched from facing
such things. It was Merton’s Roman Catholic contemplative theology that
grounded him in the church and the world in a way that Watts lacked. Watts had
an interest in the East, but his interest tended to stay a safe distance from
the actual people of such a tradition. Watts was a highly individualistic
anarchist. This seems quite ironic given the fact that most mystics in the West
and East are about unity in thought and deed. Watts’ Oriental anarchism played
quite nicely into a highly romanticized view of the East and a Western
individualistic appropriation of the East.

I suspect Merton’s more grounded and rooted contemplative
catholicity will wax, and Watts will wane and fade. There is something more
sound in Merton than in Watts, and it is this soundness that Merton held high.

rsd