In the CAC’s Essentials of Engaged Contemplation course, James Finley reflects on what he learned about interfaith friendships from Thomas Merton:
Thomas Merton had a sense of depth and integrity to the search for God and how it interfaces the world. He had a deep love for his own mystical, contemplative Christian tradition, down through the ages. He wrote two books on Zen Buddhism, Zen and the Birds of Appetite and Mystics and Zen Masters. In his letter to D. T. Suzuki, who was a Buddhist scholar, he wrote: “When I read your teachings about these talks between the master and the teacher, where the student is enlightened in the presence of the teacher, something leaps off the page at me and says, ‘This is true.’” [1] He said in essence, “I would like to know if I, as a Christian, could dialogue with you as a Buddhist about our common ground.” And Suzuki accepted the invitation. Merton approached everyone that way, and they came to talk with him.
What Merton saw was that the world will not survive religion based on in-group consciousness. It’ll bring the whole world down. But if those who have been awakened within their tradition to the Divine Mystery which also transcends their tradition, when they all come in toward that all-encompassing center, they recognize each other. And if they would speak up, religion’s awakening could be a source of world unity and peace. Merton was trying to be someone who spoke out of this unified clarity. He saw that each religion is like a different language of the universality of awakening.
Finley recalls how he sought Merton’s guidance in developing his own curiosity about Buddhism:
Merton would talk about the beauty of these religions, their analogies and similarities. When I would go see him for spiritual direction, I’d ask him to help me to go further. He never pushed it or anything, but I asked. He introduced me to the Dharma or Buddhist teaching, and it had a deep effect on me. The same with yoga. He practiced yoga and introduced me to it. A yoga monk came from India and we all went up to the front porch of Merton’s hermitage to practice asana—the postures—together. People were drawn to Merton, because they sensed the depth of awareness that he carried.
Thomas Merton once said that if we want to study Buddhism, the answer is not to read a lot of books on Buddhism; it’s to meet a holy Buddhist instead. There’s an unmistakable quality of presence. And if someone tries to understand Christianity, they don’t need to read a lot of books on Christian theology. Philosopher Jacques Maritain, who came to visit Merton at the monastery once, said, “If there’s a place where Christ isn’t present, you go there. Christ will be present this way.” I think it is this transformative place of living from presence that allows us to resonate with others—meeting them in their presence, rather than through our ideas about them, or their ideas of us.
References:
[1] This is a paraphrase of Merton’s letter to Suzuki. See Thomas Merton: A Life in Letters: The Essential Collection, ed. William H. Shannon, Christine M. Bochen (HarperOne, 2008), 359.
Adapted from James Finley and Carmen Acevedo Butcher, “Thomas Merton as Teacher and Student of Multiple Traditions,” Essentials of Engaged Contemplation, Center for Action and Contemplation, October 2024.
Image credit and inspiration: Ashkan Forouzani, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Iran, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Each bead in a strand could represent a faith tradition—rising beyond rivalry to something new, larger, and whole—while holding fast to the beauty of its own singular shape.
Story from Our Community:
I was enamored by the meditations on “What is Mysticism.” For me, each tradition rises from the heart knowledge of an ancient mystic’s experience. I believe that looking beyond the dogma of tradition lies the sacred. In my interfaith community in Amherst, NH, our intention is to know the Divine through the direct experience of the Holy while honoring the spiritual practices of all traditions’ truth. Awakening these truths in our own hearts reveals the Divine spark that lies dormant in us all, ultimately leading to mystical unity. In unity, there exists no “other.”
—Rev. Ahjan G.
