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Title: Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton ISBN: 0-385-09219-9 Publisher: Image Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1971 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.64 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Thinking about contemplation
Comment: This is not a how-to book. It is a study of the history and meaning and reason for contemplative prayer, deeply thought of, deeply experienced. My little old copy is dogeared and heavily underlined, having been read so many times. And it is not my first copy - I've given others to friends.
As with much of Merton's writing, it is a tool for examining our own prayer, our own lives. He shows us many ways we may be evading the very goal of our prayer, how we may be shielding ourselves from God's light shining upon us.
Merton did not write this book in order to become popular. It is not all sweetness and gentle breezes of the Spirit. It is more like a cold wind that seeks to blow away our defenses and leave us face to face with what our souls really want - God. Whether we enjoy the process is not the point, but a book like this lets us know that we are not alone on the path, that, tough as it is, others have gone before. It gives comfort in the old English meaning of the word: strengthening. Read this if you need a good dose of spiritual tonic.
review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening in God
Rating: 5
Summary: Illuminating on Many Levels
Comment: This book is profound: in a mere 116 pages Merton reveals indispensable spiritual insights one after another. Contemplation is the practice of seeking clarity--a clear vision of who we are, a clear vision of our relationship to God. So, with honest, relentless precision, Merton exposes our false postures of ego, pride, attachement, fear--those unholy but seductive impulses that cloud our souls and separate us from God. It is obvious that "Contemplative Prayer" is the product of an experienced contemplative, one who has experienced and reflected upon a lifetime of struggle, enough so that he can boil down the essence of spiritual survival into a handful of simple words. But he does much more than that: after shattering each underpinning of our personal complacency, he draws back and puts his observations in their monastic and theological context, giving us a fuller, deeper understanding of the religious tradition we belong to. For example, at one point, Merton elegantly and brilliantly summarizes "Dark Night of the Soul" (St. John of the Cross) in a way that makes it fully relevant to the modern reader. As a bonus, this edition contains an introduction by the distinguished Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (who in some respects is himself a Buddhist version of Thomas Merton). Hahn explores and compares the spiritual struggles of Buddhism and Christianity with respect to prayer, meditation, practice, and God--on those crucial levels we see that ultimately we have one nature, despite the obvious and superficial differences that tend to separate us. On a literary note, "Contemplative Prayer" will be particularly interesting to those drawn to existentialism or seeking a deeper understanding of it. At first glance, one might think no two people could be further apart than Camus' Stranger and the Christian contemplative, but they are in fact quite alike. Both have heightened awareness of their true nature. Both acknowledge the meaninglessness of the world formerly thought of as "real". Both have learned that contemplation of the real comes at a heavy price, yet one that is unavoidable to the soul honestly seeking truth. Christian, Buddhist, existentialist...in the end it seems we are all drawn to the same road.
Rating: 5
Summary: Comptemplative Prayer Is Found in Emptiness
Comment:
Thomas Merton, a great teacher of spiritual principles above and beyond religion and institutionalized group consciousness.
Merton became a Buddhist at the end of his journey. Not the Buddhist of religious philosophy but the Zen experience far beyond explanation,structure and preconceived verbal formulas with absolutely no objectification, including that of God.
Notice this quote and ask yourself, "Is this a description of the Christian contemplative or a Zen Master? Then again, the Zen ontological experience of say D.T. Suzuki can no doubt be likened to the Christian mystic, Meister Eckart.
"Comtemplative prayer comes only when we are able to "let go" of everything within us, to enter into "emptiness," that is to let go of all desire to see, to know, to taste and to experience the presence of God. It is only then when we truly become able to experience his presence. It is neither the desire nor the refusal of desire that counts, but only that "desire" which is a form of "emptiness." Not the false emptiness of simply "blacking out" our thoughts in systematic methods and techniques, where emptiness becomes a thing, but rather the true emptiness that is a no-thing, a nothing, which is total inclusivenss, able to trancend all things, and yet is immanent in all. For what seems to be emptiness in this case is pure being. Or at least a philosopher might so describe it, but to the Christian contemplative is it other than that. It is not this, not that. Whatever you say of it,it is other than what you say. The character of emptiness, at least for a Christian contemplative, is pure love, pure freedom, free of everything, not determined by any thing, or held down by any special relationship, but a pure unconditional, nonparitial, nonjudgemental, inclusive love. 5 stars do not do this book any justice."
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Title: Spiritual Direction and Meditation by Thomas Merton ISBN: 0814604129 Publisher: Liturgical Press Pub. Date: June, 1986 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton ISBN: 081120099X Publisher: New Directions Publishing Pub. Date: November, 1974 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton ISBN: 0156010860 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Praying the Psalms by Thomas Merton ISBN: 0814605486 Publisher: Liturgical Press Pub. Date: December, 1956 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton ISBN: 0374513252 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 29 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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