Recently, I watched a Film biography on the life of Thomas Merton, a remarkable man of deep vision and intellect. In fact, I would term him an intellectual mystic of the first degree. Merton converted to Catholicism after having read many of the great Catholic thinkers and wrote this spiritual journey down in his book, Seven Storey Mountain. I read this remarkable piece while a junior in college. Many things that he talked of in this, rang true to the interiors of my heart at that time, and thus gave an impetus to my own embracing of Catholicism years later. I had heard of his tales, later in his life, of Buddhist undertakings and this always left me very confused on the nature of his Christianity and what he accepted in Buddhist thought and teaching. It was a reactionary concern, perhaps rooted in fear. Seeing this film biography, once again made me think about the nature of Christianity, the role of Christians, and the relation between Christianity and other religions, more specifically, the Buddhist religion. When I encounter ideas, I first encounter them with my heart, and then they pass over to the intellect where I try as best I can to give them the test of Truth. I am, by no means, an authority on what is right and True but here are some of my thoughts on Merton, Buddhism, and Christianity:
1. I cannot understand Buddhism philosophically. It does not make sense. It has many contradictions and thus cannot be reconciled to what I believe is a correct perception of reality. In my estimation, it fails to adequately give a sound ideology on the state of man and his end. Buddhism says that we are to ignore suffering, that it is not real, and that our main goal is to break out of this cycle of human suffering. That is to say, to attain nirvana, a state of nothingness. While contemplating suffering and seeking to escape it is a noble end of itself, it fails to address the ache of our souls, the hungriness of our souls that can only be filled in the Divine. As Augustine puts it, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee." Christianity describes this state of man, I believe, sufficiently and this argument (the argument from desire) is perhaps my favorite argument for the existence of a Supreme Being.
In suffering, we find total submission to the divine will. The entrance of the sanctifying process of transformation in divine union, which is the ultimate goal of the soul, finds a ready doorway in suffering, especially when it is united to the suffering of Christ himself, the ultimate means of joining of the human and the divine. Suffering is inevitable; it cannot be avoided. The only choice lies in how it is responded to and dealt with. Suffering can serve to darken our days, fill them with despair, and steal the joy we have in life. Or, suffering can fill us with the joy of being able to unite our wills to that of God's. To offer our suffering to the Lord allows us to participate in Christ's own suffering; this, in turn, allows us to participate in the Divine plan for the salvation of mankind. Our wills are therefore joined to the will of God, putting ourselves in perfect submission and concert with God's own plan. What greater joy can a child of God experience than that? It is this ultimate gift of self, this acceptance of suffering and of offering it to the Lord where we find ultimate fulfillment in union with the Divine. For most, this union is not experienced completely on earth, but in the Beatific vision of Heaven. There are those, however, who experience this rare gift while on their sojourn in this world. These are the ones we call Saints. These Saints, among other things, offer their lives as living sacrifices to God, as vessels to be filled with God, as the apostle Paul urges us all to do (Rom 12:1-ff). Buddhism, in seeking relief from the inevitability of pain, would cut itself off from the most ready and obvious means of attaining it. By not embracing suffering, they deny a part of the reality of what it means to be a human, and deny part of a human's natural end. The Buddhist enterprise,then, is doomed from its inception, and, is in fact, impssible on its own terms. It is a fools errand, an empty well.
There is so much more to this dichotomy between the two religions which I will not go into now for brevity's sake and the fact that it is 11:30 at night and I am a mother of three.
2. On a more positive note,concerning Merton's interaction with the religions of the East, Merton recognized that we are all the same and connected. We are not alone. He thus saw, that the discipline that he witnessed from the East in contemplation, was admirable, in both their manners and constancy. I, too, recognize this as good, a spark of the divine image that has been imprinted on man and as testimony that God created man good, and at the fall, man was tainted, but not so much that you cannot see a semblance of the good.
3. I cannot put Merton on par with the saints. I see him as a figure that has been embraced by the secular world and religious too, at times, for furthering of certain aims. This leaves me uneasy. He at times, led a life contrary to his vows and he would not be on the same level as a St. Francis, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, or a Teresa of Avila, who clung to obedience and purity in their great ardor for Christ . I can speak of him as a great social activist, a great and insightful writer and poet, but not as someone who mirrors the very life of Christ himself, in the odor of sanctity, which he may have very well have aimed for. Merton, a good man, a great thinker, but not a saint in the "canonized" sense of the word.
Merton, nonetheless, spurs me on in my encounter with Buddhism and all the other religions of the world. As Merton discovered that learning from other faith traditions helps one to appreciate one's own religion even more, so to I, am learning to appreciate my own religious ideology in the light of other worldviews. Thank you, Merton, for your contributions to this type of thinking in a mother and wife.
