Mystics and Zen Masters
In many ways Thomas Merton’s philosophy and mature thought is best articulated in Mystics and Zen Masters. Despite the fact that Merton is a Trappist monk and, ipso facto, a devout Catholic, here he shows his fascination with the much wider mystical tradition embedded in all the world’s great religions.
According to Merton, the purpose of all religions is a Union with God or mystical experience.
“…in all religions it is more or less generally recognized that this profound “sapiential” experience, call it gnosis, contemplation, “mysticism”, “prophecy” or what you will, represents the deepest most authentic fruit of the religion itself. All religions then, seek a “summit” of holiness, of experience, of inner transformation to which their believers – or an elite of believers – aspire because they hope, so to speak, to incarnate in their own lives the highest values in which they believe. To put it in grossly oversimplified language, all religions aspire to a “union with God” in some way or another….”
In an age of moral, cultural and theological relativism where religion (and almost everything else) has been reduced to a matter of taste, Merton is here dogmatically asserting that there is only one Truth and that Truth can only be found in a mystical way.
But while Merton is very dogmatic about the purpose of religion, he is very liberal and open-minded, eclectic even, when it comes to ways and means. His pluralism led him to study Buddhism in general and Zen in particular when he realized that authentic mystical experiences are not the sole province of any one religion.
Merton is religiously pluralistic, yet he argues persuasively that the goal of pluralistic investigation is a set of spiritual best practices not merely the tolerance of a “polite exchange of religious beliefs.” Despite the many differences among individuals, for Merton, there is an objective aspect to spiritual seeking common to all that he calls the “deep structure” underlying all religion. Yes, we are all different and have our own spiritual path. But an authentic spiritual path will have objective aspects that reflect best practices and best principles equally applicable to us all. There may be as many ways to lose extra pounds as there are people to lose them, but it is also true every dieter must consume fewer calories than he burns.
Merton does an incredible job combining the dogmatic with the open-minded in Mystics and Zen Masters and presents an approach to religious pluralism that strikes a blow against the kind of religious relativism and endless “dialoguing” we see so often today. What is tragic is that he made his points almost fifty years ago and we have made so little progress since.
Download a PDF Version of this Post
