Thomas Merton’s Dark Path: The Inner Experience of a Contemplative

While The Denial of Death exposes the fundamental problem of our existence, and The Ego and the Dynamic Ground provides an overview of the spiritual stages of life, William Shannon guides the mature seeker through the apophatic quest for Truth in Thomas Merton’s Dark Path: The Inner Experience of a Contemplative.

Thomas Merton is the most famous monk within the Trappist (Cistercian) tradition, and its most prolific author. He not only provided one of the first and best articulations of the “via negativa” path for Christian contemplatives, but he was also revolutionary in his embrace of Eastern traditions, most notably Zen Buddhism.

William Shannon takes Merton’s writings and life experiences to provide a field book for the apophatic spiritual path. The apophatic tradition begins with the premise that God or Truth can never be captured in language, and can therefore only be described by what it is not. Apophatic mysticism is found within all of the religious traditions and seeks a direct experience of the divine reality, beyond the realm of our ordinary minds or senses. This divine union is the goal of all seekers, and is the only solution to the riddle of life and death. Nothing else we can say, do, think, or become will satisfy the need we feel so desperately to know that “all shall be well” and that our doubts, fears, and perceived inadequacies are all, in the end, unfounded.

Shannon lays out the path for us to follow, and if we take him up on his invitation we may be fortunate enough to know what Brother John and so many before him have discovered. Going through this process of “conversion” or “enlightenment,” we will find ourselves grateful for who we have become, remorseful for who we were, and compassionate towards those who do not understand.

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