Mystics and Zen Masters
by Thomas Merton
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Thomas Merton was recognized as one of those rare Western minds that are entirely at home with the Zen experience. In this collection, he discusses diverse religious concepts-early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism-with characteristic Western directness. Merton not only studied these religions from the outside but grasped them by empathy and living participation from within. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to show more understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the 'way' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness.". show lessTags
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Thomas Merton was recognized as one of those rare Western minds that are entirely at home with the Zen experience. In this collection, he discusses diverse religious concepts-early monasticism, Russian Orthodox spirituality, the Shakers, and Zen Buddhism-with characteristic Western directness. Merton not only studied these religions from the outside but grasped them by empathy and living participation from within. "All these studies," wrote Merton, "are united by one central concern: to understand various ways in which men of different traditions have conceived the meaning and method of the 'way' which leads to the highest levels of religious or of metaphysical awareness."
> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Merton-Mystique-et-zen/220837
> Un livre qui s'adresse a tous ceux qui s'intéressent aux états de conscience modifiés, c'est un bon ouvrage, avec une revue des mystiques européens qui est intéressante.
—Danieljean (Babelio)
> Un livre qui s'adresse a tous ceux qui s'intéressent aux états de conscience modifiés, c'est un bon ouvrage, avec une revue des mystiques européens qui est intéressante.
—Danieljean (Babelio)
Dec 2, 2018 (Edited)French
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396+ Works 38,008 Members
Born in France, Thomas Merton was the son of an American artist and poet and her New Zealander husband, a painter. Merton lost both parents before he had finished high school, and his younger brother was killed in World War II. Something of the ephemeral character of human endeavor marked all his works, deepening the pathos of his writings and show more drawing him close to Eastern, especially Buddhist, forms of monasticism. After an initial education in the United States, France, and England, he completed his undergraduate degree at Columbia University. His parents, nominally friends, had given him little religious guidance, and in 1938, he converted to Roman Catholicism. The following year he received an M.A. from Columbia University and in 1941, he entered Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, where he remained until a short time before his death. His working life was spent as a Trappist monk. At Gethsemani, he wrote his famous autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain" (1948); there he labored and prayed through the days and years of a constant regimen that began with daily prayer at 2:00 a.m. As his contemplative life developed, he still maintained contact with the outside world, his many books and articles increasing steadily as the years went by. Reading them, it is hard to think of him as only a "guilty bystander," to use the title of one of his many collections of essays. He was vehement in his opposition to the Vietnam War, to the nuclear arms race, to racial oppression. Having received permission to leave his monastery, he went on a journey to confer with mystics of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. He was accidentally electrocuted in a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, on December 10, 1968. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Classifications
- Genres
- Religion & Spirituality, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Philosophy
- DDC/MDS
- 291.42 — Religion Other religions [Formerly: General Religious Topics] Religious experience, life, practice Religious Psychology and Experience
- LCC
- BL625 .M38 — Philosophy, Psychology and Religion Religions. Mythology. Rationalism Religions. Mythology. Rationalism Religious life
- BISAC
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- Languages
- 6 — Czech, English, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 13
