Merton

Yesterday was the 50th Anniversary of Thomas Merton passing. A man of great compassion, insight and wisdom. I personally have learnt a lot from him, strive to change my inner world to a state of peace, state of beauty and shine this just as Merton did. 

Just before Merton past, well four days before, he took his final trip to Asia to find “the great compassion”. And it seems he did this by gazing at an enormous statue of the Buddha at Gal Vihara, Sri Lanka. 

From his journals we are able to get a small glimpse into what he experienced there. As he approached the statues “barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in the wet grass, wet sand”. Merton records his first impressions, “The silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smilies. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing.” 

Buddha at Gal Vihara, Sri Lanka

Its seems like a small glimpse into another world, into something so far from what I have known. Question nothing, know everything, reject nothing yet filled with every possibility. Wow!! What a world we would live in if this is how we all felt, we all viewed people, places, animals, things… 

Merton spent years in silence, embracing lector divina, reading, studying, chanting the psalm until they came to fruition. One might even say they came before Buddha:

“Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of things, and an inner clearness, clarity, as if exploding from the rocks themselves, became evident and obvious… I don’t know when in my life I have ever had such a sense of beauty and spiritual validity running together in one aesthetic illumination.” 

Merton’s use of the illumination to try capture the experience of enlightenment, of pure joy. 

In this season of waiting, of joy Im also left wondering if people are seeking this enlightening or seeking happiness. They are so different, very rich in themselves yet for the soul feed so differently. Happiness of the season for me, is filling in Christmas cards, giving messages of love in parcels, in gestures, in absorbing in the lights, trees, symbols that we all have become so accustom to. Yet the joy, well the joy of the season goes so deep, waiting in joyful hope for the birth, for the meaning of what this child teaches us, carries for us, gifts us. 

Four days after Merton wrote of this enlightenment experience, of pure joy he past away. Though it was our loss, perhaps it was merciful. After such a grace, such a vision of the Divine, such a pouring of joy… what was left?
“I have pierced through the surface,” he wrote “… everything is emptiness and everything is compassion.”

I have much to learn from great “men” just like Merton who walk before me. I read their expressions, the stories of others witness, how they reacted and responded to the needs, the cries, the daily interactions this world presented before them. 

 I believe we are all great “men” of our time.

Compassion is a complex term, yet I connect deeply with Merton’s words that everything is emptiness and everything is compassion. This deep emptiness I have not achieved yet we are on a journey, I am on a journey, with Merton’s words now interwoven into my story I will let them rest, reflect and form that bond to witness the world with pure joy just like that he experienced I pray.