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The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation

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I became a Christian in 1978. Though not a Catholic one of the first books I read after my conversion was Merton's Seeds of Contemplation. I don't claim to have understood it all at that time. As a new Christian I was just trying to learn. I didn't even have the slightest idea who Thomas Merton was, I just found the book in the community college library and started reading. In the intervening years I have gone through many changes and have read many Christian authors. I have come to the point where I am not so concerned with the denomination of the writer or whether or not he or she shares my particular background. What has become important to me is that if I can detect true reverence and submission to God in the writer's words then I will read and benefit. Though I am Protestant and, theologically speaking, Reformed in my thinking, I love Thomas Merton with all my heart.

A few months ago I listened to his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain on tapes. Before that I listened to The New Seeds of Contemplation. Merton stirred up things in me and gave a voice to private thoughts that, unfortunately, can hardly be expressed even in most churches. When I ran across this new book, The Inner Experience, I bought it immediately. I finished it in a couple of weeks, savoring it slowly. Merton is not bound by any lables, denominational or otherwise, yet he remains Christian. This does not make him an enemy of the non-Christian and he never comes off that way. He is wide ranging, yet Christian. In this new work Merton is like someone who pulls you to the side and fills you in on all the details that are really important but were left out of what we've been told is really important. He never hides weakness, never claims to have the definitive answer. He let's you know he's acting as more of a guide, as someone who is clearing mental debris so that you can get a better picture of not so much what he is telling you but what you can become by following God yourself if confusion is lessened. I found myself constantly underlining passages and putting the book down just to let cetain words sink into my thoughts. When I finished the book I knew I would have to read it again. I felt a tinge of sadness as if I was saying goodbye to a friend, but also joy that one who has been dead for over thirty years still spoke with such quiet strength. And isn't that precisely what Scripture says about those who were truly faithful, that they being dead yet speak?

I also found William Shannon's scholarship and guidance helpful. He relates to you the circumstances surrounding the writing of this book, which was actually a rewrite of an earlier work of Merton's (What is Contemplation?) that took on a new form and thrust. Mr. Shannon used different type fonts to let the reader know when the words were part of Merton's revision. These are cataloged neatly by chapter in the back of the book. Merton speaks to our time just as poignantly, maybe even more so, than he did to his own. There are certain people who are ready, indeed who hunger, for the words in this book. You will know who you are when you read it. As Merton says on page 3...

"But if in some sense you are already a contemplative (whether you know it or not makes little difference) you will perhaps not only read the book with a kind of obscure awareness that it is meant for you, but you may even find yourself having to read the thing whether it fits in with your plans or not. In that event just read it......and pray for me, because from now on we are, in some strange way, good friends."

Though Merton is gone I do feel that in some stange way we are good friends. And I feel a little saner in a mad world.

This is Thomas Merton's last work before his untimely death in Thailand. Even though it was started in 1959, he had been working on this examination of the contemplative life still in 1968(the year of his death). It's somewhat like a bridge between his earlier works on mysticism and monasticism and his later works on eastern thought, namely his fascination with Buddhism. Some of the subjects touched on here you will see familiarity with insights he touched on also in "New Seeds of Contemplation". He talks a lot in this book about the inner self and our relationship to society, as well as taking aim at some of the actual problems of a contemplative life, as well.

Whether talking about Taoism or Zen, or the Desert Fathers, Merton interlaces the wisdom of various religious traditions here, thus proving himself to be an advocate of interfaith dialogue. The contemplative life is a life lived in a kind of mystery, in a sense of awe. Not a life of spiritual gaining or possession. This take on spirituality has from time to time been likened to Chogyam Trungpa's most prominent book, "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism." Merton talks here about something he often did, "the sublime life." This he says, is planted in every soul from the moment of baptism. And perhaps the most wonderful aspect of this book is the fact that Merton is able to appeal to people of all walks of life. Be that a Christian, Buddhist, or even a Jewish person. There is always something to be learned and contemplated when reading Tom, and without a doubt he is greatly missed. But, if it cheers us up any, we do have his wonderful literature. In that sense, Thomas Merton hasn't really gone anywhere. He is right within the heart of our true selves. Enjoy this magnificent book.

The introduction by editor William Shannon is certainly helpful in terms of explaining what this text is. It was something of a labor of love for Merton who recurrently fine-tuned it for a period of several years. Unless you are interested in the process of bringing such a work to publication, you might be better served to simply leap into Merton's thoughts, which begin uneasily with "A Preliminary Warning." If the reader has come to the text "intent on 'becoming a contemplative' you will probably waste your time," says Merton, "this book in no sense aspires to be classified as 'inspirational'." To gain anything from this study one must immediately recognize the difference between the exterior "I", bound to sensory influence and desperately false self-seeking, and the interior "I", the true and hidden self that is free, in God, from exterior desire. The book is an appropriately economical and yet broadly ranging consideration of Christian contemplation -- which the author contrasts early with Zen Buddhism. For this reviewer to dissect the text for the purpose of critical analysis would most likely be misleading. (This might be obvious to any contemplative and to any serious writer and to any serious reader.) Here, then, is a simple view to the texts:

From "Kinds of Contemplation" (chapter 5): "In active contemplation, a man becomes able to live within himself. He learns to be at home with his own thoughts. He becomes to a greater and greater degree independent of exterior supports. His mind is pacified not by passive dependence on things outside himself -- diversions, entertainments, conversations, business -- but by its own constructive activity. That is to say, that he derives inner satisfaction from spiritual creativeness: thinking his own thoughts, reaching his own conclusions, looking at his own life . . . in meditation and under the eyes of God. He derives strength not from what he gets out of things and people, but from giving himself to life and to others. He discovers the secret of life in the creative energy of love -- not love as a sentimental or sensual indulgence, but as a profound and self-oblative expression of freedom." p59

From Merton's "essential elements of mystical contemplation" in chapter 6:
". . . an intuition that on its lower level transcends the senses. On its higher level it transcends the intellect itself.
. . . is characterized by a quality of light in darkness, knowing in unknowing. It is beyond feeling, even beyond concepts.
In this contact with God, in darkness, there must be a certain activity of love on both sides. . . a liberation of the mind and imagination from all strong emotional and passionate clinging to sensible realities. 'Passionate thinking' distorts our intellectual vision, preventing us from seeing things as they are. . .
Contemplation is the work of love . . . a development and a perfection of pure charity." p72, 73

From chapter 14: "All life presupposes the ability to act, to work, to think for yourself, to break out of the cocoon, to get free from the womb. No life requires a more active or more intense formation, a more ruthless separation from dependence on exterior support, than the life of contemplation." p127

Scorned by religious literalists and always misappropriated by mindless innovators, Merton truly is the most Catholic man, the most ardent Monk, and The Inner Experience his subtlest and deepest book. In a towering 150 pages, an intellectual presence vast and keen enough to subserve an inexhaustible faith is at work renewing Christian thought, opening doors and finding the authentic where reigned before naught but numinous habit. The middle chapters on John of the Cross' doctrines of darkness and acceptance are surely among the finest in all of Merton's work. Page after page, as our understanding increases Merton's concerns expand, but the experience never spirals out of reach, instead moving deeper and firmer. His interior grasp of buddhist concepts and an original and invigorating line of Zen thought pursue the book like a consuming fire, in the end making of Merton's Christian wisdom something divinised and freely given. Thirty some years after his death, he can only be called an inextinguishable thinker and one of the most remarkable writers of any age. Ten years in the writing, Inner Experience is meticulously and generously edited by William Shannon. If you want to know what Merton can give you, human reader, pick up this book. Not a recommendation alone, more an insistence. Don't walk by.

We often tend to divide a writer's or an artist's work into three distinct periods: "early, middle & late." Going by this, one could describe THE INNER EXPERIENCE as mostly "late-middle" work (1959), structured around an "early" pious pamplet ("What is Contemplation?," 1948), and lightly polished during the "late" phase (probably the spring of 1968) . This literally makes THE INNER EXPERIENCE a pivotal work in the Merton "canon," and an ideal introduction to his "straight prose" writing on contemplation.

And there are other factors which make this, THE INNER EXPERIENCE, such a superb introduction to contemplation IN GENERAL: its nearly systematic progression of thought,
and its style- which falls somewhere between the "poetics"
of NEW SEEDS & THOUGHTS IN SOLITUDE, and the dense, "concrete" prose of NO MAN IS AN ISLAND.

If you want to disentangle the three overlapping "phases" of writing, M. Shannon has set the 1948 passages (from "What is Contemplation?") in a different type-set from the "main" 1959 text, the 1968 additions & revisions in yet another, and the discarded 1959 words & phrases in the appendix...Even so, for all his seeming casualness, Merton ("Uncle Louie" to his friends) was enough of a craftsman so that a stylistic unity prevails throughout, and disjointedness is avoided. That is to say, it FLOWS.

Together with Merton's little volume on the Desert Fathers (WISDOM OF THE DESERT), and Kallistos Ware's translation of THE ART OF PRAYER, I have found THE INNER EXPERIENCE to be a clear, invigorating portal to the inner life- and (p.152) our sources of "energy, clarity, and peace."

Thank you, Uncle Louie !

Contemplative prayer is as close to the center of Merton's wide ranging interests and writings as you can get, early and late. This book is his distillation of his essential teaching on the subject.

While remaining unfinished at his death, it is highly questionable Merton would ever have considered this book "finished." The subject was likely too sensitive and important to him, as his subtle tinkerings with the manuscript (highlighted in this edition) show. He had been master of scholastics at Gethsemani Abbey for years and was, as such, responsible for the basic formation of a generation of monks there. John Cassian of the 4th century, very important to Merton's concepts both of spiritual directorship and prayer, taught that the soul is like "soft down" -- unbelievably fragile and easily prone to damage. Merton obviously deeply internalized this teaching. "Finished" or not, it is one of the most subtle and carefully written of all his books.

Father Merton has saved the best wine until last. It should be a valuable guide in the pursuit of the interfaith dialogue between the spiritual leaders of the world's great religions, and a prudent guide to living the contemplative life.
The world is facing suicidal war based on false "religious" motives. The spiritual leaders of the world must overule and help mankind to effect communion and stop working so hard for conversion.
Lastly, Fr. Merton clearly warns us of the dire consequences of failing to appreciate that the authentic "good news" lies in the first words put on the lips of Jesus in the earliest Gospel:
"Metanoiesete ['Change the way you think about reality']...for the
kingdom of God is within." (Mk.1:15;cf Mt.4:17;Lk.17:21]

I thought New Seeds of Contemplation was the epitome of Merton's thought but this book written towards the end of his life shows the true depth of his spirituality and the fruits of his years as a contemplative. This is one of those books that every time you pick it up, a new meaning unfolds.