Merton on Sufism

Sufism looks at man as a heart and a spirit and a secret, and the secret is the deepest part. The secret of man is God's secret; therefore it is in God. My secret is God's innermost knowledge of me, which He alone possesses. It is God's secret knowledge of myself in Him, which is a beautiful concept. The heart is the faculty by which man knows God and there Sufism develops the heart.

This is a very important concept in the contemplative life, both in Sufism and in Christian tradition. To develop a heart that knows God, not just a heart that loves God, but a heart that knows God. How does one know God in the heart? By praying in the heart. The Sufis have ways of learning to pray so that you are really praying in the heart, from the heart, not just saying words, not just thinking good thoughts or making intentions or acts of the will, but from the heart. This is a very ancient Biblical concept that is carried over from Jewish thought into monasticism. It is the spirit which loves God, in Sufism. The spirit is almost the same word as the Biblical word "spirit" -- the breath of life. So man knows God with his heart, but loves God with his life. It is your living self that is an act of constant love for God and this inmost secret of man is that by which he contemplates God, it is the secret of man in God himself.

-- Thomas Merton, 

speaking to a group of Catholic sisters in Alaska, 

2 1/2 months before his death in 1968

with thanks to louie,louie

 

good or bad?

~ Alan Watts

There is nothing but this

.

First days of spring - blue sky, bright sun. Everything is gradually becoming fresh and green. Carrying my bowl, I walk slowly to the village. The children, surprised to see me, Joyfully crowd about, bringing My begging trip to an end at the temple gate. I place my bowl on top of a white rock and Hang my sack from the branch of a tree. Here we play with the wild grasses and throw a ball. For a time, I play catch while the children sing; Then it is my turn. Playing like this, here and there, I have forgotten the time. Passers-by point and laugh at me, asking, "What is the reason for such foolishness?" No answer I give, only a deep bow; Even if I replied, they would not understand. Look around! There is nothing but this.

~ Ryokan

this rain

What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone,

in the forest, at night, cherished by this

wonderful, unintelligible,

perfectly innocent speech,

the most comforting speech in the world,

the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges,

and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!

Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it.

 

It will talk as long as it wants, this rain.

As long as it talks I am going to listen.

~ Thomas Merton

by dying they have their living

The lovers know the loveliness
That is not of their bodies only
(Though they be lovely) but is of
Their bodies given up to love.

They find the open-heartedness
Of two desires which both are lonely
Until by dying they have their living,
And gain all they have lost in giving,

Each offering the desired desire.
Beyond what time requires, they are
What they surpass themselves to make;
They give the pleasure that they take.



~ Wendell Berry
from Sabbaths, 1997 V
Painting by Chagall

all-one

Don’t forget the nut, being so proud of the shell,
The body has its inward ways,

the five senses. They crack open,
and the Friend is revealed.

Crack open the Friend, you become
the All-One.

  ~ Rumi
 version by Coleman Barks
from Unseen Rain

seek the mystery

The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. 
If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, 
you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer. 

They think they have, so they stop thinking. 
But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery,
 plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. 

The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer. 

~ Ken Kesey

from The Art of Fiction - interview by Robert Faggen, 

The Paris Review No. 130 (Spring 1994)

The madness of love

The madness of love 

Is a blessed fate;

And if we understood this

We would seek no other:

It brings into unity to

What was divided,

And this is the truth:

Bitterness it makes sweet,

It makes the stranger a neighbor,

And what was lowly it raises on high.

  

~ Hadewijch of Antwerp

photo by Ansel Adams

.

metaphors and symbols

Someone who found the inner path

who, dedicated to deep meditation,

got a glimpse of this essential truth,

that we choose God and World

only as metaphors and symbols.

 Every thought and action then

becomes an inner conversation,

a meeting between God and World.

~ Hermann Hesse

from The Seasons of the Soul

 

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. 
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
 Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected
 even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon
 and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, 
or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you,
 just as the moon does not break the water. 

You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water
 does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop 
is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long
 or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, 
and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

~ Dogen Zenji (1200 - 1253)

between heaven and earth

Sacred or secular

manners and conventions

make no difference to him

Completely free

leaving it all to heaven

he seems a simplton

No one catches

a glimpse inside

his mind

this old man

all by himself

between heaven and earth

~ Muso Soseki

translated by W. S. Merwin

congruence with the chosen

The chooser's happiness lies in his congruence with the chosen,
The peace of iron filings, obedient to the forces of the magnetic field.


Calm is the soul that is emptied of all self,
In the eternal moment of co-inherence.
A happiness within you - but not yours.


–Dag Hammarskjöld
from Markings
 liap

foundations

I built on the sand

And it tumbled down,

I built on a rock

And it tumbled down.

Now when I build, I shall begin

With the smoke from the chimney.

~ Leopold Staff

translated by Czeslaw Milosz

You Are Tired (I Think) by e.e.cummings

You are tired,

(I think)

Of the always puzzle of living and doing;

And so am I.

Come with me, then,

And we’ll leave it far and far away—

(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,

(I think)

And broke the toys you were fondest of,

And are a little tired now;

Tired of things that break, and—

Just tired.

So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,

And I knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—

Open to me!

For I will show you places Nobody knows,

And, if you like,

The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!

I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,

That floats forever and a day;

I’ll sing you the hyacinth song

Of the probable stars;

I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,

Until I find the Only Flower,

Which shall keep (I think) your little heart

While the moon comes out of the sea.

~ e.e.cummings

the wise silence

We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.

Meantime within man is the soul of the whole;
the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE.

And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

from The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson,

The Over-Soul