Merton and Mysticism of the Mind 139

who write in the field of spiritual theology, including Karl Rahner

w hen he wrote in that area.
These two currents represent two ends of a spectrum between intel-
lectualist and volontarist theologies and spiritualities. Many theolo-
gians in Christian history have found themselves somewhere around
the middle of the spectrum: for example, Suso, Tauler, Ruusbroek and
Merton and Mysticism of the Mind several Cistercians. Merton, at least in his later years, quite clearly
stands near the intellectualist end of that spectrum.
Robert Faricy, SJ I would like to describe briefly the mysticism of the mind of Meister
Eckhart, then, after that, describe Zen Buddhist meditation under-
lining its intellectualist orientation, and finally draw some conclu-
sions about Merton's theology of contemplation. Here I will, like Eck-
Thomas Merton's theology of contemplation d eveloped over his life- hart, Zen and Merton, talk about experience, about the experience of
time, and surely would have continued to evolve had he lived longer. contemplation. Not metaphysics nor dogma, but models of experi-
His posthumously published and never really completed and pol- ence: models of experiencing union with God in contemplation (or, as
ished book, Contemplative Prayer,1 contains his las t ideas on con- the Buddhists say, in meditation).
templation. How does Merton's theology of contemplation, as we find Merton was influenced by Eckhart and by Zen because he found
in Contemplative Prayer, fit into the Christian tradition of contem- himself in Eckhart and in Zen. They spoke to him about his own
plative prayer? How is it related to Zen meditation? Why is it some- experience in contemplative prayer. He recognized his prayer, or at
times misunderstood? least principal elements of it, in Eckhart's theology and in Zen writ-
One can find two currents in Christian theology and in Christian ings. They helped Merton to understand his own experience; they
mysticism: the intellectualist and the volontarist, the mind and the gave him categories of understanding what he himself did every day
heart. In medieval theology, Thomas Aquinas (the primacy of the in union with God. To that extent, and in that sense, Eckhart and Zen
intellect over the will) and John Duns Scotus (the primacy of both, had a considerable influence on Merton's later theology of contem-
with no real distinction between will and intellect) represent these plative prayer.
two currents. In contemporary theology, Karl Rahner in his dogmatic
theology, Hans Kiing and Francis A. Sullivan are examples of theolo- Eckhart and Mysticism of the Mind
gians of the intellectualist current; Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de
Lubac and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin exemplify the volontarist cur- Meister Eckhart, like John of the Cross, uses Thomistic theological
rent. In spiritual theology, and especially in the theology of contem- and philosophical language not to analyze but to d escribe his experi-
plative prayer, Pseudo-Dionysius, Meister Eckhart (1260- 1327) and ence of God, and especially the experience of God in prayer. His
Merton represent the intellectualist tradition, the m ysticism of the model is one of intimate union in identity. I experience myself as one
mind. Most Carmelite writers on contemplation represent the volun- with God, as in intimate union with God to the point of experiencing
tarist tradition,2 the mysticism of the h eart, as well as many Jesuits that I am identical with God, really somehow one with God. 3

1. New York: Doubleday, 1969. 3. The soul's union with God without distinction (unio indistinctionis) is the
2. Jacques Maritain and others have taken John of the Cross to be a sort of soul's most profound reality. Note that the Dominican order in 1986 petitioned the
Thomist because he uses so many scholas tic and even Thomis tic words and Holy See to recognize Eckhart's writings as a good and authentic guid e for Chris-
phrases. These are the words and phrases he learned studying theology at the tians, and that several contemporary scholars find continuities in Eckhart with
University of Salamanca. However, John of the Cross uses the scholastic terminol- elements in the earlier tradition, especially with neo-Platonist Christian currents.
ogy quite creatively to describe contempla tive experience. He stands squarely in Note too that some accepted mystics have used expressions similar to those found
the tradition of the heart, the volontarist tradition, along with Teresa of Avila and in Eckhart's writings. For example, St Catherine of Genoa: 'My me is God, nor do I
Therese of Lisieux. recognize any other me except God himself ... My being is God, not by some
140 Robert Faricy M erton and Mysticism of the Mind 141

This intellectualist model differs considerably from the volontarist the basic virtue for Eckhart is d etachment, to be empty of all created
model of, say, Teresa of Avila who understands contemplative prayer things so that I can be full of God. Because if I am full of created
as 'being with the one whom I know loves me,' as intimate friendship things, then I am empty of God. I want to know God in an unknow-
with Jesus Christ. The Carmelite tradition views contemplative prayer ing and to love him in an unloving, in an indistinct union that
as conscious union with Jesus Christ in close friendship, in intimate becomes identification with and oneness with God. Yes, we are dis-
companionship. tinct. But my experience of our union is an experience of indistinction,
God, for Eckhart, is closer to me than I am to myself. God is pure of oneness, of union of identity.
being (esse); but beyond that and more exactly, God is pure under- To know God is to know that I am one with him and that we have
standing (intelligere). 'God exists because he understands', and not the the same being: his. This union is with the Father and with the Son in
other way around .4 Existence means created; existing things are the Spirit, and with the Divine Essence which is Understanding, and
creatures. So God is above and beyond existence. 'In God there is no has an existence beyond existence in which I share and in which I am
being or existence. 6 'God .. .is higher than being.' 6 I am in the image of in God .
God precisely because I can know. My intellect is the ground of my Eckhart describes the divine activity among the Three Persons as
freedom and the seat of grace in me. bullitio, a corning to a boil. He also speaks of ebullitio, a low level
My union with God, then, is primarily at the level of my under- boiling, a kind of simmering. Creation, always ongoing, is ebullitio, a
standing. I know him and so I love him. But God, of course, is beyond boiling up or simmering of God into those manifestations of him that
my understanding; my knowledge of him is necessarily a dark know- are creatures. I am a boiling up of God. The image is similar to
ledge. Contemplative experience, then, is the knowledge that God Thomas Aquinas: as fire sets on fire, God who is Existence gives me
and I are one; and I experience that oneness as oneness, as identity. my existence. But Thomas is speaking metaphysically, existentially.
Eckhart does not really confuse the existence of the creature with Eckhart is talking about experiencing God.
that of God. They are totally different. So much so that if I can be said Merton first mentions Eckhart in a notebook in 1938. In the book
to exist, then God is so far above existence that he does not exist. But Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander7 he seems to have newly discovered
if God exists, then I do not, then I am nothing. Eckhart: 'Stand still', Merton hears from Eckhart, 'do not waver from
But I experience my union with God as my identity with God. I am your emptiness ... Learn to be at home in this darkness'. By 1968 Mer-
lost in God; I am in a certain sense, not of course in a metaphysical ton was referring to Eckhart as 'my life-raft'. 8 And in Zen and the Birds
sense, God. of Appetite,9 Merton writes that in Meister Eckhart can be found a full
My experience of God, for Eckhart, has to be completely apophatic, and true expression of Zen in Christian experience.
because God is so totally other and so far above anything I can under-
stand. My knowledge of God is a no-knowledge, necessarily. And so
Zen Meditation as Mysticism of the Mind
Zen, like Eckhart and Merton, is intellectualist, a mysticism of the
mind. Zen writers like D.T. Suzuki, who had so much influence on
simple participation but by a true transformation of my being' (quoted in F. von Merton, understand Eckhart and find him appealing; they belong to
Hugel, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied i11 Saint Catherine of Genoa and her
the same intellectualist line of mysticism. 10 Merton points out the
Friends (2 vols.; New York: E.P. Dutton, 1908], l, p. 265).
See J. Wiseman, 'To Be God with God: The Autotheistic Sayings of the Mystics', affinity between Eckhart and Zen, 'Whatever Zen may be, however
Theological Studies 51 (1990), pp. 230-51. Wiseman states that the intensity of the you define it, it is somehow there in Eckhart' .11
union that these mystics experience with God can lead them to m ake such bold
claims, but that thei r orthodoxy finally mus t be evaluated by how they live, by 7. Gard en City, NY: Doubleday, 1966.
whether or not the union of identity that they describe leads them to a kind of 8. Patrick Reilly, 'Moses as an Exemplar: The Paradox of Thomas Merton',
solipsistic fixation on themselves or to reach outward in love to others. The Merton Seasonal 21.3 (Autumn 1996), pp. 12-18.
4. Parisian Q11estio11s and Prologues (ed . A. Mauer; Toronto: PIMS, 1974), p. 45. 9. New York: New Directions, 1968, p. 9.
5. Eckhart, Parisian Questions, p. 46. 10. See Zen a11d the Birds of Appetite, p. 110.
6. Eckhart, Parisian Questions, p. 50. 11 . Merton, Zen a11d the Birds of Appetite, p. 13.
142 Robert Faricy Merton and Mysticism of the Mind 143

Suzuki s hows the similarity or perhaps identity between the place, in the quiet meadow; hold on to nothing, let it go'. This is, cer-
emptiness that Eckhart speaks of and the emptiness of Zen. Detach- tainly, apophatic. The Zen contemplative enters, through the koan or
ment from all things. This emptiness is the nada (nothing) of John of through just sitting, into Ultimate Reality, True Mind, the Void, what
the Cross. In my contemplative prayer, I leave all that is not God to go we call God. And he does it non-conceptually. If there are any spiri-
to God; I leave behind my image of God, my interior pictures of God, tual fireworks, any manifestations of that Ulitmate Reality, the Zen
my feelings about God, everything, to go to God. But are not Zen contempla tive ignores them as completely as possible and leaves
Buddhists atheists, non-believers in God? My Zen master in South them aside.
Korea told me the first time I me t him that he d efinitely did not Merton found Zen familiar a nd helpful because he was already
believe in the existence in God. But, like all Zen Buddhists, he d oes in the intellectualist tradition and because his contemplation was
believe in the Buddha Nature, in True Mind. Since Nagarjuna (c. 200) strongly apophatic, dark, empty. Merton found himself in Zen, and it
and Vasubandhu (c. 500), Zen Buddhists have held that all phenom- strongly influenced Merton's theology of contemplation.
ena are void, with the exception of consciou sness only. 12 This con-
sciousness is the Buddha Nature, or True Mind, or True Conscious-
Thomas Merton and Mysticism of the Mind
ness, or True Understanding. What is the Buddha Nature, or True
Mind? True Mind is the ultimate reality. Does it exist? Yes, and Merton's theology of contemplative prayer is sometimes misunder-
because it is ultimate reality, nothing else can exist in the same way. stood because people interpret it as though it were in the 'heart' tradi-
Like Eckhart, Zen philosophy has no analogy of being. If ultimate tion instead of in the 'mind' tradition. Merton's own prayer, as well as
reality exists, then nothing else does. But if creatures exist, then ulti- his theology o f contemplative prayer especially in the last part of his
mate reality is nothing, beyond being, a Void. Finally, only the Void, life, was clearly in the intellectualist tradition, the tradition of mysti-
ultimate reality, True Mind, exists. 13 What we perceive, including cism of the mind. There is not much room for felt affectivity in Mer-
ourselves, are manifestations of True Mind (like the boiling up of ton's theology of contemplation. And it is quite apophatic, going
Eckhart's creation theology, or the fla ming up of the creation theology beyond all created reality, leaving it aside and behind, to enter the
of Thomas Aquinas). darkness where God is.
Is this True Mind what Christians call God? Yes. Do Zen practition- Furthermore, like Eckhart and like Zen, Merton's model of contem-
ers really contemplate God? Yes, they do, and Merton understood plative prayer is one of identity, of a union with God in an experience
this. of identity. This is what Merton means when he writes about ' the true
Zen contemplation is apophatic, d ark, empty, without concepts. self'. Contemplative prayer leads me to my true self. What is the true
When I did Zen at a hermitage attached to the main monastery of the self? It is me in union with Christ. The true self is the union itself. The
Korean Chogye order (the world's largest Zen order), my Zen mas ter two of us, Christ and me, as experienced by me in the darkness and in
gave me advice that could have come straight from John of the Cross, the dryness.
the Catholic master of apophatic contemplation. When I told him that Certainly Merton affirms the rea l distinction between the creature
Jesus had given me my koan and that it worked fine for me, the Zen and the Creator. We are not really God. But his experience of contem-
master told me that it was a very good koan. And when I told him plative prayer is one of a union of identity. In great darkness. And
that during my daily 11 hours of Zen Jesus was talking to me, telling without felt sentiments.
me things, the Zen mas ter showed no surprise at all. 'Fine', he said, My true self is not really just me. It is me in union of identity w ith
'but do not hold on to what you hear; let it go, let it go, stay in a blank God. And that union is what I experience in a kind of dark and dry
and empty and void exp erience in my contemplative prayer.
Merton seems to have had, probably unconsciously or at leas t with-
12. See J. Pereira and F. Tisot, The Evolution of Buddhist Systematics from the out really reflecting on it, the common practical epistemology of our
Buddha to Vasubandhu', Philosophy Ens/ and West 38.2 (April 1988), pp. 172-86. time and culture: Kantian. Emmanuel Kant, with his philosophy of
13. See John of the Cross (Ascent of Mount Cannel 1.13.1 1): 'God is all in himself,
but nothing to us; Light in himself but darkness to us; plenitude in himself but
knowing through categories of the mind a nd not possibly knowing
emptiness to us'. the thing-in-itself, has given to modern science, and to Western
144 Robert Faricy Merton and Mysticism of the Mind 145

culture in general, a way of thinking how we know.

For Merton, I cannot know God as he is in himself in this world. Contemplation and Experience 15
My knowledge of God is necessarily apophatic, totally negative. I can
It comes down to this: how do I experience God in my contemplative
know only w hat God is not, not w hat he is. He escapes my categories
prayer? What is my model of experience, my model of contemplative
of knowing, he s tands infinitely beyond their, my, grasp as far as
prayer? There are at least two general lines, two broad traditions, of
knowing goes.
this experience or of the interpretation of the experience of God in
I know God therefore in total darkness, in a deep night. This, for
contemplative prayer.
Merton, is normal contemplation. Contemplation is da rk, by nature
The main and most important tradition interprets contemplative
and by the nature of God and of how we know. The 'dark night' for
experience of God, union w ith God, knowing God, as a n inter-
Merton is not exactly a darkness. Darkness, for him, is normal. Con-
personal union of two personal beings, the contemplator and God, or,
templation is d ark contemplation. The dark night, on the other hand,
more usually, Christ. This is the common tradition, the great British
is desolation, an anguish in the face of God. The dark night is 'dread' .
tradition from The Cloud of Unknowing through Evelyn Underhill up
This, of course, is not the Carmelite tradition, not a t all the teaching
of John of the Cross. For the Carmelites, the d ark night is essentially a
darkness in calm, not desolation or dread or anguish. Desolation and wrote withou t a consistent prayer life, and he could not have written as he did
anguish can come during the dark night, but they are not really a part about contemplative prayer without practicing it.
of it as such. Did he pray, practice contemplative prayer, during his last years when he
Most Catholic theologians have trouble with Merton's idea of con- apparently did not obey all the monastery rules nor conscientiously live ou t all his
templa tive prayer because we have been trained in neo-Thomistic vows and promises? It certainly seems so.
Access to God, finding favor with the Lord, after all, depends not on our good-
epistemology, in a modern Catholic realism that, in fact, says that ness but on God's, not so much on avoiding falling into sin as in recognizing that
even though we cannot in this life know God as he is in himself, we we are sinners and coming in lowliness before the Lord. Many of Jesus' parables
can and do know being, beings, things. And not just the (Kantian) have just that point: the parable of the pharisee and the publican in the temple, of
ca tegories. When Merton writes about the object of contemplation as example. The publican, not the good man, not the model of prayer and good con-
' the true self', we pause and think: 'solipsism'. But the true self, for duct, finds favor with God. Jesus teaches the same thing by example in his public
Merton, is precisely the union between myself and God. It is us, God life: for instance, he is clearly m ore comfortable ea ting with the prostitutes and the
and me, as known by and in me. I do not really know God; what I do publica ns than he is at the house of Simon the Pharisee.
15. Merton's theology of contemplative prayer is spiritual theology. Almost
know in contemplative prayer is my union with him, m e in him and
always, spiritu al theology describes experience. For example, the experience of
him in me, or- in other words-my true self. contemplative prayer. It never or almost never finds its roots in metaphysics.
Does affectivity, love, have a place in Merton's theology of contem- Unlike dogmatic theology, which his to rica lly has been metaphysical, s piritual
plative prayer? Yes, love is central. Affectivity is central. But felt theology is experiential, no t just based on experience by describing experience.
affectivity, felt love, seems not to be present. The emotional affect tha t Merton's theology of contemplative prayer describes his own experience and tries
norma lly accompanies love seems to have little or no place in to generalize so that others can profit from it.
Merton's theology of prayer. Love, yes. Feelings of love, loving How did Merton pray? He w rites in a letter to a Sufi scholar, Aziz Ch. Abdul, 1
have a very simple way of prayer ... It is centered on faith by which alone we can
feelings, or even feelings of being loved by God, seem to be markedly
know the presence of God . . . It does not mean imagining anything or con ceiving
absent. a precise image of God, for to my mind this would be a kind of idolatry ... If I am
Surely this has much to do with the fact that Merton for most of his still present m yself, this I recognize as a kind of obstacle ... It is not "thinking
life considered himself incapable of love, thoug ht of himself as some- about" a nything, but a direct seeki ng the face of the Invisible. Which cannot be
one w ho did not know how to love. And it might help to explain his found unless we become lost in him w ho is invisible' (The Hidden Ground of Love:
comportment and lack of balance once h e fell in love a few years The Leffers of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience a11d Social Concerns [ed. William
before his d eath. 14 Shannon; New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985], pp. 63-64). However, Mer-
ton's own experience of contemplative prayer is not in all respects universal. Not
all will recognize themselves in Merton's description of contemplative exp erience,
14. Did Merton really pray? In my opinion, he could not have written what he and in his reflections on that experience. Many, of course, will.
146 Robert Faricy Merton and Mysticism of the Mind 147

to the present, the tradition of the Carmelites and the Jesuits, the tra- some non-Chris tian currents such as Zen.
dition in fact of the followers of Eckhart like John Ruusbroeck, John Most Catholic systematic theology since Aquinas has been squarely
Tauler and Henry Suso. Thomas Merton belongs to the second, not so intellectualist, holding the primacy of the intellect, and most Catholic
common, tradition. He has a general model along the lines of Meister spiritual theology has assumed a less intellectualist philosophical
Eckhart, a model that has much in common with Zen. Merton's is a anthropology. This helps to account for the split between systematic
mysticism of the mind, not of the heart. This does not mean that and spiritual theology. Merton's spiritual theology, including his the-
Christ is not the focus of contemplation for Merton, on the contrary. 16 ology of contemplative prayer, is sometimes underappreciated by
Merton could have spoken Paul's words, 1 live not I but Christ lives Catholic systematic theologians because it is spirituality, and by spiri-
in me' (Gal. 2.19-20). He nearly did in one of his last conferences tual theologians because it is in the intellectualist tradition.
before he died, a conference on prayer, 'My being is in Christ
ontologically'. 17 Christ is always present, and present in a hidden
way, in Merton's contemplation, and in his writings on contempla-
tion, as well as in much of his poetry.
Though I show my true self only in the dark and to no man
(For I appear by day as serpent)
I belong neither to night nor day.
Sun and city never see my deep white bell
Or know my timeless moment of void:
There is no reply in my munificence.
When I come I lift my sudden Eucharist
Out of the Earth's unfathomable body. 18

The white bell is Merton's secret and true self, the center of his being.
The poem containing the above verses, 'Night-Flowering Cactus',
describes the contemplative experience.
Merton's later theology of prayer, especially in Contemplative Prayer,
can be and sometimes is misunderstood because it is read as though it
were within the heart tradition, the volontarist current, of Christian
understanding of contemplative prayer. Merton's mysticism, how-
ever, is intellectualist, apophatic and represents an important current
not only in Christian contemplation but also in the contemplation of

16. See Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite, pp. 74-75.
17. Not just Merton's theology of contemplative prayer but his religious
thought in general, including his poetry, is Christocentric rather than theocentric.
See George Kilcourse, Ace of Freedoms: Thomas Merton's Christ (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1993); and by the same author, his response to
those who think that Merton's thought is theocentric rather than Christocentric, in
'Review Symposium: Author's Response', Horizons 21 (1994), pp. 342-47 (345-47).
18. 'Emblems of a Season of Fury', The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New
Directions: New York, 1977), pp. 351-52. In 'Cables to the Ace' (Collected Poems,
p. 453) Merton writes, 'I am about to make my home I In the bell's summit'. See
Robert E. Doud, 'Emptiness as Transparency in the Late Poetry of Thomas Mer-
ton', Horizons 21 (1994), pp. 253-69, especially pp. 261-63.