New Releases by Thomas Merton

A book which traces the development of the thoughts and writings of the 20th-century Cistercian monk, Thomas Merton, on the subject of contemplation.

A Timeless Meditation on Monastic Life from the Perspective of a Passionate Insider In The Silent Life, Thomas Merton offers a profound and beautiful reflection on the monastic life, drawn from his own experience as a Trappist monk. Written a decade after he took orders, Merton describes the book as "a meditation on the monastic life by one who, without any merit of his own, is privileged to know that life on the inside . . . who seeks only to speak as the mouthpiece of a tradition centuries old." Merton lucidly explores the nature and forms of monasticism, both communal and solitary, while passionately defending the contemplative's quest for God. With its intense beauty and radiating calm, The Silent Life stands as a classic in its field, offering a rare glimpse into a world often hidden from view. For all who seek a deeper understanding of the monastic path and the pursuit of the divine, Merton's words provide guidance, wisdom, and inspiration.

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is one of the foremost spiritual thinkers of the twentieth century. Though he lived a mostly solitary existence as a Trappist monk, he had a dynamic impact on world affairs through his writing. An outspoken proponent of the antiwar and civil rights movements, he was both hailed as a prophet and castigated for his social criticism. He was also unique among religious leaders in his embrace of Eastern mysticism, positing it as complementary to the Western sacred tradition. Merton is the author of over forty books of poetry, essays, and religious writing, including Mystics and Zen Masters, and The Seven Story Mountain, for which he is best known. His work continues to be widely read to this day.

From the Trappist monk and author of The Seven Storey Mountain, reflections on the way to moral and social change in a violent world. The writings in this work were precipitated by a variety of events during the last decades of Thomas Merton’s life—the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960s among them. His timeless moral integrity and tireless concern for nonviolent solutions to war are eloquently expressed. A revised edition of the previously published Thomas Merton on Peace, The Nonviolent Alternative addresses such topics as Christianity and defense in the nuclear age; the Danish nonviolent resistance to Hitler; civil disobedience; wartime atrocities; passivity and abuse of authority; and more. It is a meaningful and thought-provoking read for anyone concerned with maintaining faith and making ethical, effective decisions in a world filled with conflict and injustice. Praise for the first edition “These articles represent a radically spiritual breakthrough beyond the ‘self-enclosed . . . beautiful, narcissistic tautology of war’ to a certainty of a peace without limit and time.” —Kirkus Reviews

A 365 daily with inspirational and provocative selections from the journals of Thomas Merton combined with drawings and photographs by Merton. This volume of daily inspiration from Thomas Merton draws from Merton's journals and papers to present, each day, a seasonally appropriate and thought-provoking insight or observation. Each month will begin with one of Merton's delightful pen-and-ink drawings or one of his elegant black-and-white photographs.

An intensely personal devotional book from Thomas Merton, the ultimate spiritual writer of our time, showing his contemplative and religious side through his prayers and rarely-seen drawings. The only Merton gift book available. Dialogues with Silence contains a selection of prayers from throughout Merton's life--from his journals, letters, poetry, books--accompanied by all 100 of Merton's rarely seen, delightful Zen-like pen-and-ink drawings, and will attract new readers as well as Merton devotees. There is no other Merton devotional like this, and the paperback edition will be elegantly designed and packaged.

When Thomas Merton died accidentally in Bangkok in 1968, the beloved Trappist monk's will specified that his personal diaries not be published for 25 years -- presumably because they contained his uncensored thoughts and feelings. Now, a quarter of a century has passed since Merton's death, and the journals are the last major piece of writing to appear by the 20th century's most important spiritual writer. The first of seven volumes, Run to the Mountain offers an intimate glimpse at the inner life of a young, pre-monastic Merton. Here readers will witness the insatiably curious graduate student in New York's Greenwich Village give way to the tentative spiritual seeker and brilliant writer. Merton playfully lists everything from his favorite lines of poetry and songs to the things he most loves and hates. Thomas Merton was an inveterate diarist; his journals offer a complete and candid look at the rich transformations of his adult life. As Brother Patrick Hart, general editor of the series notes, "Perhaps his best writing can be found in the journals, where he was expressing what was deepest in his heart with no thought of censorship. With their publication we will have as complete a picture of Thomas Merton as we can hope to have."

In this diary-like memoir, composed of his most poignant and insightful journal entries, The Intimate Merton lays bare the steep ways of Thomas Merton's spiritual path. Culled from the seven volumes of his personal journals, this twenty nine year chronicle deepens and extends the story Thomas Merton recounted and made famous in The Seven Storey Mountain. This book is the spiritual autobiography of our century's most celebrated monk -- the wisdom gained from the personal experience of an enduring spiritual teacher. Here is Merton's account of his life's major challenges, his confrontations with monastic and church hierarchies, his interaction with religious traditions east and west, and his antiwar and civil-rights activities. In The Intimate Merton we engage a writer's art of "confession and witness" as he searches for a contemporary, authentic, and global spirituality. Recounting Merton's earliest days in the monastery to his journey east to meet the Dalai Lama, The Intimate Merton captures the essence of what makes Thomas Merton's life journey so perennially relevant.

The second volume of Thomas Merton's "gusty, passionate journals" (Thomas Moore) chronicles Merton's advancements to priesthood and emergence as a bestselling author with the surprise success of his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain. Spanning an eleven-year period, Entering the Silence reflects Merton's struggle to balance his vocation to solitude with the budding literary career that would soon established him as one of the most important spiritual writers of our century.

In these conferences dating to 1961, Thomas Merton provides for his audience of young monks an overview of major themes and figures in the Christian mystical tradition as an integral part of their religious inheritance and a crucial part of their spiritual formation. From Fathers of the Church such as St Athanasius and St Gregory of Nyssa, through such important medieval theologians as St Bonaventure, Hadewijch and Meister Eckhart, to the great Spanish Carmelites St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, Merton traces such key topics as the integration of theology and spirituality; the importance of "natural contemplation"--recognizing the divine presence in creation; the centrality of apophatic or "dark" contemplation; and the role of spiritual direction in forming mature and balanced contemplatives.

When Thomas Merton entered a Trappist monastery in December 1941, he turned his back on secular life—including a very promising literary career. He sent his journals, a novel-in-progess, and copies of all his poems to his mentor, Columbia professor Mark Van Doren, for safe keeping, fully expecting to write little, if anything, ever again. It was a relatively short-lived resolution, for Merton almost immediately found himself being assigned writing tasks by his Abbot—one of which was the autobiographical essay that blossomed into his international best-seller The Seven Storey Mountain. That book made him famous overnight, and for a time he struggled with the notion that the vocation of the monk and the vocation of the writer were incompatible. Monasticism called for complete surrender to the absolute, whereas writing demanded a tactical withdrawal from experience in order to record it. He eventually came to accept his dual vocation as two sides of the same spiritual coin and used it as a source of creative tension the rest of his life. Merton’s thoughts on writing have never been compiled into a single volume until now. Robert Inchausti has mined the vast Merton literature to discover what he had to say on a whole spectrum of literary topics, including writing as a spiritual calling, the role of the Christian writer in a secular society, the joys and mysteries of poetry, and evaluations of his own literary work. Also included are fascinating glimpses of his take on a range of other writers, including Henry David Thoreau, Flannery O’Connor, Dylan Thomas, Albert Camus, James Joyce, and even Henry Miller, along with many others.

This volume is a stimulating series of spiritual reflections which will prove helpful for all struggling to find the meaning of human existence and to live the richest, fullest and noblest life. --Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher: A new view of the innovative poetry by the late, great Trappist monk and religious philosopher.

Chuang Tzu--considered, along with Lao Tzu, one of the great figures of early Taoist thought--used parables and anecdotes, allegory and paradox, to illustrate that real happiness and freedom are found only in understanding the Tao or Way of nature, and dwelling in its unity. The respected Trappist monk Thomas Merton spent several years reading and reflecting upon four different translations of the Chinese classic that bears Chuang Tzu's name. The result is this collection of poetic renderings of the great sage's work that conveys its spirit in a way no other translation has and that was Merton's personal favorite among his more than fifty books. Both prose and verse are included here, as well as a short section from Merton discussing the most salient themes of Chuang Tzu's teachings.

Writing at the height of the Cold War, Merton issued this passionate challenge to the idea that unthinkable violence can be squared with the Gospel of Christ. Censors of Merton's order blocked publication of "Peace in the Post-Christian Era," but 40 years later, the message remains eerily topical.

First published in 2003 and now available in paperback to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Thomas Merton's birth, When the Trees Say Nothing has sold more than 60,000 copies and continually inspires readers with its unique collection of Merton's luminous writings on nature, arranged for reflection and meditation. Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk, author, poet, social commentator, and perhaps the most influential and widely published spiritual writer of the twentieth century. In When the Trees Say Nothing, editor Kathleen Deignan sheds new light on Merton by focusing on a neglected theme of his writing: the natural world as a manifestation of the divine. Drawing from Merton's voluminous writing on nature, Deignan has thematically assembled a collection of lucid, poetic reflections. Chapters on the four elements, the seasons, the Earth and its creatures, and the sun, moon, and stars provide brief passages from his diverse works that reveal the presence of God in creation.

This diary of a monastic life is “a continuation of The Seven Storey Mountain . . . Astonishing” (Commonweal). Chronicling six years of Thomas Merton’s life in a Trappist monastery, The Sign of Jonas takes us through his day-to-day experiences at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, where he lived in silence and prayer for much of his life. Concluding with the account of Merton’s ordination as a priest, this diary documents his growing acceptance of his vocation—and the greater meaning he found within his private world of contemplation. “This book is made unmistakably real and almost, at times, unbearably poignant by the fact that the exuberance of youth so often wells up through it with rapture, impatience, and even bluster.” —TheNew York Times “A stirring book—the most readable and on the whole, most illuminating of the author’s writings.” —Catholic World

The author of The Seven Storey Mountain explores the mysticism of Saint John of the Cross. The only thing that can save the world from complete moral collapse is a spiritual revolution. . . . The desire for unworldliness, detachment, and union with God is the most fundamental expression of this revolutionary spirit. In Ascent to Truth, author and Trappist Monk Thomas Merton makes an impassioned case for the importance of contemplation. Drawing on a range of thinkers—from Carl Jung to Pope Pius XII—Merton defines the nature of contemplative experience and shows how the Christian mysticism of sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite Saint John of the Cross offers essential answers to our disquieting and troubling times. “For any who have the desire to look into meditation and contemplation . . . this is the book for which they have waited.” —New York Herald Tribune Book Review “For those who may be curious about mysticism, and for those who may be called to a life of contemplation, this is an excellent book.” —Catholic World

Full of learning, human insight, and self-deprecating wit, these letters capture the excitement of the Catholic Church in the era of the Second Vatican Council - and the perennial appeal of the life of monastic solitude."--BOOK JACKET.

The Eastern religious traditions, especially the varieties of Buddhism, were the last great passion in Thomas Merton's life. His participation in a monastic conference in Asia led to his premature, accidental death. He discoursed on equal terms with the Dalai Lama, and extracts from their interviews appear in this book. The introduction brings together extracts from Merton's "Asian Journal" (Hinduism and varieties of Buddhism), and other short works on Eastern religions written in the last few years of his life. They all combine to demonstrate the breadth of vision that is such an integral part of Merton's lasting appeal, his quest for a deeper unity underlying apparent fragmentation. They might be regarded as steps toward the great book on monasticism that Merton might have written but never did. As they stand, they provide Merton's essential definitions of the religions that so interested him in the last years of his life, and of which he became a skilful Western interpreter.

"Last night I had a curious dream about Kanchenjunga. I was looking at the mountain and it was pure white, absolutely pure, especially the peaks that lie to the west. And I saw the pure beauty of their shape and outline, all in white. And I heard a voice saying-or got the clear idea of: 'There is another side to the mountain.'. . . This morning my quarrel with the mountain is ended . . . why get mad at a mountain? It is beautiful, chastely white in the morning sun-and right in view of the bungalow window."There is another side of Kanchenjunga and of every mountain-the side that has never been photographed and turned into postcards. That is the only side worth seeing" (November 19, 1968). The seventh and final volume of Thomas Merton's journals finds him exploring new territory, both spiritual and geographic, in the last great journey prior to his untimely death. Traveling in the United States and the Far East, Merton enjoys a new freedom that brings with it a rich mix of solitude, spirited friendship, and interaction with monks of other traditions. In his last days in the United States, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events closing the 1960s, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile, with the blessing of his new abbot, Merton travels to monasteries in New Mexico and among the redwoods of Northern California, keeping his journal all the while. In these travels, as well as on a later trip to Alaska, he gains a better understanding of his eremitical yearnings and begins to see a way to reconcile his conflicting desires for solitude and fellowship. When Merton wins approval to participate in a meeting of monastic superiors of the Far East in Bangkok, Thailand, his life enters its most thrilling period. Arriving in Calcutta, Merton is heartbroken by the poverty of the many beggars; in New Delhi and Dharamsala, he makes contact with local Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama. Recognizing each other as kindred spirits, Merton and the Dalai Lama speak from the heart like old friends. In Bangkok at the beginning of December 1968, awaiting the beginning of the conference, Merton pens a letter home: "I think of you all on this Feast Day and with Christmas approaching I feel homesick for Gethsemani." Tragically, Christmas Day finds Merton back home after all. Electrocuted accidentally in his Bangkok room, Merton is returned to his beloved abbey to be laid to rest in a grave overlooking the woods so familiar to him from his twenty-seven years of monastic life at Gethsemani. Thirty years after his death, the contributions of Thomas Merton remain as vital as ever. Completing the published Journals of Thomas Merton, The Other Side of the Mountain conveys the intense spiritual exploration and powerful lessons that filled his short life.

The sixties were a time of restlessness, inner turmoil, and exuberance for Merton, during which he closely followed the careening development of political and social activism - Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Selma, the Catholic Worker Movement, the Vietnam War, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In this volume Merton challenges the powers that be in Gethsemani and Washington, while exploring every spiritual, literary, and personal link to a more meaningful, active life. Dancing in the Water of Life chronicles the approach of Merton's fiftieth birthday and marks his move to Mount Olivet. At fifty Merton finds himself striving, as never before, for inner peace. Relieved of his duties as novice master, Merton now spends more and more time at his hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani. He writes of the surrounding forested hills and valleys, finally able to fully embrace the joys and challenges of solitary life.

Cloistered in a remote Kentucky monastery, Thomas Merton struggled as a young man to reconcile his preferred contemplative life and his public passion for writing. Here is the remarkable development of Thomas Merton monk, poet, and social critic as documented in nearly 30 years' of correspondence with his mentor and publisher, James Laughlin.

These letters deal with periods of serious crisis in Merton's life and vocation, about which many rumors and half-truths were circulated during his lifetime. They give readers, for the first time in his own words, the true details and the behind-the-scenes facts. Things came to a head in 1959 when Merton petitioned the Vatican, asking for an indult of exclaustration, or release, not from the Trappist Order, but for "a more solitary primitive existence in a monastic life" outside the United States. Abbot James Fox made a trip to Rome and the indult was not granted. Later Merton, who despised Communism and advocated Gandhian non-violence, was forbidden to publish anything against war and nuclear aggression - as if it was inappropriate for a monk to oppose war.

From 1948 (when he first wrote to Evelyn Waugh, who was editing The Seven Storey Mountain for publication in England) until his death in 1968, Thomas Merton corresponded with writers around the world, developing an ever-widening circle of friends in Europe, the Soviet Union, South and North America. Merton wrote, and heard from, many prominent writers of the stature of Waugh, Jacques Maritain, Czeslaw Milosz, Boris Pasternak, James Baldwin, Walker Percy, Henry Miller, and Victoria Ocampo. He also corresponded with and encouraged newer writers in Latin America, like Ernesto Cardenal. Merton sensed in these writers a hope for the future of humanity and believed that the courage for truth was their special gift. Writing to Jose Coronel Urtecho, Merton asserted that poets "remain almost the only ones who have anything to say . . . They have the courage to disbelieve what is shouted with the greatest amount of noise from every loudspeaker". Courage rooted in true freedom is evident in Merton's own life. He shared with his literary friends his concerns about war, violence and repression, racism and injustice, and all forms of human aggression. Forbidden to publish on the subject of war by his superiors, he obeyed but continued to circulate his famous "Cold War Letters". He did not hesitate to criticize his church when he saw there was more concern for the institutional structure than there was for people. Merton especially admired those who had the courage to write under oppression, like Pasternak, Milosz, and Cardenal.

Opening with Merton's twenty-nine-year correspondence with the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren, this book continues with his letters to relatives and friends on a rich variety of topics. Selected, edited, and with an Introduction by Robert E. Daggy; Preface by William H. Shannon; Index.

Includes excerpts from "Seven storey mountain", "Conjectures of a guilty bystander" and many other works including a chronology of Merton's life.