Thomas Merton: Taoist and Poet
Workshop W8
Spiritual Director International 2015
Emerging Wisdom Conference
Louisville, KY, USA, 15 April 2015
Patricia Roberts, MA, MRE
SUPPORT MATERIALS
Copyright Patricia Roberts, 2015
1.
The Person who knows, does not speak.
The person who speaks, does not know.
Taoist saying
2.
A messenger from the Horizon
……
Rain is his own
Most private weather.
Amazing is his star.
…..
A mute comet, an empty sun
Adam is his name
…..
Born of one word, one bare
Inquisitive diamond.
…….
A friend of hurricanes
Lightning in his bones!
……
He flies the other way
Wrapping his honesty in rain.
3.
Way of Chuang Tzu
This work gave Merton peace.
He wrote that his inner climate harmonized with the Chinese sage.
………
One lovely dawn after another
Such peace
Meditation with fireflies
Mist in the valley
Last quarter of the moon,
Distant owls
Gradual inner awakening
Centering harmony
Love and gratitude.
……….
4
In the midst of being criticized he wrote this poem:
One has to be in the same place everyday
Watch the dawn from the same house
Hear the same birds wake each morning
To realize how inexhaustibly rich and different is sameness.
5
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Number 1
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desire-less, one can see the mystery.
6
T.S.Eliot
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
7
T.S.Eliot
At the still point of the turning world,
there the dance is and only the dance.
8
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu,
Number 78
Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attracting the solid and strong, nothing is better.
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet, no one puts it into practice.
…. The truth often sounds paradoxical.
9
Merton, social activist poem using Lectio Divina
All the Way Down
(Jonas ch.2)
I went down
Into the cave
All the way down
To the bottom of the sea.
I went down lower
Than Jonas and the whale
No one ever got so far down
As me.
I went down lower
Than a diamond mine
Deeper than the lowest hole
In Kimberly
All the way down
I thought I was the devil
He was no deeper down
Than me.
And when they thought
That I was gone for ever
That I was all the way
In hell
I got right back into my body
And came back out
And rang the bell.
No matter how
They try to harm me now
No matter where
They lay me in the grave
No matter what injustices they do.
I’ve seen the root
Of all that believe.
I’ve seen the room
Where life and death are made
And I have known
The secret forge of war
I even saw the womb
That all things come from
For I got down so far!
But when they thought
That I was gone for ever
That I was all the way
In hell
I got right back into my body
And came back out
And rang my bell.
10
The Breath of Nature
(Merton recreating Chuang Tzu)
When the great nature sighs, we hear the winds
Which, noiseless in themselves
Awaken voices from other beings,
Blowing on them.
Loud voices sound. Have you not heard
this rush of tones?
There stands the overhanging wood
On the steep mountain:
Old trees with holes and cracks
Like snouts, maws, and ears,
Like goblets,
Grooves in the wood, hollows full of water:
You hear mooing and roaring, whistling,
Shouts of command, grumblings,
Deep drones, sad flutes.
One call awakens another in dialogue.
blast on without restrain.
Then the wind dies down. The openings
Empty of Gentle winds sing timidly,
Strong ones their last sound.
Have you not observed how all then tremble and subside?
11
My poem recreating Merton/Chuang Tzu
When nature sighs
I hear the wind
Silent in itself
awaken voices
as it blows
through trees and bridges:
Gentle, intense,
hurrying.
An old molle tree:
Hollowed,
full of scars
sings, whistles,
complains.
One voice
awakens another
in choral symphony.
When the wind dies
the passages
empty of sound
shiver
and fall asleep
in the waiting.
12
Group practice
All the Way Down
I went down
Into the cave
All the way down
To the bottom of the sea.
I went down lower
Than Jonas and the whale
No one ever got so far down
As me.
13.
Now write your version following this model . . .
I went down
Into ________
All the way down
To the bottom ________.
I went down lower
Than ________________
No one ever got so far down
As me.
Or write your own original version
______________________________
______________________________
______________________________
______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
________________________________
14
Here is Merton’s third stanza of the same poem
And when they thought
That I was gone for ever
That I was all the way
In hell
I got right back into my body
And came back out
And rang the bell.
15
Now your version following this model . . .
And when they thought ( I thought)
That I was gone for ever
That I was ________
I got right back into ________
And came back out to __________
And rang the bell.
Or your own original version
______________________________
______________________________
______________________________
______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
________________________________
16
The Evening of the Visitation
Go, roads, to the four quarters of our quiet distance,
While you, full moon, wise queen,
Begin your evening journey to the hill of heaven,
And travel no less stately in the summer sky
Than Mary, going to the house of Zachary.
The woods are silent with the sleep of doves,
The valley with the sleep of streams,
And all our barns are happy with peace of cattle gone to rest.
Still wakeful, in the fields, the stocks of wheat
Preach and say prayers:
you heavens, make all your evensong as sweet as ours,
Whose summer world, all ready for the granary and barn,
Seems to have seen, this day
Into the secret of the Lord’s Nativity.
Now at the fall of night, you stocks
Still bend your heads like kind and humble kings
The way you did this golden morning when you saw God’s Mother passing.
While all our windows fill and sweeten
With the mild vespers of the hay and barley.
You moon and rising stars, pour on our barns and houses
Your gentle benedictions
Remind us how our Mother, with far subtle and more holy influence
Blesses our roofs and eaves,
Our shutters, lattices and sills
Our doors, and floors, and stairs and rooms, and bedrooms
Smiling by night upon her sleeping children:
O gentle Mary! Our lovely Mother in heaven
17
Final experience
Let’s stand up and end with a mudra
(a prayer with our hands from the Hindu Tradition)
May my mind be still
My heart open
And my vision clear,
That I may go into the world
To serve in Love.
Tai Ji greeting and bow.
I honor the Divinity in you,
you honor the Divinity in me
and when we are in that place
we are one.
***