On the 17th of March Philip Harvey conducted a Spiritual Reading Group on Thomas Merton. Pursuing a biographical line, poems were read and discussed that identified nine different aspects of Merton’s life, self, and work. Each aspect was illustrated by one of his photographs. Here is the text, with comments from the group about the poetry.
The opening up of other
religions to the West in the 20th century is one of the most
profound cultural shifts that we inherit in the 21st century. The
conversation between East and West became one of Merton’s most absorbing
interests and pursuits. He dialogued with Daisetsu Suzuki and the Dalai Lama.
He went into in-depth study of Buddhism and many other religious traditions,
including the great Chinese tradition of Taoism.
It is while working on Tao
that he produced a book of translations of the fourth century BC philosopher
Chuang Tzu (Zhuang Zhu). Merton calls them not translations but ‘imitations’ or
‘readings’, based on his study of four versions of the poetry, two in English,
one in French and one in German.
This poem searches for
origins and arrives at first principles. To begin at the end of the poem, once
we ask who is the True Governor of all the foregoing reality, we are in the
place where the poet finds himself after all his deliberations. Wisely he
admits that this cannot be named, but is nevertheless certainly there,
ultimately, behind all the forms. He starts out with what a person may know; he
ends after all the complexity with the temporary conclusion, we can only try to
understand. He is sceptical of the claims of the social world, saying that
people’s “pronouncements are as final as treaties between emperors”, i.e. about
as final as the next disagreement. But he steps away from simple irony,
expressing his observations of human behaviour and thought in candid, direct
sentences. For all our talk, here we are again, same old same old. Opposites
exist together, but why and how? Emotions and desires, “all are sounds from the
same flute.” We get the sense that the poet has been here before, where “talk
flows out like piss, never to be recovered.” If he is going to talk, it must be
in words that are true, or at least the closest approximation to truth
available, given they are only words. The poet lays it all out for our quiet reflection.
Any line could be the place where we find ourselves now. That is the best place
to start reading.
Great Knowledge
An ‘imitation’ of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton
Great Knowledge sees all in one.
Small knowledge breaks down into the many.
When the body sleeps, the soul is enfolded in One.
When the body wakes, the openings begin to function.
They resound with every encounter
With all the varied business of life, the strivings of the heart;
Men are blocked, perplexed, lost in doubt.
Little fears eat away their peace of heart.
Great fears swallow them whole.
Arrows shot at a target: hit and miss, right and wrong.
That is what men call judgment, decision.
Their pronouncements are as final
As treaties between emperors.
O, they make their point!
Yet their arguments fall faster and feebler
Than dead leaves in autumn and winter.
Their talk flows out like piss,
Never to be recovered.
They stand at last, blocked, bound, and gagged,
Choked up like old drain pipes.
The mind fails. It shall not see light again.
Pleasure and rage
Sadness and joy
Hopes and regrets
Change and stability
Weakness and decision
Impatience and sloth:
All are sounds from the same flute,
All mushrooms from the same wet mould.
Day and night follow one another and come upon us
Without our seeing how they sprout!
Enough! Enough!
Early and late we meet the “that”
From which “these” all grow!
If there were no “that”
There would be no “this”.
If there were no “this”
There would be nothing for all these winds to play on.
So far can we go.
But how shall we understand
What brings it about?
One may well suppose the True Governor
To be behind it all. That such a Power works
I can believe. I cannot see his form.
He acts, but has no form.
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