Thomas Merton Revisited

I have just finished reading a book on one of my many mentors, Thomas Merton aka Father Louie, "The Monk's Record Player", sub-titled "Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966." 

Thomas Merton outside his hermitage

Bob Dylan and The Band outside Big Pink

Having finished it I endeavoured to write a blog. Alas, as I stumbled through, the words never flowed and I had no idea of just what I wanted it to be about. I left it as a draft and then went back to the book to write a review for Amazon. This time the words just flowed more freely although I still remained blind to any particular direction. 

Anyway, for better or worse, I will start here with my review of the book then follow it with the blog. Maybe after that I will read it all through and add a few words in an attempt at clarification. 

For those who only know of Thomas Merton from random quotes on the so called "spiritual life", this book could come as something of a revelation. Hey, the "spiritual life" can be fun! Ethereal quotes can create in our minds a cloistered Merton, perhaps a Merton floating a few good inches off the ground as he drifts rather piously down silent monastery corridors. Here we have him in dalliance with a young nurse, a visitor of Jazz Clubs, even getting slightly pie-eyed on Jack Daniels before heading off late at night with Joan Baez to meet up with his loved one. They eventually abandoned the escapade half way there but it gives an element of Keystone Cops to Merton's monastic life.

Strange as it might sound, the whole story here is told without sensationalism, and with Bob Dylan thrown in for good measure, it makes for very entertaining reading.

Robert Hudson knows Merton well from his Journals and uses some of the entries here to set the scene and does so in a way that manages, in spite of all else, to give great depth to the story - even spiritual depth. And why not? All of us are contradictory and multi-layered, even if "all is transparent" or, as the zen master Dogen said:- "In all of the universe there is nothing that is hidden."

Dylan and Merton never actually met in person, but did meet in words and music. Merton would have loved some of his own poetic words set to music by Dylan, thinking that then they would actually have been sung with a modern prophetic spirit and not just forgotten and lost in the context of a hymn that "nobody would ever sing". Sad in very many ways.

As Bob Dylan wrote much later in "Every Grain of Sand":- "Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear". But who truly can distinguish the weeds from the flowers, or the indulgence from the true flowering of the spirit? As Thomas Merton once said, in one of his ethereal quotes, met with in pious books of "spiritual" homilies:- "Our real journey in life is interior: it is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts." Yes, it is, and often it can all happen beyond our calculations.

Well, so much for the review. Now for the blog (with apologies for the various repetitions):-

Just recently I was browsing the E-books on my Kindle and one rather strange title caught my attention, "The Monk's Record Player", sub-titled "Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966." Well, I always knew Merton was a little bit wayward, and the summer of 1966 was the time of his dalliance with a young nurse, Margie Smith. That Bob Dylan was thrown into the mix was that little extra spice that teased me into downloading the book.

 It was an entertaining read, the story told without sensationalism, though who needs that angle when the story tells of a monk, living as a hermit, spending some of his time in jazz clubs and meeting with the likes of Joan Baez and Thich Nhat Hanh? This is not to mention the full bottle of whisky downed one evening which led to an escapade with the said Joan Baez, who initially sought to reunite Merton with his young nurse (who in fact had a fiancée anyway) Halfway to that particular rendezvous Merton - and eventually Baez - had second thoughts and after a short stop returned to the monastery where Merton resumed his hermits life; if "resumed" is the correct word.

Merton attempting to look "monastic" but the bongo drums give the game away

Bob Dylan's part in all this was more mundane, but this too had its moments. A motorcycle crash, which some doubt actually happened at all, then the various recording sessions in the house known as "Big Pink", with the group of musicians who became known as The Band. 

Bob on bike - before, after or "during" the crash?

Well, the book related the "meeting of minds" of Dylan and Merton, although they never met in the flesh. Merton saw Dylan as a prophetic figure and liked to listen to a few of his albums, particularly "Highway 61 Revisited". Just in case any random reader doubts what is here being said - maybe having some idea of Thomas Merton as some sort of ethereal spiritual figure who perhaps floated a few inches above the ground - here is a short extract, where he is explaining the absurdities and contradictions of being "a priest who has a woman."

Various monks

He writes:- "All the things a hermit should not do I have done. Should a hermit like Bob Dylan? He means at least as much to me as some of the new liturgy, perhaps in some ways more. I want to know the guy. I want him to come here...…" (From Merton's Journals) 

Merton then ponders the thought of Dylan setting some of his poems to music. Alas, this was not to be. But myself, I wonder just how it might have sounded, with words such as this, from a poem entitled "Wisdom", with harmonica, and Dylan's nasal twang:-

I studied it and it taught me nothing 

I learned it and soon forgot everything else

Having forgotten, I was burdened with knowledge - 

The insupportable knowledge of nothing.

How sweet my life would be , if I were wise! 

Wisdom is well known 

When it is no longer seen or thought of 

Only then is understanding bearable.

These words make me think of a small section called "Means and Ends" from Merton's translation of Chuang Tzu:- 

"The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish is caught, the trap is forgotten...….the purpose of words is to convey ideas, when the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to"

But moving on, Merton mused on another idea, that a song by Dylan's of his (Merton's) own words would perhaps not suffer the fate that they certainly would if becoming only a hymn that "nobody is ever going to sing". But as said, it was not to be. 

Later, Dylan would write "Every Grain of Sand" and speak of "the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear". By this time, Merton was long gone; yet, as another has suggested, as well as those with whom "we move through time together", others "beckon from eternity". 

Well, this is where my attempted blog ended. I had no idea exactly what is was about. All that really comes to mind is the purity of "all things being transparent", of nothing being hidden. 

I think our modern age seems so intent on filling a presumed "self" with so much baggage. Ids, egos, superegos, universal unconciousnesses, true selves and false selves and whatever else. Processes of the mind can be identified but it becomes very easy for this to slip into a reification of such concepts. And they all jostle about inside, jockeying for position. 

Related Quotes:-

 "Zen enriches no one. There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while in the place where it is thought to be. But they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the 'nothing,' the 'no-body' that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey."

(Thomas Merton, from "Zen and the Birds of Appetite")

 

Eurocentrism

I was considering calling this particular blog something like "Neddy Seagoon and all points south" but decided against it. The intended subject demanded a degree of gravitas that such a title would probably deny it from the word go. So "eurocentrism" it is.

But getting back to Neddy Seagoon, one radio broadcast I recall of the Goons was when Neddy was discovered in the coal cellar. He was asked ( I forget by who ) why he was in the cellar, to which he replied:- "Well, everybody gotta be somewhere." Which is profound as well as funny ( funny, especially when spoken with the Harry Seacombe voice ) Indeed, we all do have to be somewhere - even if we are "one with the all"

Neddy Seagoon

At this point in my ramblings I think it appropriate to squeeze in another quote from Alan Watts, the subject of my last blog, a few words that he evidently considered important, as he found them worth repeating at various times. The quote is:- "Differentiation does not mean separation." If any random reader of this blog considers such worthy of consideration then so be it. It does indeed fit in but please feel free to ignore it. 

Differentiation does not mean separation - perhaps I could have found a better image?

Where was I? Yes, we all have to be somewhere. Which brings me to my subject, Eurocentrism, that pernicious and ubiquitous mindset that pervades virtually all of our history books written in the past. Recently, on a Comments Section of a UK tabloid newspaper I was introduced to a more limited version of the very same thing i.e. Englandcentricism. 

As an example, applying this mindset to World War 2, it goes like this. That war began with the German invasion of Poland when England (sic) reluctantly declared war on Germany. This was followed by Dunkirk (and the "little ships") the Battle of Britain, the Blitz, and finally the D Day Landings in Normandy and the liberation of Europe.

Alone we did it

If anyone thinks I am kidding, I invite you to visit such Comments Sections and open your minds to such insular distortion of the past. Alas, as I found to my cost, to point out the contribution of other nations, of the sacrifices of other people, to speak of other theatres of war - the Eastern Front or the Pacific - was only to bring down condemnation upon me for "belittling" and "scorning" the sacrifices of my own people. Obviously, such comments sections are not really the place for an in depth discussion of "either/or" versus "both/and" so I tended to take the flak and retire to lick my wounds.

Anyway, I am drifting from my subject. One step further back from that last example of a "centrism" is of course Me-centrism. 

Having said this it must be insisted that the wisdom of Neddy Seagoon must not be resisted nor ridiculed......"Everybody got to be somewhere" or somebody. 

(You have made me a kind of center, but a center that is nowhere. And yet also I am "here." - Thomas Merton)

The eurocentric version of history is mainly plain sailing. Forget "out of Africa", just mention a few facts about Mesopotamia, the diffusion of civilisation to the Aegean and thus the ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire and its fall, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the rise of science, and how "we" spread our superiority to the rest of the backward world. A world slumbering in ignorance until "we" came along with our "saviours" and our technologies. So the story goes. Fortunately the story is unravelling. Facts will have their day it seems.

 

In my own wayward mind, of relating each thing with all others, I see a link between the unravelling of such histories and the unravelling of "self". The constraints, the parameters, our very own stories that make us what we are. Unique individuals. Unravelling or not.

We have to be somewhere, but I think we have to sit lightly, laugh at ourselves, know that others also are unique worlds in themselves, each somewhere, simply because they have to be. Then we can be open to others, to other selves, to alternative histories.

Even perhaps acknowledging the 145 Polish fighter pilots who fought in the Battle Of Britain, and honouring the 29 who gave their lives. 

302 Polish Fighter Squadron RAF

Soft and frothy

Soft and frothy could well be the opinion of the doctrinaire of many Religions when hearing of the "watercourse way", otherwise known as the way of the Tao. 

Soft and frothy

"Letting things be" is not much to the liking of those who enjoy a few choruses of "Onward Christian Soldiers" ("marching as to war" etc) In many ways, this is all interconnected. 

Who needs to march when you have a horse?

There is the way of self-improvement though if we know the way of the Tao, then such a way begins to look very much like a dangerous form of vanity, even the way of the Pharisee - that man who is "not like other men".

Yet the one problem is the simple paradox, that though there is indeed nothing we can do - or even need to do - to be "enlightened" (or whatever), we cannot simply do nothing.

This is called a "mentoring paradox"

 "Life and love generate effort but effort will not generate life and love." 

Which is a little quote from one of the books of Alan Watts, who himself has been described as "light and frothy", even "new age", by the more ardent variety of theologian. Alan Watts has been accused of making light of human suffering. Yet, as I see it now, he simply seeks to understand our suffering, in all its various guises. 

At the heart of his "understanding" is not to fall into the habit of the dualist, i.e. that the solution to the dualist dilemma is to chop off one of its horns. Which can lead to the fantasy of the "world to come" as an "answer" to suffering, a time in the future when suffering will be "no more" and "right" will have no "wrong" - or left!

 All such a fantasy does, in looking towards it, is to postpone seriously asking the question:- "What must I do to be saved?"

Never Never Land?

Well, the answer is "nothing", so we are back where we started. Long ago I dabbled in calligraphy and for practice I often wrote out, in various scripts, a little poem found in one of the books of Alan Watts; in fact I think the book was one of his autobiographical efforts ( if "effort" is the right word!) Well, whatever, here is the poem:-

I asked the boy beneath the pines, 

He said, "the masters gone alone,

Herb-picking on the mount, 

Cloud hidden, whereabouts unknown."

Whereabouts unknown

Even way back then, I was quite taken with this. Very much the opposite of Christian soldiers marching "as to war". Then again, I don't think the calligraphy actually did my eyes any good, as I believe it could have been the zeroing in and concentration upon just one spot on the paper that caused a detached retina. Maybe not, but I've had an antipathy towards herb picking ever since. 

Well, I'm waffling as usual, and I'm not really sure exactly what this particular blog is about. I was going to title it just "Alan Watts" but when it came to it that just did not seem catchy enough - so it became "light and frothy", which sums it up in a way.

Alan Watts

 

Related Quotes:-

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shi, or "no fuss."

(Both quotes from the books of Alan Watts, and I must say that the first is far from being "light and frothy". Reflecting upon it, the implications are profound and life giving, at least for me)

Here is another:- 

If a flower had a God it would not be a transcendental flower but a field.

Empathy

I was recently reading the new book by Lawrence Rees on the history of the Holocaust. I had told myself that I would never read another - just how many do you need to read to know just how deep the abyss of human suffering is? Yet the book spoke of tracing the seeds of the Holocaust right back to the very early days of the Nazi's, back to the Munich beer halls and the days when Hitler first discovered his "gift" for oratory. Also that it contained much first hand testimony of some who actually survived.

 I would say the "seeds" go back much much further than that, but I suppose you have to start somewhere. Well, I have read others, histories and personal testimonies. The biography of Elie Weisel, "All Rivers Run to the Sea" was one. Elie Weisel was quite young, a child, when he arrived at Auschwitz.  He had spoken of his younger sister and of his love for her, of her love of the meadows and flowers. 

Elie Weisel

On arrival at Auschwitz, he and his family held each others hands and they walked forward together, "feeling strong", as if nothing whatsoever in the entire world could separate them. Then a quick barking command from a guard sent his mother and sister one way, and his father and himself another. How easy it all was. Parted forever. 

The entrance to Auschwitz

There were illustrations in Lawrence Ree's book and one, of a group of Jewish people being herded out of their homes in the Warsaw ghetto by soldiers pointing guns, caught my mind. One very young lad, his hands held up, with eyes that can only be described as bewildered. Shocking beyond any comprehension. He looked about the age of my grandson. What can anyone say or think or do? 

Any answers of the intellect act only as an anaesthetic. Hatred of the perpetrators is surely pointless (looking at photos of those such as Himmler, Goebbels and Hitler himself, I feel virtually nothing)

Belief, for me, is futile. Saying which, it must be seen that belief is not faith. Belief is of the intellect while faith is the total mind/heart. Belief is a clinging to self, even an attempt at self-justification. Faith is a letting go, allowing Reality itself to "justify" us. All, at least, as I see it.

 "In fact", as Suzuki says, "all intellectual efforts we make to solve the problem of reality are really directed towards the restoration of faith from which the problem started."

 So the answer is in each moment. We need to see other eyes; know them as others yet also as ourselves. 

"A condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything" (T. S. Eliot)

Related Quotes:- 

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. 

We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.

For me, every hour is grace.

(All Elie Weisel)

Love God and do what you will

Stumbling along in my usual fashion I've lost track of exactly why I ever concerned myself with the theist/non-theist conundrum. "The contact of two liberties" which Thomas Merton once said was the necessary prerequisite of a true mysticism - well, I could have done with Merton himself living a few years longer and helping me out, but it's over now. A "true" mysticism? 

What IS mysticism?

Is there anybody there?

As Suzuki has always insisted, zen is NOT mysticism. No it is not. Which is a bit of a relief, not really being the mystical type myself.

More and more I know/see/realise that we have to return to the very beginning - not a beginning in time, just the "beginning". All is empty, all is nothingness, yet complete in itself - or herself, or himself. Resting in the complete peace, freedom, grace of the time before time; or better, timelessness. Having found rest, having known the ultimate gift, to then enter the world of differentiation, the world of the intellect, all unified by love. And "what we have to be is what we are", as Thomas Merton said. 

The unity of love

Which is the rambling, perhaps nonsensical prelude to a recent observation. That many in our current world are truly awash in samsara, floundering about, never having known that moment of rest, the return to the Source, which Merton called the Palace of Nowhere, "where all the many things are one."

Nowadays, many appear to go shopping for a "reality" with which to clothe themselves; and having found it, search out the facts that suit their garment, rejecting the rest. (Which can seem much like the "enlightened" perspective, though such seems more "the appropriate statement", made just once in each moment) Yet without ever having known the heart that makes all things cohere, we are lost rather than found. 

Shopping for reality

Getting back to current affairs, this observation comes from watching the Donald Trump phenomena, that man who claims to "tell it like it is"; and again from witnessing his supporters whose own chosen "reality", the one they will to be, is confirmed by Trump. No matter the lies, the "telling it as he sees it", that continue to stream from his mouth. 

The Donald

I have been dipping into a few reports of the Republican Nomination Campaign trail and the subsequent race for the White House (or was I reading about the Keystone Cops?) Whatever, the reports were from the pen of Matt Taibbi, who is a contributing editor for "Rolling Stone" and winner of the 2008 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary.

Matt Taibbi

 

Taibbi had spoken a few years before, in "The Great Derangement", about a trend in American politics, that:-

 1:- The country's leaders are corrupt and have become unresponsive to the needs of the population.

 2:- People all over are beginning to notice. 

 3:- As ordinary people tune out their corrupt leaders, they will replace official propaganda with conspiratorial explanations even more ridiculous than the original lies.

 For me, this entire scenario, the tragic reality of it, has been highlighted by just having read the biography of Harry Truman. A man of genuine integrity, moving in a world where the realities of that world were actually reflected in the policies and commitments of the candidates for office. 

Harry Truman ( WW1 Photo)

How far from that have we come in our "information age", when the whole parade of the Presidential wannabees becomes a ludicrous circus, reduced to even a parody of "The Appentice." With the added tragedy that while virtually all laughed at the contestants of "The Apprentice", a very large core of those watching the Presidential race actually saw Donald Trump as a man who could "make America great again". He confirmed their fondest wishes of what Reality must be.

Liz joins in the fun

Well, Taibbi tells of two "yahoos" who beat up a Hispanic homeless guy. When arrested, one said that "Donald Trump was right, all of these illegals need to be deported."

Trump, when told of this, said:- "That would be a shame." 

But right after, he went on:- "I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that." 

There it is. What can you say? As Taibbi himself comments, "when the Donald said that he ceased to be funny."

Lest this all seem a disparaging summing up of the "Leader of the Free World" and an assault upon our American friends only, I will just finish with the latest summary on the UK's move towards Brexit, straight from the mouth of our very own PM Theresa May. Today, 5th Sept 2018, speaking to our parliament she said:- "Let me say this, what we are doing is what we are doing, and let's be clear about this, what is important is that we will be getting on with the process of getting on with what we are doing."

Let us be clear about this!

Brexit here we come. The world has gone mad. 

Related Quotes:-

 "The intellect looks outward, taking an objective view........it is unable to look inwardly so as to grasp the thing in its inwardness.........the unifying principle lies inside and not outside. It is not something we arrive at; it is where we start. It is not the outcome of postulation; it is what makes postulation possible."

"Without unification, division is not possible."

(Both D. T. Suzuki, from the essay "The Buddhist Conception of Reality")

Suzuki

"Trump is a watcher, not a reader - it's all mixed up in his head..............when he says,"I have a great relationship with the blacks," what he probably means is that he liked watching The Cosby Show."

(Matt Taibbi)

Harry Truman

Tired of our current batch of so called leaders I was attracted to a biography of a previous President of the USA, Harry Truman.

Harry Truman

I saw that his life had covered some momentous times, WW1, WW2, the Great Depression, the coming of the Atomic Bomb, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War and more. Much more as it turned out. 

Momentous times

He was a real "man of the people", raised on the farm. He seems never to have betrayed his roots, of "knowing right from wrong and trying to do right". What was very apparent was that the closer people knew him the more they respected him, even loved him; and that he was at ease with all, from down and outs, the White House staff, to Stalin and Churchill.

The Missouri farmlands

 The highlight for me was the long chapter on the 1948 Presidential Campaign, when Truman was 30% or more behind in the Gallup Polls yet emerged triumphant, the only man - said a comedian of that time - who had "lost at the gallop but won at a walk". There is of course the famous picture of Harry Truman holding up a newspaper which carried the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman", taken around the exact time that Dewey was conceding defeat. Truman spent all his campaign time crossing the country by train, making speeches at every stop, the size of the crowds astounding everyone, who yet insisted Dewey would triumph.

Winning at a walk!

  But oh yes, life on the farm. One lovely story of his grandma, confronted at the back door of the farm by a tramp who she had given a cup of coffee to. The tramp had returned to complain that the coffee wasn't hot enough. "She took the cup, went inside, and promptly returned with a shotgun. He could be on his, way, she said, or she would warm more than his coffee for him."

Don't mess with Grandma

The book, a rather huge one by David McCullough, is never hagiographical. Truman is shown warts and all, but nevertheless, McCullough obviously had huge respect for the man. And why not? There is a lot to respect.

While President he yet found time for small acts of kindness towards many. He never forgot a friend. He loved his bourbon and a game of poker.

 

A refreshing read. Recommended.