Advice from the Sages
I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…
Tag: Thomas Merton
Abandon Any Hope of Fruition
Anyone who wants to know the art of living, who wants to experience this Dhamma, has to understand it clearly. But as long as you are expecting, then it will not happen. –Mirka Knaster, Living…
Autumn Merton Hour with Rocco Erker: Love, War, and a Vocation
Join us for our fourth Zoom gathering this year to explore the work of Thomas Merton—Sunday 20 November7 p.m. Central TimeEmail me for URL: markjchmiel@gmail.com Rocco Erker has been a lifelong reader and student of Thomas…
The One Thing That Is Important
Christopher Isherwood, My Guru and His Disciple, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1980. I’ve been imagining coming up with a class in which we’d explore Chris Isherwood, Ram Dass, and especially The Gospel of Sri…
A Merton Hour with Liz Burkemper: Fourth and Walnut
In the waning light of the Buck Moon, let us read and reflect together on Thomas Merton’s moment of enlightenment at the corner of Fourth and Walnut (from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander). What is a…
Coming in Two Weeks! Liz Burkemper on Thomas Merton
Liz is generous enough to host a “Merton Hour” for us to be better acquainted with the prolific and prophetic monk Thomas Merton. Details soon!
“Nhat Hanh Is My Brother”
Dear Friends, I invite you to a second “Merton Hour” to consider Thomas Merton’s short intervention on behalf of Thich Nhat Hanh in 1966. We will read together “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” discuss in…
A Merton Hour
Please join us for a “Merton Hour” for thoughtful discussions about the impact Thomas Merton and his writings have had on us and the world we live in. On Sunday 20 February Ben Burkemper will…
Keeping Our Mouths Shut, Our Minds at Peace
Some decades back New Directions published a series of slim Wisdom books that can still serve as an engaging introduction to several religious traditions. Earlier this year, I enjoyed Stephen Clissold’s The Wisdom of St…
Righteous, Remorseful Jews
As my 61st birthday approaches, I’ve noticed that I have recently been going back to authors and works I read many years ago. For example, I’ve been reading Thomas Merton’s Asian Journal, William D. Miller’s…