Extemporaneous Remarks by Thomas Merton

Abstract

First, let me struggle with the contradiction that I have to live with, in appearing before you in what I really consider to be a disguise, because I never, never wear this.¹ What I ordinarily wear is blue jeans and an open shirt; which brings me to the question that people have been asking to a great extent: Whom do you represent? What religion do you represent? And that, too, is a rather difficult question to answer. I came with the notion of perhaps saying something for monks and to monks of all religions because I am supposed to be a monk.

Editor’s Note: During the morning of the second day of the conference (October 23, 1968) Father Merton spoke ex tempore, in what was a singularly effective and affecting presentation of a part of his personal philosophy. He spoke as a Christian monk who had found, in other monks of other religions gathered here in Calcutta, his spiritual brothers.

Thomas Merton’s sudden death near Bangkok, little more than six weeks after the conference, was a tragedy not only to his friends but to all who cherish the spiritual in man, and all who value the poet’s ability to penetrate to the truth with words that sing. Thomas Merton was the author of 28 books, the most famous of which, The Seven Storey Mountain, is an apologia pro vita sua ranking among the finest of spiritual autobiographies. In recent years he had published several works relating to other religions, including a study of Zen Buddhism and a collection of Mahatma Gandhi’s statements on non-violence.

He was only fifty-three when he died. What further wisdom might have come from his pen, as a result of his visit to Asia, we shall of course never know, but what he said that morning in Calcutta affords us at least a clue.