Thomas Merton - Letting Go
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ธ.ค. 2010
- This video is dedicated to TH-camr burntnortonFQ, with thanks for suggesting that I record it.
The reading in Cable 84 is preceded by the German word, Gelassenheit, which has a rich history in philosophy (Martin Heidegger) and spiritual theology (Meister Eckhart). Some English words given as approximate equivalents are Composure, Serenity, Calm, Wakefulness, Releasement, Letting Go. I do not read this word, but begin with "Desert and void" (reminiscent of TS Eliot's "Waste and void" from Choruses from the Rock).
Cable 84, as burntnortonFQ originally noted to me, is reminiscent of TS Eliot. Where Merton refers to "the incomparable point" and says "there is a point of nowhereness in the middle of movement, a point of nothingness in the midst of being," the Four Quartets spring to mind, where Eliot speaks of "the still point of the turning world," "the intersection of the timeless with time," and "Here, the intersection of the timeless moment/ Is England and nowhere. Never and always."
I'm also struck by a similarity between Cable 84 and "Tao Te Ching - The Origin," where Sonja Elen Kisa, translating the Tao as Flow, writes:
"The Flow is like a vast ocean.
Use it - it cannot be drained.
How deep it is!
It seems to be the origin of all things.
So profound - there is always more."
- kisa.ca/
Similarly, Merton writes: "Waste. Emptiness. Total poverty of the Creator: yet from this poverty springs everything. The waste is inexhaustible."
In your magnificent way dear Fr.Thomas M you caught the essence of letting go and described it although with words that moves you into no words.
My spirit of a mountain girl is praying and thanking you for who you were and still are. Milena
I enter an emptiness that calls me to my deepest fullness. In being nobody, I am the somebody who lives out of my truest self. Not that self full of my own assumptions, projections, likes, dislikes and desires. Rather, a somebody who comes truly alive by letting go of a fabricated self. In this letting go, I find all. I claim, or "redeem" that which was always mine. Much like Zens "original face." We can't be original or true by clinging to or fabricating an image. Only in a constant letting go.
Thanks for posting this. Years ago there were other videos of Cables #84; I was distressed not to find them. But ... I found a note from a dear friend, now dead, without title and realized this most important part of Tom's anti-poem. I loved hearing you say the words unhurriedly and clearly. This is all I need. The Chinese idea of the Void came to mind. Intuitively I understood, not intellectually.
The speaker as well as the word is very poetic. I enjoyed this.
Merton-guide in nowhere. Teaching to society of angst- so relevant.
Absolutely brilliant!
Thoughtful poem...
@chica272727 Thank you for your beautiful and insightful comment.
Thomas Merton and I feel w/ gratitude &a sort of knowing Father Tomas Keaton have the skills etc to verbalise my inner world in God put that down as I think my last comment isn't clear but words have limit xxx
Some people have been led to believe that Thomas Merton had led into the Centering Prayer Movement. But there was a a big difference between him and Keating. Merton never taught a method for prayer. But Thomas Keating said in his own words on video that he and Basil Pennington and a few others worked together and developed a definite method and called it Centering Prayer. Thomas Merton never used that expression. He did speak of prayer of the heart, but he was also an active Catholic Priest offering Latin Mass at a time when the Sacred Heart Devotion was still in practice and had not been all but abandoned yet by most of those who accepted Vatican ll. The Traditionalists of the Church never abandoned the Sacred Heart Devotion and refuse to accept the "Divine Mercy Devotion". Some Churches have combined the two. But Thomas Merton had his own independent way, seperate it seems from all others. In his book "New Seeds of Contemplation" he wrote of three modes or three possible beginnings for contemplation. All of these things he wrote of however, did not replace or exclude him from all the traditional Church prayers "Rosary"etc.. that he recited everyday with his brother Monks at the Monastery. Nor did he want to be excused from them. The Psalms etc... are required as part of their vows.
utter delight freedom Nowhere! oh the words excite & enlight oosh I had a atheist dats what he called himself? tell me on twitter I ws an addict to serotonin and dopamine as I'm a contemplative Christian... I ws aghast at his ignorance we all want to be happy I just go nowhere 2 find my peace joy and delight!?! No thing think is God the Holy spirit infact words take away the reality...ace loved it xxx
mmmm - 'releasement' sounds as if it oughtn't to be a word - and yet it is. You live and learn .....
hum ? physics