your own consciousness and others (Lax)

saint (Lax)

saint: I may have gotten myself into trouble with that one.  i was telling him [Merton] to be one. (& i think he may have gone right out & done it.) what i'd mean by it now is to be, hope to be, hope to get to be, the person you were created to be.

- Robert Lax to Don McCoy, June 17, 1983, Robert Lax Papers, St. Bonaventure University
[from Michael McGregor's book, "Pure Act, the Uncommon Life of Robert Lax p. 357]

religion (Lax)

finding the right culture, finding the ‘’right’ religion, is important, as a
personal choice; but more important is the progress you make — the
progress you find you can make — once you have found it.

it’s enough, but not quite enough, to wish to be a good jew
it’s enough, but not quite enough, to wish to be a good catholic

to be a good jew, or to be a good catholic, is really just a start toward what
you may (& really should wish, with G-d’s grace) to become

(to be a saint, yes; to be a contemplative, yes, to be a mystic, yes)

but at the point where one is living a fully spiritual life, a contemplative and
mystical life, he is out beyond the delimiting terms of any particular
religion

- Robert Lax, Lax Journal, June 21, 1979, St. Bonaventure University
[from Michael McGregor's book, "Pure Act, the Uncommon Life of Robert Lax pp. 349-350]

we carry the memory of the earth

 Calligraphy by Thomas Merton

Fashioned from clay, we carry the memory of the earth. Ancient, forgotten things stir within our hearts, memories from the time before the mind was born. Within us are depths that keep watch. These are depths that no words can trawl or light unriddle. Our neon times have neglected and evaded the depth-kingdoms of interiority in favor of the ghost realms of cyberspace. We have unlearned the patience and attention of lingering at the thresholds where the unknown awaits us. We have become haunted pilgrims addicted to distraction and driven by the speed and color of images.

—	John O'Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, from Whiskey River.

The world is our consciousness, and it surrounds us

Photograph by Thomas Merton 

Our bodies are wild. The involuntary quick turn of the head at a shout, the vertigo at looking off a precipice, the heart-in-the-throat in a moment of danger, the catch of the breath, the quiet moments relaxing, staring, reflecting – all universal responses of this mammal body… The body does not require the intercession of some conscious intellect to make it breathe, to keep the heart beating. It is to a great extent self-regulating, it is a life of its own. The world is our consciousness, and it surrounds us. There are more things in the mind, in the imagination, than ‘you’ can keep track of – thoughts, memories, images, angers, delights, rise unbidden. The depths of the mind, the unconscious, are our inner wilderness areas, and that is where a bobcat is right now. I do not mean personal bobcats in personal psyches, but the bobcat that roams from dream to dream. The conscious agenda-planning ego occupies a very tiny territory, a little cubicle somewhere near the gate, keeping track of some of what goes in and out, and the rest takes care of itself. The body is, so to speak, in the mind. They are both wild.

—	Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild. With thanks to Beyond the Fields We Know.

The art of living is based on rhythm

Photo by Thomas Merton

The art of living is based on rhythm - on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis. One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression. To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender. 

— Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart. With gratitude to Whiskey River.

Pope Francis on Thomas Merton

 Photo by Thomas Merton

"A century ago, at the beginning of the Great War, which Pope Benedict XV termed a "pointless slaughter", another notable American was born: the Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. He remains a source of spiritual inspiration and a guide for many people. In his autobiography he wrote: 'I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born. That world was the picture of Hell, full of men like myself, loving God, and yet hating him; born to love him, living instead in fear of hopeless self-contradictory hungers.' Merton was above all a man of prayer, a thinker who challenged the certitudes of his time and opened new horizons for souls and for the Church. He was also a man of dialogue, a promoter of peace between peoples and religions." 

Pope Francis on Thomas Merton (quote from The Seven Storey Mountain), address to United States Congress, September 24, 2015