- Paperback: 128 pages
- Publisher: Image; New edition edition (Feb 1 1971)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385092199
- ISBN-13: 978-0385092197
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 0.8 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 181 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #102,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
This little gem of a book, newly issued with a foreword from the great Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (who knew Merton in the 1960s) beautifully distills Merton's own reading and long experience with contemplation. Written close to the end of Merton's life, this book is not so much a "how to" guide as it is a kind of contemplation of contemplation. Immersed in the "negative theology" of St. John of the Cross and others--and influenced by his deep reading in Zen--Merton here stresses that in meditation "we should not look for a 'method' or 'system,' but cultivate an 'attitude,' an 'outlook': faith, openness, attention, reverence, expectation, supplication, trust, joy." God is found in the desert of surrender: this means giving up any expectation for a particular message and "waiting on the Word of God in silence," knowing that any answer will be "his silence itself suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word of great power, full of the voice of God." --Doug Thorpe
Review
“[Readers] will find Contemplative Prayer valuable. Merton shows that all living theology needs to be rooted in exercises where men somehow happily establish contact with God.” --New York Times Book Review
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The monk is a Christian who has responded to a special call from God, and has withdrawn from the more active concerns of a worldly life, in order to devote himself completely to repentance, "conversion," metanoia, renunciation and prayer. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
The monk is a Christian who has responded to a special call from God, and has withdrawn from the more active concerns of a worldly life, in order to devote himself completely to repentance, "conversion," metanoia, renunciation and prayer. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Thinking about contemplation,
By
This review is from: Contemplative Prayer (Paperback)
This is not a how-to book. It is a study of the history and meaning and reason for contemplative prayer, deeply thought of, deeply experienced. My little old copy is dogeared and heavily underlined, having been read so many times. And it is not my first copy - I've given others to friends.As with much of Merton's writing, it is a tool for examining our own prayer, our own lives. He shows us many ways we may be evading the very goal of our prayer, how we may be shielding ourselves from God's light shining upon us. Merton did not write this book in order to become popular. It is not all sweetness and gentle breezes of the Spirit. It is more like a cold wind that seeks to blow away our defenses and leave us face to face with what our souls really want - God. Whether we enjoy the process is not the point, but a book like this lets us know that we are not alone on the path, that, tough as it is, others have gone before. It gives comfort in the old English meaning of the word: strengthening. Read this if you need a good dose of spiritual tonic. review by Janet Knori, author of Awakening in God
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Illuminating on Many Levels,
By
This review is from: Contemplative Prayer (Paperback)
This book is profound: in a mere 116 pages Merton reveals indispensable spiritual insights one after another. Contemplation is the practice of seeking clarity--a clear vision of who we are, a clear vision of our relationship to God. So, with honest, relentless precision, Merton exposes our false postures of ego, pride, attachement, fear--those unholy but seductive impulses that cloud our souls and separate us from God. It is obvious that "Contemplative Prayer" is the product of an experienced contemplative, one who has experienced and reflected upon a lifetime of struggle, enough so that he can boil down the essence of spiritual survival into a handful of simple words. But he does much more than that: after shattering each underpinning of our personal complacency, he draws back and puts his observations in their monastic and theological context, giving us a fuller, deeper understanding of the religious tradition we belong to. For example, at one point, Merton elegantly and brilliantly summarizes "Dark Night of the Soul" (St. John of the Cross) in a way that makes it fully relevant to the modern reader. As a bonus, this edition contains an introduction by the distinguished Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh (who in some respects is himself a Buddhist version of Thomas Merton). Hahn explores and compares the spiritual struggles of Buddhism and Christianity with respect to prayer, meditation, practice, and God--on those crucial levels we see that ultimately we have one nature, despite the obvious and superficial differences that tend to separate us. On a literary note, "Contemplative Prayer" will be particularly interesting to those drawn to existentialism or seeking a deeper understanding of it. At first glance, one might think no two people could be further apart than Camus' Stranger and the Christian contemplative, but they are in fact quite alike. Both have heightened awareness of their true nature. Both acknowledge the meaninglessness of the world formerly thought of as "real". Both have learned that contemplation of the real comes at a heavy price, yet one that is unavoidable to the soul honestly seeking truth. Christian, Buddhist, existentialist...in the end it seems we are all drawn to the same road.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deeper understanding,
By FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Contemplative Prayer (Paperback)
This book, 'Contemplative Prayer', was Thomas Merton's last book. A prolific writing on spiritual topics, Merton was perhaps in an ideal setting to be able to write about the ideas and methods of contemplative prayer, being a Trappist. Trappists devote themselves to prayer, adding the disciplines of silence and solitude, things that are needed for the contemplative side of things to emerge. In the introduction by Merton's friend, Thich Nhat Hanh, there is a nine-fold prayer that relates to many of Merton's ideas about contemplative prayer. However, it is a mistake (and both Hanh in the introduction and Merton in the text mention this) to think that prayer is something in and of itself - Christians and Buddhists tend to have the understanding that prayer without practice lacks efficacy. Merton traces a strong history of contemplative prayer, from the earliest Christians (particularly the Desert Fathers and early monastics) to the latest theologians (Hahn relates Merton's ideas to Paul Tillich, and without mentioning him by name, Merton also seems to strive for that same purity that was the pursuit of Kierkegaard). Merton concentrates especially on various 'via negativa' methods and theologies - St. John of the Cross is but the most powerful example, but Merton draws on Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Catherine of Siena, Meister Eckhart and others. This is not a how-to manual for contemplative prayer. This was a subject that was beginning to interesting Merton more and more near the time of his death, and we can but wonder if he would have gone on to produce more practical writing on the topic after this piece. However, Merton, being a person with a good grasp for the authority and power of tradition and history, understood that the first task would be to understand what people have done before and how things have worked or not worked, before embarking upon a new subject for oneself. This is that product, and we are the poorer for not having a follow-up to the book. Reading Merton is never wasted time. This is perhaps less 'spiritual' and more 'academic' than much of his writing, but it still has characteristic Merton sensitivity to subject, and is worthwhile for any looking for a deeper understanding of comtemplative practices.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
