I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.
THOMAS MERTONMay God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.
THOMAS MERTON -
How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?
THOMAS MERTON -
When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.
THOMAS MERTON -
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
THOMAS MERTON -
The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.
THOMAS MERTON -
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
THOMAS MERTON -
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside. We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON -
A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
THOMAS MERTON -
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON -
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
THOMAS MERTON -
Weaknesses and deficiencies play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
THOMAS MERTON -
From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.
THOMAS MERTON -
It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.
THOMAS MERTON -
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
THOMAS MERTON -
Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.
THOMAS MERTON