xt7kkw57hm0w https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7kkw57hm0w/data/mets.xml  Thomas Merton 1959-03-12 This letter is from collection 75m28 Thomas Merton papers. archival material 75m28 English  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Thomas Merton correspondence Letter from Thomas Merton to Dr. Daisetz Suzuki, March 12, 1959 text Letter from Thomas Merton to Dr. Daisetz Suzuki, March 12, 1959 1959 1959-03-12 2023 true xt7kkw57hm0w section xt7kkw57hm0w Abbey of Gethsemani
Trappist P.O.
Kentuclqr, USA.

My Dear Dr Suzuki: '

Perhaps you are accustomed to receiving letters from strangers. I hOpe so,
because I do not wish to disturb you with a bad-mannered intrusion. I hope a word
of eXplanation will reconcile you to the disturbance, if it is one.

The one who writes to you is an monk, a Christian and so-oalled "contemplative"
of a rather strict Order. A monk, also, who has tried to write some books about the
contemplative life and who, for better or worse, has a great love of and interest
in Zen.

I will not be so foolish as to pretend to you that I understand Zen. To be
frank, I hardly understand Christianity. And I often feel that those who think they
know all about the teachings of Christ and of His Church are not as close to the
target as they think.And I think, too, that many of the Americans who are excited
about Zen'are perhaps dealing with something in their own imagination, and not with
a reality. It is not my business to make judgements about any of these people.

All I know is that when I read your books- and I have read many of them—- and
above all when I read English versions of the little verses in which the Zen Masters
point their finger to something which flashed out at the time, I feel a profound
and i: timate agreement.Time after time, as I read your pages, sometlnng in me says
"That's itt" Don't ask me what. I have no desire to explain it to anybbdy, or to
justify it to anybody, or to analyze it for myself. I have my own way to walk and
for srme reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it
is, with all its beautiful~,purposelessness, and it has become very familiar to me
though I do not know "what it is". Or even if it is an "it".Not to be fohlish and
multiply words, I'll say simply that it seems to me that Zen is the very atmosphere
of the Gospels, and the Gospels are bursting with it. It is the preper climate for
any monk, no matter what kind of monk he may be. If I could not breathe Zen I would
probably die of Spiritual aSphdeation. But I still don't know what it is. No matter.
I don't know what the air is either.

The purpose of this letter is not merely to thank you for your books, or to say
that I am eager to read the results of your conversations with my friend Erich From,
in regard to Zen and analysis. That will be very interesting indeed. But I have
another matter to ask of you.

Enclosed with this letter are a couple of pages of quotations from a little
book of translations I have made. These are translations from the hermits who lived
in the Egyptian Deserts in the hth and 5th centuries A.D. I feel very strongly that
you will like them for a kind of "Zen" quality they have about them. If you agree
that they are interesting and that they show this particular quality, I wonder if you
would let me send you the complete manuscript, which is quite short, and if you would
do me the very, very great honor of writing a few words of introduction to it. The
book will be published by one of two well known New York houses, in this definitive
edition. (Though at present a limited edition is being hand printed by a m friend
of mine, without a preface.) I cannot assure you too strongly of my conviction that
a preface from you would be a great and estimable favor. To be plain, I can think of
no one more appropriate for the task, because in all; simplicity I believe that you
are the one man, of all mdern writers, who bears some real ressemblance to the
Desert Fathers who wrote these little lines or rather spoke them. I feel therefore
that the task belongs to you by right, and that the Desert Fathers themselves would
want no one else to do it. I do hope you will be able to say "yes“ to this clumsy
request of mine. ~

Whether or not you can do this, I hope at least you will let me know the address
of some puulisher in Japan or else where where I might be able to get some unusual
Zen texts that are not easily available in the U.S.

 

 \

\ 2

I have been rather fortunate in getting at som df the books avail able here
and know the work of Alan Watts, including a recen book with a good bibliograph y.

I have borrowed your books from libraries and have nly mtwo here, the American 1963‘
Back collection and the Studies in Zen put out in Iohdon. I think I can keep track
of the volumzrs published 5y Rfler as they come out.

Are you coming back to America? Would there ever be a chance of your passing
through Kentucky and visiting our monastery? Our Father Abbot has granted me per-
mission to see you and speak with you should you happen to come here, and it would
be to me a most wonderful. pleasure to do so. We are quite near Louisville. I am
sure that a lecture by you couldbe arranged at one of the nearby Universities to
make it plausible for you to come to this out of the way place.

Or perhaps you have some friend in Am 1'1 ca who understands all these things and
Ipuld be interested. He has only to le+ me know, and perhaps somtthing could be
arranged.

How I have taken much of your time. I hope you will find something congenial in
these few little quotations and that you will be interested in my proposal. Dhanwhile
I close with every good wish and every desire that you be filled with all spiritual
blessings—- and with the hope that we may commend one another to God each in his own
way. I certainly will do so in mine, and may the LOrd bless you in everything.

Faithfully yours in Christ