“The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence.

Zen suggests that we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale.

Driving toward them because, one way or the other, as madmen or innocents, we are already there.

It might be good to open our eyes and see.”

~ Thomas Merton

“… As an artist, Thomas Merton is perhaps best known as a poet. But he was also a skilled calligrapher, pen and ink painter, and photographer. Just as his studies of Buddhism and Islam affected his work as a poet, his studies, particularly of Zen Buddhism affected his photographer’s “eye.” Buddhism introduced Merton to the possibility of being “all eye.” And that profoundly affected what he framed with his lens …” ~ excerpt from “One Aesthetic Illumination:” Thomas Merton and Buddhism by Bonnie B. Thurston, which is one of the essays from the catalog of the exhibit titled : A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography Of Thomas Merton.

Experience A Hidden Wholeness: The Zen Photography Of Thomas Merton  …. provided courtesy of The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University.

Stillness Speaks Teacher page for Thomas Merton will be coming soon.

Quote from The Little Zen Companion, by David Schiller
Post and featured image: With limbs adorned in glorious glow, by sagesolar, CC By 2.0, edited and logo added.

Further Reading...

Merton: Inward Stranger Whom I have Never Seen… Thomas Merton: The Solitude I Am Thomas Merton: Prayer, Silence & Solitude Solitude – The Communion with Silence : Thomas Merton Thomas Merton: The True Purpose of Christian Solitude