THE SELF

Buddhism and Christian monasticism start from the problem inside man himself. Instead of dealing with the external structures of society, they start with man’s own consciousness. Both Christianity and Buddhism agree that the root of man’s problems is that his consciousness is all fouled up and he does not apprehend reality as it fully and really is. . . . This is called by Buddhism avidya, or ignorance.

(AJ 332)

Buddha neither said “there is a self” or “there is not a self.” . . . Buddha replied by silence because he considered the condition of the questioner and the effect of a dogmatic reply on him.

(AJ 104, italics Merton’s)

We are plagued today with the heritage of that Cartesian self-awareness, which assumed that the empirical ego is the starting point of an infallible intellectual progress to truth and spirit.

(MZM 26)

The empirical ego is in fact the source and center of every illusion.

(MZM 224)

Buddha taught that all evil is rooted in the “ignorance” which makes us take our individual ego as our true self. . . . The root of personality is to be sought in the “true Self” which is manifested in the basic unification of consciousness in which subject and object are one. Hence the highest good is “the self’s fusion with the highest reality.” Human personality is regarded as the force which effects this fusion.

(ZBA 69)

Personalism and individualism must not be confused. Personalism gives priority to the person and not the individual self. To give priority to the person means respecting the unique and inalienable value of the other person, as well as one’s own, for a respect that is centered only on one’s individual self to the exclusion of others proves itself to be fraudulent.

(WCZ 17, italics Merton’s)

At every turn, we get back to the big question, which is the question of the person as void and not as individual or empirical ego. . . . What is most ourselves is what is least ourself. . . . It is the void that is our personality, and not our individuality that seems to be concrete and defined and present etc. It is what is seemingly not present, the void, that is really I. And the “I” that seems to be I is really a void. But the West is so used to identifying the person with the individual and the deeper self with the empirical self . . . that the basic truth is never seen. It is the Not-I that is most of all the I in each one of us.

(HGL 627)

Suffering, as both Christianity and Buddhism see, each in its own way, is part of our very ego-identity and empirical existence, and the only thing to do about it is to plunge right into the middle of contradiction and confusion in order to be transformed by what Zen calls the “Great Death” and Christianity calls “dying and rising with Christ.”

(ZBA 51)

The basic aim of Buddhism, says Nhất Hạnh, arises out of human experience itself — the experience of suffering. . . . The problem of suffering is insoluble as long as men are prevented by their collective and individual illusions from getting directly to grips with suffering in its very root within themselves.

(MZM 286)

It is in surrendering a false and illusory liberty on the superficial level that man unites himself with the inner ground of reality and freedom in himself which is the will of God, of Krishna, of Providence, of Tao.

(AJ 353)

The self is not its own center and does not orbit around itself; it is centered on God, the one center of all, which is “everywhere and nowhere,” in whom all are encountered, from whom all proceed. Thus from the very start this consciousness is disposed to encounter “the other” with whom it is already united anyway “in God.”

The metaphysical intuition of Being is an intuition of a ground of openness, indeed of a kind of ontological openness and an infinite generosity which communicates itself to everything that is. “The good is diffusive of itself,” or “God is love.” Openness is not something to be acquired, but a radical gift that has been lost and must be recovered.

(ZBA 24–5, italics Merton’s)

The “mind of Christ” as described by St. Paul in Philippians 2 may be theologically worlds apart from the “mind of Buddha.” . . . But the utter “self-emptying” of Christ — and the self-emptying which makes the disciple one with Christ in His kenosis — can be understood . . . in a very Zen-like sense as far as psychology and experience are concerned.

(ZBA 8, italics Merton’s)

We accept our emptying because we realize that our very emptiness is fulfillment and plentitude. In our emptiness the One Word is clearly spoken.

(IEW 97)

If you can empty your own boat

Crossing the river of the world,

No one will oppose you,

No one will seek to harm you.

(xx.2, WCZ 114)

Once we live in awareness of the cosmic dance and move in time with the Dancer, our life attains its true dimension. . . . To live without this illuminated consciousness is to live as a beast of burden, carrying one’s life with tragic seriousness as a huge, incomprehensible weight. . . . The weight of the burden is the seriousness with which one takes one’s own individual and separate self. To live with the true consciousness of life centered in Another is to lose one’s self-important seriousness and thus to live life as “play” in union with a Cosmic Player.

(AJ 350)

To live selflessly is to live in joy, realizing by experience that life itself is love and gift. To be a lover and a giver is to be a channel through which the Supreme Giver manifests His love in the world.

(AJ 350)

At the very center of man’s being is an intimate, dynamic principle of reality. It is not merely a static concept or essence, but a “nature” constantly seeking to express its reality in right action. In this way, the hidden reality of heaven communicates itself to the man who is in harmony with it by his actions. Reality is the goal, and reality in act is the “axis” or “pivot” of man’s being. The “superior man” is one who finds this axis in himself and lives always centered upon it.

(MZM 59, italics Merton’s)

The spirit of non-violence sprang from an inner realization of spiritual unity in himself. The whole Gandhian concept of non-violent action and satyagraha is . . . the fruit of inner unity already achieved.

(GNV 10, italics Merton’s)

The foundation of Confucian system is first of all the human person and then his relations with other persons in society.

(MZM 51, italics Merton’s)

The order of society depends on awareness, right action, and self-discipline in all its members from the ruler to the least of common men. The peace and order of the community depend on the discipline of awareness by which each member recognizes what is to be done by him, or what properly accords with his identity and function in the community.

(MZM 61)

Our evils are common and the solution of them can only be common. But we are not ready to undertake this common task because we are not ourselves. Consequently the first duty of every man is to return to his own “right mind” in order that society may be sane.

(GNV 25)

“We are at war with ourselves,” said Coomaraswamy, “and therefore at war with one another. Western man is unbalanced, and the question, Can he recover himself? is a very real one.”

(GNV 6)

There can be no peace on earth without the kind of inner change that brings man back to his “right mind.”

(GNV 31)

“Myself.” No-self. The self is merely a locus in which the dance of the universe is aware of itself as complete from beginning to end — and returning to the void. Gladly. Praising, giving thanks, with all beings. Christ light — spirit — grace — gift. (Bodhicitta)

(AJ 68)