The essays in this volume of the Fons Vitae Series, Merton & Indigenous Wisdom, are spiritual exercises to explore Merton's globally inclusive religious imagination. These exercises can revitalize our ways of living as we drink from the springs of ancient views and practices. They help us to not only recognize the damage of European colonization, but to taste indigenous American wisdom as a still-living sacrament for our collective salvation.

Divided into three sections, this insightful volume of essays by numerous scholars focuses on Thomas Merton's interest in and transformation through Buddhism. In addition to analysis of how Merton's studies of Buddhism affected his work in the arts, the study also offers information about his Asian journey as well as a complete bibliography of secondary materials. Contributors include Judith Simmer-Brown, Roger J. Corless, Rubin L.F. Habito, John P. Keenan, Roger Lipsey, Paul M. Pearson, and James Wiseman, OSB.

In addition to scholarly articles, this volume includes Merton's own Sufi poems, insightful book reviews, transcriptions from his related lectures, and a selection of works from which he drew particular inspiration, including the work of al-Tirmidhi (d.932), which uses fascinating metaphors to elucidate the difference between the Breast, Heart, Inner Heart, and the Intellect.

Scientific evidence has made it abundantly clear that the world's population can no longer continue its present rate of consuming and despoiling the planet's limited natural resources. Scholars, activists, politicians, and citizens worldwide are promoting the idea of sustainability, or systems and practices of living that allow a community to maintain itself indefinitely. Despite increased interest in sustainability, its popularity alone is insufficient to shift our culture and society toward more stable practices. Gary Holthaus argues that sustainability is achievable but is less a set of practices than the result of a healthy worldview. Learning Native Wisdom: Reflections on Subsistence, Sustainability, and Spirituality examines several facets of societies -- cultural, economic, agricultural, and political -- seeking insights into the ability of some societies to remain vibrant for thousands of years, even in extremely adverse conditions and climates. Holthaus looks to Eskimo and other Native American peoples of Alaska for the practical wisdom behind this way of living. Learning Native Wisdom explains why achieving a sustainable culture is more important than any other challenge we face today. Although there are many measures of a society's progress, Holthaus warns that only a shift away from our current culture of short-term abundance, founded on a belief in infinite economic growth, will represent true advancement. In societies that value the longevity of people, culture, and the environment, subsistence and spirituality soon become closely allied with sustainability.Holthaus highlights the importance of language as a reflection of shared cultural values, and he shows how our understanding of the very word subsistence illustrates his argument. In a culture of abundance, the term implies deprivation and insecurity. However, as Holthaus reminds us, "All cultures are subsistence cultures." Our post-Enlightenment consumer-based societies obscure or even deny our absolute dependence on soil, air, sunlight, and water for survival. This book identifies spirituality as a key component of meaningful cultural change, a concept that Holthaus defines as the recognition of the invisible connections between people, their neighbors, and their surroundings. For generations, native cultures celebrated and revered these connections, fostering a respect for past, present, and future generations and for the earth itself.Ultimately, Holthaus illustrates how spirituality and the concept of subsistence can act as powerful guiding forces on the path to global sustainability. He examines the perceptions of cultures far more successful at long-term survival than our own and describes how we might use their wisdom to overcome the sustainability crisis currently facing humanity.

Contributors to this volume present Thomas Merton as making a significant opening to reverent appreciation of past and present Judaism, as he aspires to be, or claims to be "a true Jew under my Catholic skin."

‘Merton still matters’, writes Paul R. Dekar about Cistercian monk Thomas Merton. Calling people to act justly, love kindness and walk humbly, Merton used his contemplative practice to see beyond what disrupts and divides us from one another to find the truth of our common humanity - unity in our creation in the image of God. In Thomas Merton and the New World, Dekar focuses primarily on two issues of concern to our current world. First, he studies Merton’s warnings of the abuse that stems from unmindful and irresponsible use of technology, and its ecological devastation. Second, he examines Merton’s thinking on racial injustice in the mid-1960s through his correspondence with his allies and contemporaries - James Baldwin, for example. Using Micah 6:8 to arrange Merton’s focus on justice, lovingkindness, and humility, with input from Merton’s dialogue with Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Rachel Carson and others, Dekar demonstrates just how prophetic and transferable Merton’s teachings remain.

Thomas Merton's lectures to the young monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani provide a good look at Merton the scholar. A Course in Christian Mysticism gathers together, for the first time, the best of these talks into a spiritual, historical, and theological survey of Christian mysticism--from St. John's gospel to St. John of the Cross. Sixteen centuries are covered over thirteen lectures. A general introduction sets the scene for when and how the talks were prepared and for the perennial themes one finds in them, making them relevant for spiritual seekers today. This compact volume allows anyone to learn from one of the twentieth century's greatest Catholic spiritual teachers. The study materials at the back of the book, including additional primary source readings and thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion, make this an essential text for any student of Christian mysticism.