The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And 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.
Interpretation
Zen encourages us to confront life's contradictions and recognize our inherent state between madness and innocence.
In this quote, Thomas Merton reflects on the nature of Zen philosophy, suggesting that it challenges us to face the inherent contradictions in our existence. He implies that we are often caught between sanity and insanity, innocence and experience, and that recognizing this dichotomy is essential for deeper understanding. Merton urges us to open our eyes to this reality, implying that awareness is a path to enlightenment and clarity.
In practice
In a discussion about mindfulness, you might say, 'As Thomas Merton pointed out, Zen helps us navigate the contradictions of life.'
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
Darkness has completely descended onto the landscape and I stood up and stretched my arms above my head and I wondered what it would be like if it were a perfect world. Only god knows. And he is dead.
How could I bear a crown of gold when the Lord bears a crown of thorns? And bears it for me!
I've always felt like an alien trapped in a human form. We all do at some time or other; for me it's a permanent state, and I'm still unsure if Earth is a penance or a reward.
The great act of faith is when a man decides he is not God.
The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die?
We offer peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Hebrew nation for the common good of all.
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