Thomas Merton Quotes

I dreamed I spoke in another's language, I dreamed I lived in another's skin, I dreamed I was my own beloved, I dreamed I was a tiger's kin. I dreamed that Eden lived inside me, And when I breathed a garden came, I dreamed I knew all of Creation, I dreamed I knew the Creator's name. I dreamed--and this dream was the finest-- That all I dreamed was real and true, And we would live in joy forever, You in me, and me in you.

If I go into the place in myself that is love, and you go into the place in yourself that is love, we are together in love. Then you and I are truly in love, the state of being love. That's the entrance to Oneness. That's the space I entered when I met my guru.

The happiest moments are when we sit down and we feel the presence of our brothers and sisters, lay and monastic, who are practicing walking and sitting mediation.

The longer one is alone, the easier it is to hear the song of the earth.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.

There's these things we do that take us into the zone - and we go in that place that I feel like is the place of love that you reach when you're in love or making love, or you're having a good conversation. I feel like that is God.

Simplicity, then, is getting in touch with the divine center

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.

The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God; and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened, unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our heart.

Oh, grant me my prayer, that I may never lose the touch of the one in the play of the many.

Observe the silence between your thoughts, actions, reactions, and you will feel the presence of spirit in the stillness of those spaces.

The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being...Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by learning to listen (or recovering the natural capacity to listen) we can find ourself engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained: the happiness of being at one with everything in that hidden ground of Love for which there can be no explanations.... May we all grow in grace and peace, and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.

One's need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well.

A moment comes when "other" is no longer other.

But now I have learned to listen to silence. To hear its choirs singing the song of ages, chanting the hymns of space, and disclosing the secrets of eternity.

All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.

Walking I am unbound, and find that precious unity of life and imagination, that silent outgoing self, which is so easy to loose, but which a high moments seems to start up again from the deepest rhythms of my own body. How often have I had this longing for an infinite walk - of going unimpeded, until the movement of my body as I walk fell into the flight of streets under my feet - until I in my body and the world in its skin of earth were blended into a single act of knowing.

I'm really starting to learn the value of silence and meditation. I keep my sanity in the middle of a hectic day by taking some me time or sometimes watching a guilty pleasure on TV, doing absolutely nothing, or just hanging out with friends and family. They keep me grounded and centered.

Having mourned your sin, for outward Eden lost, find paradise within.

I listen to music a lot, if I need to get into a particular space. I do stretching and breathing, and take time to mostly be quiet and find the stillness. I think that's important.

We can love religion as we need rituals, but The Holy Spirit is a bird, free to fly and land where it likes. We don't actually need 'religion' in order to have a relationship with The Holy Spirit. Too many wars an violence over religion.We need to see it's all the same spirit and we are part of that spirit so we shouldn't be fighting over what name we call it. It's a free bird.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.

One of my students told me that every time she learns the name of a plant, she feels as if she is meeting someone new. Giving a name to something is a way of knowing it.

As love is union, it knows no extremes of distance.

A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.