"I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything — without refutation — without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Activists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesPoets from the United StatesAutobiographers from the United StatesTheologians from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975) Part One : Ceylon / November 29 - December 6.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Merton
36 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Merton →
Related Quotes
"Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments."
"A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying God. It “consents,” so …"
"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, i…"
"Looking at these figures I was suddenly, almost forcibly, jerked clean out of the habitual, half-tied vision of thing…"
"This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the im…"
"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which ar…"
"The biggest human temptation is … to settle for too little."
"When I criticize a system, they think I criticize them—and that is of course because they accept the system and…"
"It brings to the West a salutary reminder that our highly activistic and one-sided culture is faced with a crisis tha…"
"Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, th…"