“To each of us there is a point of nowhereness in the middle of movement, a point of nothingness in the midst of being: the incomparable point, not to be discovered by insight.” As a student of Meister Eckhart and D.T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton was very aware of the teachings about emptiness and void both in the Christian and the Buddhist tradition.
But he was not content with knowing about it. His writings are a profound testimony of his personal mystical experience. He knew the deep connection between the experience of plenitude and that of emptiness —“the point of nothingness in the midst of being” — and he knew that words alone cannot communicate or teach such experience, because it is not by thinking that it is reached — “not to be discovered by insight.” And what cannot be thought cannot be spoken.
Yet mystics of all traditions have always spoken about the via negativa, the silence, the point where words shipwreck, the absence of thought, the peace beyond understanding. Perhaps we can say that they spoke around the void, not about it. Merton’s diaries are replete with descriptions of his experience in nature that end with an unspoken invitation — unspoken, yet very audible to the attentive reader — to drop into silence at the end.
Yes, I think he was an “expert” not so much of the via positiva or the via negativa, but of the passing of the one into the other, or their “distinction without separation” if you wish. “No blade of grass is not blessed / On this archetypal, cosmic hill / This womb of mysteries.” What are these beautiful verses if not an invitation to drop into the dark womb, where even the poetic words cease. “The deepest level of communication is not communication but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept.”
Matthew’s elaboration of the via negativa goes beyond, however, the discussion of silence and the ceasing of thoughts in the mind. He points out that the emptying experienced by people if often brought about by grief and suffering. In his book A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey — on which this series of meditations is based — Matthew quotes a poem that Merton wrote from his hospital bed. “Only the spark is now true / Dancing in the empty room / All around overhead / While the frail body of Christ / Sweats in a technical bed.”
Matthew comments that it is significant that he named what was left of him when he was stripped of so much in his hospital sojourn by invoking one of Eckhart’s favorite images — that of the spark of the soul. Yes, and the spark is lost. “And the spark without identity / Circles the empty ceiling.”
As someone who recently emerged from months of hospitalization, and was very near death at the beginning of January, I can feel very deeply this poem by Merton. What is interesting to me is that the lostness of the spark is by no means a defeat to be fought against, but an experience to be fully accepted.
The “letting go” that is so important in the via negativa, as Matthew teaches incessantly, is not by any means akin to the love of death, but it extends not just to trivial matters. It reaches the point of accepting one’s own death. Physical death as well as the death of the ego — and I am convinced, after my recent experience, that the latter is much harder than the first.
Quotes from Matthew Fox, A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, pp. 56, 70, 77.
See also Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
And Fox, Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
And Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
And Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
Banner Image: Apparent void and possible birthing place for stars: the darkness of Molecular Cloud Barnard 68. Photo Credit: NASA FORS Team, 8.2-meter VLT Antu, ESO
Queries for Contemplation
What can we learn from Merton and the via negativa in a context, like ours, where suffering is overwhelming?
Recommended Reading
A Way to God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey
In A Way to God, Fox explores Merton’s pioneering work in interfaith, his essential teachings on mixing contemplation and action, and how the vision of Meister Eckhart profoundly influenced Merton in what Fox calls his Creation Spirituality journey.
“This wise and marvelous book will profoundly inspire all those who love Merton and want to know him more deeply.” — Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
Selected with an Introduction by Charles Burack
To encapsulate the life and work of Matthew Fox would be a daunting task for any save his colleague Dr. Charles Burack, who had the full cooperation of his subject. Fox has devoted 50 years to developing and teaching the tradition of Creation Spirituality and in doing so has reinvented forms of education and worship. His more than 40 books, translated into 78 languages, are inclusive of today’s science and world spiritual traditions and have awakened millions to the much neglected earth-based mystical tradition of the West. Essential Writings begins by exploring the influences on Fox’s life and spirituality, then presents selections from all Fox’s major works in 10 sections.
“The critical insights, the creative connections, the centrality of Matthew Fox’s writings and teaching are second to none for the radical renewal of Christianity.” ~~ Richard Rohr, OFM.
Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic–and Beyond
Julian of Norwich lived through the dreadful bubonic plague that killed close to 50% of Europeans. Being an anchoress, she ‘sheltered in place’ and developed a deep wisdom that she shared in her book, Showings, which was the first book in English by a woman. A theologian way ahead of her time, Julian develops a feminist understanding of God as mother at the heart of nature’s goodness. Fox shares her teachings in this powerful and timely and inspiring book.
“What an utterly magnificent book. The work of Julian of Norwich, lovingly supported by the genius of Matthew Fox, is a roadmap into the heart of the eco-spiritual truth that all life breathes together.” –Caroline Myss
Now also available as an audiobook HERE.
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
