[joe-frank-list] Joe Frank, Jack Kornfield, and Thomas Merton

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Jack Kornfield quotes Thomas Merton 5 times in 4 shows
('Karma, part 3', 'Evening sky', 'Karma for dollars', and
'Margarita').  Twice he (mis)quotes (but close), 'It was as if I
suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their
hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the
core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes.  If
only they could see themselves as they really are, if only we could
see each other that way all the time, there would no more war, no more
hatred, no more cruelty, and no more greed.  I suppose the big problem
would be that we would fall down and worship each other...'
('Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander', New York: Doubleday; 1966, page
155).  In 'Margarita', he prefaces it with, 'this passage from Thomas
Merton that I read often...'
	I read a book of Merton's prayers when I was a boy (found on
my father's shelf) and his memoir 'The Seven Storey Mountain' when I
found it in a thrift store when I was about 22.  I remembered Stewart
Brand's praise for it in 'The Whole Earth Catalogue'.  I was moved but
not as much as 'To the bar life''s Johnny, who joined the monastery in
which Merton lived (sort of), Gethsemani.
	I recommend Garry Wills's 'Shallow calls to shallow', from
'Harper's', for a portrait of Merton,
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/04/on-thomas-merton-mary-gordon-review/
	Wills also describes the fervor that drove many like Johnny to
a greater involvement in religion, including many who went to
Gethsemani, after WW2.

russell bell