Thomas Merton on the Mystical Life and Martin Buber

By: Thomas Merton

Narrated by: Thomas Merton

Study a premier Jewish writer of the 20th century with one of the century’s most important Catholic authors.

This digitally remastered recording is part of Thomas Merton’s spoken word legacy, and it presents his voice at its most spiritually edifying. Originally recorded in February of 1968 at the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Thomas Merton on The Mystical Life and Martin Buber unpacks Buber's resonant Hasidic tales one at a time in a discussion-heavy class setting.

Inviting his audience to compare Buber with St. Bernard, Merton sets the stage to draw compelling connections between different faith traditions. This talk was delivered to Merton’s fellow monks in the last year of his life, when the mystic was at the peak of his intellectual and spiritual powers.

Learn25 - through our exclusive partnership with the Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center - is proud to offer a wide selection of archival recordings of Thomas Merton: a Trappist monk, great 20th-century mystic, and beloved author of the 1948 autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain. This talk is one in a series of carefully curated and remastered archival recordings of Thomas Merton - available exclusively from Learn25.

©2020 Learn25 (P)2020 Learn25 Inc.

This course is part of the Learn25 collection.

©2018 Now You Know Media Inc. (P)2018 Now You Know Media Inc.

Outstanding.

I cannot give a thumbs up to the organization and publisher that produced this audio book. Only to the content spoken by Thomas Merton. I think this should be available in a not for profit version. Listen to the last 30 seconds and you will understand. Outstanding teaching by Thomas Merton though. :)

Very Special, but Incomplete

It was indeed wonderful to hear Merton’s voice. And it was wonderful to begin to tag along to a profound idea he was developing.

But, candidly, he didn’t flesh it out sufficiently to make clear where exactly he was headed. The same was true with the two or three ideas from Buber he used to ground his own thoughts.

I know Buber’s teaching pretty deeply, so I know the thought he was drawing on.

But it would have helped exceedingly had he taken another ten minutes or so to get to the depth of the truth he was exploring and trying to teach.

Having made the criticism, I’m still glad I purchased the audio. A lot of value in this. And I’ll continue to work at trying to understand better what he taught.

Bad title and a waste of time

I wanted to like this talk, having just finished Buber’s I and Thou. Next to nothing was said about him or anything else.

Not much on Boober

Should be free. A lot of background noise in a lecture hall with people asking questions and making comments which can not be understood. Very disappointing!