The Japanese word Sabi means loneliness or even aloneness, referring directly to sparseness and austerity. Of course, the Japanese flower arrangement illustrates its significance: ‘the idea that less is more with one flower attentively placed in a vase as opposed to a dozen flowers thoughtlessly dropped into one’. Wabi is translated as poverty. Whilst together wabi-sabi suggests the beauty of the withered, weathered, tarnished, scarred, intimate, coarse, earthly, evanescent, tentative and indeed ephemeral reality. Perhaps it is indeed possible to look carefully on the front cover of a book. White Chrysanthemums in an Urn are painted by Mary Potter and appear in a private collection with David Messum Fine Art gallery Ltd. Perhaps it is true that the blossoms are indeed lonely and alone whilst the image of wabi-sabi is most certainly isolated, separate and alone. The simple truth is that the book cover could possibly express the reality of the image.
Robert Waldron has written a fascinating text, Thomas Merton. Master of Attention (Darton, Longman & Todd, ISBN 13: 978-0-232-52714-8). No doubt that chapter eight of The Camera and the Contemplative Eye can indeed express the reality of White Chrysanthemums: wabi-sabi. It is certainly clear that Robert Waldron carefully explores the imagery of Merton with a closer emphasis upon his prayer life and that of Simone Weil, whose careful emphasis upon attention and grace is so close to all personal forms of prayer and contemplation. It is quite certain that Merton has reached far beyond the limitations of fixed religious traditions. He might experience Buddhism, Sufi Islam and classical Christian forms because he reaches towards the Beyond within the context of the Divine and the personal.
Whilst it is true that there are only ninety-three pages of text in Thomas Merton. Master of Attention, Robert Waldron’s chapters are persuasive. It should be noted that he is the author of many books including three of the life and work of Thomas Merton. The essential reality of this new book is an attempt to explore the inner life of prayer, not merely within Merton’s own tradition but also within the inner lives of Simone Weil and Czeslaw Milosz. It is clear that the great Polish poet had invited Merton to read Weil. The compelling similarities between Thomas and Simone are fairly obvious. They were born in France, were precocious readers, linguists in Latin and Greek, poets, worshippers in Corpus Christi, New York and were both carefully protected by Dr Tom Bennett who was a patient of Weil and the guardian of Merton. It was indeed the world of spirituality, spare beauty, the unworldly and mystical that expressed their personal reality, which is not only subtle and spiritual but deep, lying rooted within the abyss of the human heart. Whilst it is true that Thomas Merton converted to Christianity, it is equally certain that Simone Weil refused to be baptised, but it is true that within her inner life she confirmed her inward sense of Christian Spirituality, but she was certain that Christian baptism would be a religious betrayal. Weil rose far above institutionalism. For her the supreme object of attention was God. Her greatest book being Attente De Dieu (French edition 1950. Waiting on God in English, 1951). This little book is the finest introduction to the writings of Simone Weil, a young mystic and gifted scholar whose works were finally published after her death in England, and it most certainly brings most readers into direct contact with her powerful personality.
It has always been clear that Merton was one of the great masters of Christian spirituality. Yet it was in Ceylon that he approached the number of images of the Polonnaruwa Buddha. It is obvious that his private experience was the attention to Beauty in front of the physical presences of the Buddha, but beyond that he understood a profound awareness of spiritual wisdom. It was of course an aesthetic experience but above all a deeply divine or sacred experience. It has certainly been clear to Merton that the great statues are closely expressed by the power to rise above time and personality. Great statues are transcendent and timeless. The individual is freed.
Simone Weil will most certainly have risen far above the limitations of institutional religion. Merton devoted time to the Peace Movement rather than to her mysticism. Perhaps Simone has failed to be an orthodox mystic in the world of St Clare of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila or St Bernadette of Lourdes: a terrible mistake for the minds of the monastic Thomas Merton and the poet and litterateur Czeslaw Milosz. The truth is that the written works of Simone Weil rise far above the depths of institutionalism. She has exerted a tremendous impact on contemporary spirituality, which continues to develop today. Even Jacques Cabaud rose above the world of Simone Weil: ‘Attention is synonymous with contemplation.’
It is possible that the reader will find the true world of inner reality. Certainly, Robert Waldron’s book is one that explores the world of Thomas Merton as an authentic contemporary mystic, and a gifted writer. To say the least we know that Merton wrote more than forty books.