The Other Side of the Mountain is the seventh and final volume of Thomas Merton's journals, covering the last two years of his life. In this book, Merton finally makes peace with his ambivalent relationship to the Church: his civil rights and anti-nuclear work, his interest in Eastern spirituality, and his love for Catholic orthodoxy coalesce into a mature voice that avoids the frosty pieties to which he was often partial in his younger years. This volume takes its title from an entry made during his final travels in India and the Far East. In this entry, he relates a dream about gazing at the mountain Kanchenjunga: I heard a voice saying--or got the clear idea of: "There is another side to the mountain." ... There is another side of Kanchenjunga and of every mountain--the side that has never been photographed and turned into postcards. That is the only side worth seeing. The next month, Merton died from accidental electrocution in a hotel room in Bangkok. --Michael Joseph Gross


From Publishers Weekly
This final volume of Thomas Merton's journals is filled with enthusiasm and vitality. Merton finally was out from under the thumb of Abbot James Fox, and the new abbot, Flavian Burns, one of Merton's former students, was ready to let Merton do just about anything that was likely to result in genuine spiritual renewal for Merton or the Abbey of Gethsemani. Merton's joy is almost palpable in his journal entries: "It is so utterly new to have an abbot here who is completely open to new possibilities! And it is certainly much more stimulating for the spiritual life!" During the years prior to those covered in this journal, Merton had been turning eastward toward Buddhism, in which he found great depths of spiritual energy. In these journals, we find Merton excitedly and thoughtfully preparing for his December 1968 trip to Thailand as well as notes from his visit to Alaska. With this final journal, we meet the Merton whose Catholicism had become truly catholic. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The seventh volume of Merton's journals opens a last revealing window on the life of one of the most influential contemplatives of the twentieth century, whose work possesses the potential to place him among the most influential of any century. Significant portions of the volume are the thoroughly ordinary observations of a man working through crises most often associated with midlife, but they are interlaced with extraordinary moments. Entries range from comments on the appearance of young women in airports and the "knowing looks" of nuns returning from liturgical conferences to an account of a series of meetings with the Dalai Lama that is packed with profound insights into Buddhism and Christianity. The journal ends abruptly, as Merton's life did, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is appropriate for a journal and a life that, like legends of Mary, are full of lively tension between ordinary humanity and sublime insight into the sacred. Essential for all those interested in Merton, in the contemplative life, and in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. Steve Schroeder


From Kirkus Reviews
This last volume in the series of Merton's published journals, edited by his secretary and friend, Brother Patrick Hart, records the far-flung thoughts and travels of the intrepid Trappist monk during the final 14 months of his unexpectedly shortened life. By the opening date of these journal entries, Oct. 18, 1967, Merton had been living for several years as a hermit, though still part of the monastic community of Gethsemani, in Kentucky. The paradoxical outcome of Merton's interdependent talents for writing and spirituality was a nagging tension between the fame that befell him for his books and the solitude he needed for his spiritual nurture. After some opening reflections on monastic politics, Merton's entries turn to what would become his final quest for optimal solitude, in trips to New Mexico, northern California, Alaska, and finally, courtesy of an invitation to attend a meeting of monastic superiors in Bangkok, to Asia, where he enjoyed three memorable interviews with the Dalai Lama. The form and content of the entries varies as much as the travels, including newly written poems by Merton himself, references to books he was readingby Kierkegaard, Hesse, George Steiner, Foucault, Anas Nin, among many othersdiscussion of current events, from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the remarriage of Jackie Kennedy, and, toward the end, extensive quotes from Hindu and Buddhist spiritual masters. Many of the entries show the hand of the accomplished writer, such as one, a month before Merton's death, on Calcutta, whose ``massive poverty and exhaustion'' revealed ``the innocence of despair.'' Merton saw Asia through the idea of its spirituality and found there, at life's end, what he in turn left as part of his own legacy: an opening onto a vast spiritual expanse that, beyond all self-expressive need, ``can afford to be silent, unnoticed, undiscovered.'' -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


New York Times Book Review
"Delightful...brilliant social, political, and personal commentaries."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The seventh and final volume of Thomas Merton's journals finds him exploring new territory, both spiritual and geographic, in the last great journey prior to his untimely death. Traveling in the United States and the Far East, Merton enjoys a new freedom that brings with it a rich mix of solitude, spirited friendship, and interaction with monks of other traditions. In his last days in the United States, Merton continues to follow the tumultuous events closing the 1960s, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Meanwhile, with the blessing of his new abbot, Merton travels to monasteries in New Mexico and among the redwoods of Northern California, keeping his journal all the while. When Merton wins approval to participate in a meeting of monastic superiors of the Far East in Bangkok, Thailand, his life enters its most thrilling period. Arriving in Calcutta, Merton is heartbroken by the poverty of the many beggars; in New Delhi and Dharamsala, he makes contact with local Buddhists, including the Dalai Lama. Recognizing each other as kindred spirits, Merton and the Dalai Lama speak from the heart like old friends.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kenneth Woodward

[Martin Luther]King and [Robert] Kennedy each left legacies. But Merton left us himself: 6,000 posthumously published pages....Merton's real autobiography is in his personal journals. They reveal an uncaged mind ceaselessly churned by contemporary events and cluture....To those of us who devoured his best-selling books on contemplative prayer, it seemed that Merton had all the important questions answered. But in the journals we find him turning old answers into new questions. —Newsweek

Laurie Scott

Thomas Merton, philosopher, peace activist, Trappist monk, ended his days as he had always lived them—as a seeker for enlightenment and the best of humanity. The Other Side of the Mountain is perhaps the most poignant volume in a seven-volume series of Merton journals....The last years of Merton's life were also among the most turbulent in American history, and it is fascinating to read his thoughts about Vietnam, American blood lust, and the civil rights struggle. But it is the account Merton's Asian pilgrimage that makes this last volume of the journals a fitting eulogy for the man who interpreted Eastern thought for the West, because he hoped it might awaken our better selves. —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Peter Coyote

The familiar Zen aphorism goes, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.' Each step of Merton's quest feels deliberately placed, solid as a well-placed flagstone. The fact taht we do not know 'how it all turns out' highlights our own lives as unfinished spiritual journeys. The pages become transparent and we can see through them into our own inner landscapes. In such convoluted territory, we could ask for no better mentor and guide than Thomas Merton. —San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle

Newsweek

Merton's real autobiography is in his personal journals. They reveal an uncaged mind ceaselessly churned by contemporary events and culture...In the journals we find him turning old answers into new questions.

John Rivera

But contrary to any notion that discourse on spirituality is simply bubble-headed blathering, there is much religious writing that is rational, literate and meets every standard of intellectual integrity....Some of the best of those books deal with the inner struggle, the frustrations and distractions that mark an authentic life of faith....One is the last of the seven volumes of the Merton journals The Other Side of the Mountain....Here are the musings of a holy man who is human, who embodies the notion that faith is a commitment that must be made and wrestled with constantly. —The Baltimore Sun Read all 15 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

"[Martin Luther]King and [Robert] Kennedy each left legacies. But Merton left us himself: 6,000 posthumously published pages....Merton's real autobiography is in his personal journals. They reveal an uncaged mind ceaselessly churned by contemporary events and cluture....To those of us who devoured his best-selling books on contemplative prayer, it seemed that Merton had all the important questions answered. But in the journals we find him turning old answers into new questions."  — HarperCollins

"Thomas Merton, philosopher, peace activist, Trappist monk, ended his days as he had always lived them--as a seeker for enlightenment and the best of humanity. The Other Side of the Mountain is perhaps the most poignant volume in a seven-volume series of Merton journals....The last years of Merton's life were also among the most turbulent in American history, and it is fascinating to read his thoughts about Vietnam, American blood lust, and the civil rights struggle. But it is the account Merton's Asian pilgrimage that makes this last volume of the journals a fitting eulogy for the man who interpreted Eastern thought for the West, because he hoped it might awaken our better selves."  — HarperCollins

"The familiar Zen aphorism goes, 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.' Each step of Merton's quest feels deliberately placed, solid as a well-placed flagstone. The fact taht we do not know 'how it all turns out' highlights our own lives as unfinished spiritual journeys. The pages become transparent and we can see through them into our own inner landscapes. In such convoluted territory, we could ask for no better mentor and guide than Thomas Merton."  — HarperCollins

"But contrary to any notion that discourse on spirituality is simply bubble-headed blathering, there is much religious writing that is rational, literate and meets every standard of intellectual integrity....Some of the best of those books deal with the inner struggle, the frustrations and distractions that mark an authentic life of faith....One is the last of the seven volumes of the Merton journals The Other Side of the Mountain....Here are the musings of a holy man who is human, who embodies the notion that faith is a commitment that must be made and wrestled with constantly."  — HarperCollins

"The seventh volume of Merton's journals opens a last revealing window on the life of one of the most influential contemplatives of the twentieth century....Essential for all those interested in Merton, in the contemplative life, and in Buddhist-Christian dialogue."  — HarperCollins

"Scholars and diehard Merton fans will welcome The Other Side of the Mountain as a necessary addition to the corpus of Merton's work. The rest of us will always be grateful to Thomas Merton for showing us the side with seven storys."  — HarperCollins