Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality

Photographs and Drawings by Thomas Merton

"Although these pages have been written for monks," Merton says, ".....they will have meaning for all religious and ineded for all Christians, since the monastic life is traditionally regarded as the pure Christian life."

In this early work, Merton urges monks to keep alive in the world that spiritual atmosphere without which all that is good and sane in human culture will die of asphyxiation.

"In the night of our technoligical barbarism," he says, "monks must be as trees which exist silently in the dark and by their vital presence purify the air."

126 pages soft cover