Decolonizing Comparative Mysticism: Thomas Merton’s Non-Orientalist Interspirituality

Thomas Merton was a pioneer in interreligious dialogue and interspirituality, engaging in years of correspondence with practitioners from Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Indigenous and other religious traditions. His extended dialogue with Zen writer D.T. Suzuki was published in Merton's Zen and the Birds of Appetite, and many of Merton's final days in Asia were spent with Tibetan monks and other Buddhist practitioners. Yet, Richard King and others have argued that despite Suzuki's warm reception in the West, he occupied a minority viewpoint within Zen which was tailor-made for such export. But this paper argues that Merton is no Orientalist appropriator. He was uniquely qualified to engage in interreligious dialogue, not because he was a scholarly expert, but because he was a mystic. Merton cultivated dialogue for the purposes of deepening his own monastic practice and fostering justice in the world. His pathbreaking interreligious exploration shows how interreligious dialogue can move in decolonizing directions.