The Asian journal of Thomas Merton. Edited from his original notebooks by Naomi Burton, Patrick Hart & James Laughlin. Consulting editor: Amiya Chakravarty

"This is quintessential Merton." The Catholic Review . "The moment of takeoff was ecstatic...joy. We left the groundI with Christian mantras and a great sense of destiny, of being at last on my true way after years of waiting and wondering..." With these words, dated October 15. 1968, the late Father Thomas Merton recorded the beginning of his fateful journey to the Orient. His travels led him from Bangkok, through India to Ceylon, and back again to Bangkok for his scheduled talk at a conference of Asian monastic orders. There he unequivocally reaffirmed his Christian vocation. His last journal entry was made on December 8, 1968, two days before his untimely, accidental death. Amply illustrated with photographs he himself took along the way and fully indexed, the book also contains a glossary of Asian religious terms, a preface by the Indian scholar Amiya Chakravarty, a foreword and postscript by Brother Patrick Hart of the Abbey of Gethsemani, as well as several appendices, among them the text of Merton's final address. Black-and-white photographs throughout

"The moment of takeoff was ecstatic...joy. We left the ground—I with Christian mantras and a great sense of destiny, of being at last on my true way after years of waiting and wondering..." With these words, dated October 15. 1968, the late Father Thomas Merton recorded the beginning of his fateful journey to the Orient. His travels led him from Bangkok, through India to Ceylon, and back again to Bangkok for his scheduled talk at a conference of Asian monastic orders. There he unequivocally reaffirmed his Christian vocation. His last journal entry was made on December 8, 1968, two days before his untimely, accidental death. Amply illustrated with photographs he himself took along the way and fully indexed, the book also contains a glossary of Asian religious terms, a preface by the Indian scholar Amiya Chakravarty, a foreword and postscript by Brother Patrick Hart of the Abbey of Gethsemani, as well as several appendices, among them the text of Merton's final address.

Merton's Pilgrimage To Asia, Reaching Out In Ecumenism To Islam, Zen, Sufism, And Buddhism, But Not Breaking From His Christian Roots. The Eastward Flight - October 15-18 -- Calcutta - October 19-27 -- New Delhi - October 28-31 -- The Himalayas - November 1-25 -- Madras - November 26-28 -- Ceylon - November 29-december 6 -- Bangkok - December 7-8 -- Complementary Reading -- Appendixes -- September 1968 Circular Letter To Friends -- On Mindfulness / Bhikkhu Khantipalo -- Thomas Merton's View Of Monasticism -- Monastic Experience And East-west Dialogue / Thomas Merton -- Special Closing Prayer -- November Circular Letter To Friends -- Marxism And Monastic Perspectives / Thomas Merton -- Letter To Abbot Flavian Burns -- The Significance Of The Bhagavad-gita / Thomas Merton. Edited From His Original Notebooks By Naomi Burton, Patrick Hart & James Laughlin. Consulting Editor: Amiya Chakravarty. Bibliography: P. 357-361.