| Author Quoted | |
| Title Quoted | I ching : or book of changes / the Richard Wilhelm transl. ; rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes ; foreword by C.G. Jung |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1959/05/05 |
| Imprint | [New York] : Pantheon Books. [1950] |
| Quotation | The other thing that has kept me waiting is the need for time to digest the superb letter of Pasternak. Things have been in a rush here since Easter, and I have hardly had time to settle down to it until now. It is a tremendously important document, as I need not tell you. One of the things that please me most about it is that it confirms an intuition of my own. You compare him to Donne: I saw a very interesting analogy with an ancient Chinese book which P. probably does not know at all. It is the Book of Oracles called the I Ching. This consists of a series of symbolic configurations of events, or "changes" which one arrives at by drawing lots or tossing coins; but that is not the important thing. What is fascinating is the fact that each change is exactly that sort of fluid "style of movement" "¦ "arrangement of groups" "¦ which constitutes Pasternak's inclinations. Jung has written a fascinating preface to the I Ching, bringing in his archetypes. The I Ching had a tremendous influence on both Confucius and Lao Tzu, and what amazes me is that it is exactly the Pasternak approach. |
| Quotation Source | The Hidden Ground of Love: The Letters of Thomas Merton on Religious Experience and Social Concerns.; Selected and edited by William H. Shannon. / New York : Farrar Straus Giroux. 1985, p. 389 |
| Letter to | John Harris |
| Notes | |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
43078
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