Merton achieved incredible realizations and great insight into Buddhism despite the fact that he lived most of his life as a monk and hermit isolated at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, USA. At the end of his life, invited to present a paper in Bangkok on the renewal of monasticism, Merton made what he called his 'Asian pilgrimage' and finally set out to see firsthand what he had studied in books. This journal took him all across Asia, to various holy sites, and to encounters with numerous religious communities. He met, along the way, such people as H.H. the Dalai Lama and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He records all of this, his encounters, and even more interestingly, his own reflection on Buddhism and Christianity, in this wonderful gem of a journal.
What would have happened had Merton lived a few more years? I often ask myself this. He was exploring not just the surface of Buddhism (even now, many decades later, the presentation of Buddhism in the West can be very superficial), but delving into its very heart -- mandalas, tantras, and so on, and probing into what their nature was and what this might mean for Christianity to encounter a spirituality that seemed at once totally foreign and alien, and yet at the same time the very essence of what Christianity means.
Merton was a brilliant individual. He does not succumb to easy platitudes such as "It's all the same thing" or anything like that. He respects difference. But he does also certainly see a deep and dazzling dynamic unity -- a truth -- that penetrates all of this -- and not just this, but every moment of our lives. That living power -- that is what is important, and he witnessed to this in his life and writings.