Bonus: Meister Eckhart Resources

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Kirsten Oates (0:07)

Welcome, everyone, to this special bonus episode to round out season seven of Turning to the Mystics, where we've been turning to the German mystic, Meister Eckhart.

In this episode, Jim's going to present some additional resources for those who want to continue to study Meister Eckhart. And I know we've had a lot of requests from participants around what they could study next. So Jim, thank you so much for doing this today.

James Finley (0:37)

Yes, I'm glad we're doing it. I hope it helps the listeners.

Yes, I'll just walk through this. You know, I would say, first of all, considering the nature of the podcast, for many of you, just listening to the talks on Eckhart is enough, you know, and I mean, it's poetic and insightful and encouraging and it's nourishing and all of that. But for those of you that would be inclined to pursue it further on your own, I'd like to share some resources and also suggest how to use the resources in terms of the path. And so the resources, and these, there are other resources, but these are the main ones that I've used to varying degrees that have helped me.

First, I think a bridge to the podcast would be The Little Book Cyprians by Cyprian Smith, The Spiritual Life is Taught by Meister Eckhart, The Way of Paradox, The Way of Paradox by Cyprian Smith. And it's like the podcast, it's very experiential, very simple, very direct, actually seeking to live by this experience of Divine Awakening. And the other source would also be similar, is I did an audio set with Sounds True, titled Meister Eckhart's Living Wisdom, Indestructible Joy and the Path of Letting Go.

And so they're like maybe five hours, four hours of talk similar to the podcast. The other sources are very helpful in the sense in which they kind of give the academic background and sources of Eckhart. So for example, they'll take a pat, they'll give a sermon by Eckhart.

And then in the sermon by Eckhart, they will show the background of the Augustinian Neoplatonic influence, the Aristotelian Thomistic Aequinas influence, the Pseudodyneizees, different sources, how Eckhart drew from all of those, and then how he put his own unique insight into that. And so these sources are very helpful, but because they're academic to some degree, we'll talk later about how to use these sources, if you're so inclined, like how to be patient with it and benefit from it. So I'd like to share the ones that have most helped me in this way. The first one is Reiner Sherman, A Wandering Joy, Meister Eckhart's Mystical Philosophy. I found it to be very good, and especially the middle section on the intensities of releasement. Where he poetically walks through detachment, and then how that leads to the birth of the word and the soul, and how that leads to the essence of the breakthrough into the ground, with excerpts from the sermons that demonstrate that process. He also, I think, does three sermons, and he walks sentence by sentence through these sermons, quoting the resources, the background, where it's from and so on. I found that to be very helpful.

There's another resource that I found very helpful along the same way, and it's Bernard McGinn's book, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart. And we're pleased that Bernard McGinn is going to be a guest on the podcast, on Mechtild, but also who'd be weaving in Eckhart. And it's also very good, very insightful with his own insights into and to Eckhart's teachings and understanding the teachings. And I found that to be another source similar to Reiner Sherman.

The other sources are ones I've also enjoyed very much, but I've not studied as intensely as Reiner Sherman and McGinn. One is Oliver Davies, Meister Eckhart, Mystical Theologian, Robert Forman, Mystic-S Theologian, and Richard Woods, Meister Eckhart, Master of Mystics. And I thought those are all very fine.

You couldn't go wrong with any of them, along these same lines like this.

Then of course, there's the collected sermons themselves, like access to the sermons to read them. And in access to the sermons, there are several sources. One, Matthew Fox, who was a guest speaker on the podcast. His book Breakthrough, Meister Eckhart's Creation, Spirituality, and New Translation is another way to get a hold of the actual translation. And you have his commentary on his insights into creation, spirituality. There's also the Paulist Press series on the mystics.

Whenever there's a volume on that and all these mystics, I rely on them. The other one is that OC. Walsh is the translator of the... Let me find this just a moment.