title: Thomas Merton In Alaska: The Alaskan Conferences, Journals, and Letters (Prelude to the Asian Journal)
author:  Thomas Merton 
description: Merton grew and developed over the years, in an interior sense, more deeply than anyone I know, and came to be recognized as the leading mystical writer in the English-speaking world.<br /> - <strong>Robert Giroux</strong>
zlib_text: The Asian Journal is Thomas Merton's 
  diary record of his visit to the orient in I 968 
  - the fulfilment of a lifelong dream. He had 
  been asked to address a conference of Asian 
  monastic orders in Bangkok and this led to 
  further invitations and many meetings with 
  Buddhist monks, hermits, and teachers 
  including three extensive interviews with th 
  Dalai Lama. 
  The Asian Journal, illustrated with 
  photographs Merton took along the way, is. 
  fascinating record of the many people he 
  encountered and of his impressions of Asiar 
  cities and landscapes, on what was for him a 
  marvellous spiritual and intellectual 
  adventure. His last journal entry was made 
  on 8 December 1968, two days before his 
  untimely death. The book is fully indexed 
  and also contains a glossary of Asian 
  religious terms (the first of its kind in 
  English), a preface by the Indian scholar 
  Amiya Chakravarty, and a foreword and 
  postscript by Merton's secretary, Brother 
  Patrick Hart, telling of Merton's death and 
  fu