Thomas Merton was an American Christian monk, poet, social critic, and mystic. He was born in France, moved to the United States, and became a Roman Catholic at age twenty-three. He eventually became a Trappist monk, which is one of the strictest orders in Catholicism. But something about Buddhism drew Thomas Merton, and in 1968 he found himself on a plane to Asia for a monastic conference. He welcomed the opportunity to learn more about the Eastern religion he felt compelled to study. Merton remained a devoted Christian monk his entire life, but he actively worked for interreligious tolerance as his appreciation for the Eastern religion grew.

D. T. Suzuki was an influential presence in Merton's life. Their correspondences formed an essay collection called Zen and the Birds of Appetite, which was a dialogue about the similarities and differences between Christianity and Zen Buddhism. Merton came to believe that Buddhism and Christianity were completely compatible with each other and that the emptiness found in Zen could be related to the true self and the idea of unknowing found at the heart of Christian practice.

While he was in Asia, Merton met three times with the Dalai Lama and each was very impressed with the sincerity, humanity, and compassion of the other. They were able to give each other an understanding that their vision was perhaps not the only vision of truth, and each had come to the same realizations, had similar experiences from different approaches. Merton had a powerful awakening experience while in Sri Lanka, and believed that Buddhism had given him an ability to practice Catholicism in a very powerful way.