Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul

By Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows

This fresh translation of poetry by the fourteenth-century Christian mystic “sets the heart ablaze and the spirit soaring” (Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, author of The Artist’s Rule).

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) influenced a wide range of spiritual teachers and mystics both inside and outside the Christian tradition. Erich Fromm, Eckhart Tolle, Richard Rohr, D. T. Suzuki, and Rudolf Steiner have all credited Eckhart as being an important influence on their thought. In addition, his work has influenced the development of twentieth-century American Buddhism and the Theosophical tradition.

Eckhart wrote at a time—much like our own—when society appeared to be coming apart at the seams. In the midst of all that chaos and uncertainty, he captured the many forms and stages of God’s love, the mystic path, and the journey of transformation. His writings were so startling that he was even accused of heresy.

Now, seven centuries later, this fresh rendering of his work translates the essence of one of Christianity’s greatest poetic and spiritual voices, conveying the heart of his teachings about loving God and embarking on a spiritual journey characterized by mystery, paradox, and an embrace of the unknown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781612833767

Jon M. Sweeney

Jon M. Sweeney is an award-winning author who has been interviewed in the Dallas Morning News and The Irish Catholic, and on television at CBS Saturday Morning. His book, The Pope Who Quit, (Doubleday/Image) was optioned by HBO. He is also author of forty other books on spirituality, mysticism, and religion, including Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart, with Mark S. Burrows (Hampton Roads), the biography Nicholas Black Elk: Medicine Man, Catechist, Saint (Liturgical Press), and Thomas Merton: An Introduction to His Life and Practices (St. Martin’s Essentials and Penguin Random House Audio, 2021). His bookish reputation is nothing new. In 2014, Publishers Weekly featured Jon in an interview titled, “A Life in Books and On the Move.” He began the 1990s as a theological bookseller in Cambridge, and ended the decade founding a multifaith publishing house, SkyLight Paths Publishing, in Vermont. He’s worked in books and publishing ever since. Today he writes, reviews, edits, and recommends books, speaks regularly at literary and religious conferences, is a Catholic married to a rabbi, and is active on social media (Twitter @jonmsweeney; Facebook jonmsweeney). Sweeney lives in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee.

Book preview

Praise for Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart

In the ecstatic spirit of Rumi and Hafiz, Meister Eckhart's words dance and invite the reader into an intimate encounter with the divine. Reading these poems sets the heart ablaze and the spirit soaring.

—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, author of The Artist's Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom

"In reading Meister Eckhart's Little Book of the Heart, it again came to mind why I am so drawn to the poetry of Rumi, Hafiz, and Kabir. There is revelation in this book by Burrows and Sweeney. I sincerely feel it will help one look deeper into the eyes of the Christ and know more of God's knowledge and love."

—Daniel Ladinsky, international bestselling author of I Heard God Laughing, A Year with Hafiz, Love Poems from God, and other books of poetry

"I think Mark Burrows and Jon Sweeney achieve something quite rare and wonderful here. They make Eckhart clear, concise, and very compelling!

—Richard Rohr, OFM, bestselling author of Falling Upward, Breathing Under Water

If for many of us a dose of Meister Eckhart is like a morning pot of coffee, this concentrated and poetic reduction is like a book full of double espresso shots—each is about as much as you can take in and metabolize in a day.

—Brother Paul Quenon, Abbey of Gethsemani, author of Unquiet Vigil

The mystical vision of Eckhart uses words and imagery, not to define the Mystery, but to lead us into it. Likewise, these new renderings delight the mind and penetrate the soul, as Eckhart did centuries ago and continues to do in every age. They are a delight in themselves and a gift to those who travel the wayless way.

—Anthony J. Finnerty, chairman of The Eckhart Society (UK)

Copyright © 2017

by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

Cover design by Jim Warner

Cover photograph Sunflowers I, (oil on canvas), Bratby, John (1928–92)

Private Collection / Photo © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images

Interior by Kathryn Sky-Peck

Typeset in Truesdell

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

Distributed by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

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ISBN: 978-1-57174-764-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

available upon request

Printed in Canada

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CONTENTS

These Are Poems by Meister Eckhart

Opening the Heart's Door

1 Our Soul-Life

2 Letting Go

3 The Inner Spark

4 Radiance

5 Without Why

Enough Now

An Afterword: Seeking God on the Wayless Way

Notes and Sources for the Poems

THESE ARE POEMS BY MEISTER ECKHART. . .

. . . the 14th century German mystic, philosopher, friar, priest, and theologian. There's only one problem: Eckhart never wrote poems. He wrote in discursive prose: his academic works in Latin and many of his sermons in the German vernacular of his day. But his manner of expression, despite the formalities of genre, is often poetic to the core.

He also wrote at a time when the monastic orders were in turmoil, the papacy had fled to Avignon, apocalyptic fears and prophecies abounded, and his fellow Dominican friars as those charged with administering the Inquisition were hunting heretics all over the countryside. In the midst of all that, Meister Eckhart captured the many forms and stages of the love of God, the mystic path found in the most ordinary of moments, and the journey of transformation—all this in language so startling that he himself came under suspicion as a heretic. This was a time when original thinking and daring theological formulations were suspect. Yet his thought has endured and even flourished, in part because of the authenticity that rings throughout. Seven centuries later,