Selected Sermons and Treatises

A selection of the German sermons and treatises of Meister Eckhart, the Dominican preacher and Paris master who died around 1328. Most of the sermons were preached in Middle High German to nuns and lay people. The treatises include the Talks of Instruction, practical counsel on obedience and letting go of self-will; the Book of Divine Consolation, on bearing suffering; and On Detachment, which ranks detachment above love because it compels God to come to the soul. The sermons return to a few themes. God is born in the ground of the soul, where God and the soul are one; to receive that birth the soul must be empty of images and of its own will; and beyond God as we name him lies a silent Godhead. In the sermon on the poor in spirit, Eckhart says true poverty is to want nothing, know nothing and have nothing, and even prays to be rid of God. In 1329 Pope John XXII condemned twenty-eight propositions drawn from his works.

Eckhart's daring language about detachment, the ground of the soul and the Godhead beyond God remains a central reference for Christian mysticism and for comparisons with Buddhism and Vedānta.