The thirty of us represented numerous traditions and came from many different parts of the country. The Christian participants included seven Benedictines, two Maryknolls, a Sister of Providence, a Religious of the Sacred Heart, a Sister of Notre Dame, and a Russian Orthodox nun. The sixteen Buddhists showed similar diversity: a Soto Zen nun, one from the Forest Thai tradition, several Tibetan Buddhists, and others with roots in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. We came together from monasteries in many parts of the United States, including New York, Indiana, Kansas, North Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, and California, as well as from communities in Canada, England, and Nepal.

After a warm welcome by the abbot of Hsi Lai Temple we spent the first day, a Friday, hearing five-minute verbal “snap shots” from each of the participants. After every seven or eight of these snap shots we paused to gather together the issues, concerns, themes, and “hot topics” that had been raised. Other topics surfaced in our small-group sessions. We clustered all of these topics into three areas for further consideration: (1) the inner life of training, (2) the need for balance between inner, contemplative work and outer, social engagement, and (3) community, the role of authority, and what we have in common in our monastic practice. Listed below are many of the topics that yielded these three general areas. Although the list itself may appear somewhat dry, the topics actually led to very animated and sustained discussion not only during our formal dialogue in the stately conference room but also during the “in-between moments” throughout the day and during the evening periods of “nun talk” in the residence before we retired each night.

Some Issues that Emerged from the “Snap Shots”:

• Are wisdom and compassion “dualistic” or complementary?
• We are products of our history: How is this a plus? A minus?
• How do we cultivate respect for the diversity and complexity of our traditions?
• What can be done to simplify our lives, our faith, and our relationships?
• What do we understand by the related but distinct terms “nun” and “sister”?
• How can we become more open to and accepting of differences among us?
• What does “community” mean in our various traditions?
• How can we best confront problems of patriarchy and hierarchy?

Issues of control (personal and communal) and of leadership

• How can we be relevant to our world and yet remain faithful to our traditions?
• Adaptation of our traditions: We want to be open to change but also authentic.

Some Topics that Emerged from the Small Group Sessions Following the Snap Shots:

Various ways of being a nun

Group One:

• Engagement in externals and commitment to an interior life: need for balance
• The notion of “expanding the heart”
• Innovative forms of social action
  Moments of transformation, the need for continual transformation
• Appropriate garb for nuns/sisters

Group Two:

• Chant as a vehicle for expressing feelings about contemplative life
• Music as a way of life
• The meaning of being “contemplative in action”
• Feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, obtuseness
• The difference between humility and humiliation
• Do we need to earn the right to be a contemplative? Is this deep in women’s consciousness?
• The vows create conditioning: What kind? With what effects?
• A new way of social action: teaching others to express their emotions

Group Three:

• Social activism: Does it inform contemplative life as strongly as the latter informs social action?
• What do we mean by “cultivation of mind”?
• Breakdown vs. breakthrough: Is breakdown caused by lack of community or lack of cultivation of mind?
• The role of the teacher in the various traditions
• The feminine divine
• What is the value of organization in all of this?

Group Four:

• Becoming financially self-supporting—an important contemporary issue
• Prayer in Christianity and in Buddhism
• Evolution of the human psyche: No established religion seems to know how to deal with this.
• Different manifestations of God: Where does this notion fit in our various traditions?
• Focus on intuition: Do we trust it?
• What does “presence” mean?
• Teaching—Spiritual Direction—Spiritual Formation: How do they differ?

Comments Voiced in the Entire Group during Late Afternoon Discussion:

• “I appreciated listening to the experience of others, especially the openness and genuineness of all who spoke.”
• “There was a good discussion about ‘grace’ as a sense of the presence of God. Buddhists do not have a direct sense of God but of conversion, turning to new life.”
• “The discussion about discipline was helpful. We all come from traditions that reverence discipline and training. What is a realistic expectation of how to train and of what training can accomplish? Does mixing lineages or traditions make training easier or more difficult?”
• “Extreme discipline may ultimately be helpful (and often is), but how can we avoid the harm it may cause along the way?”
• “A problem today is that scholars are taking the place of monastic teachers. The real teacher is a symbolic action, not someone who talks a lot. The problem is found in both Buddhist and Christian monasticism. For Christians the problem began when universities arose out of monasteries and the intellect, not the heart, became predominant.”
• “Can Buddhists teach Christian meditation practice and techniques, or is our faith understanding so different that this is not possible? In turn, can Christians share Buddhist meditation techniques while knowing that Buddhist meditation is a religious act from a tradition different from Christianity?”
• “The novice directors in our Catholic communities often trained us ‘above the river’ and not below, at the deep level of inner training for contemplation.”
• “At some stage many Christians jettison doctrine and are drawn simply to the quest for God. At this level there is great unanimity with Buddhists.”
• “We need to know all religions, for they can each enrich our own path.”

Dialogue on these and related points continued even during our meals. But we did not spend all of our time in dialogue and discussion. We punctuated our time together with both formal and informal prayers and chants. We observed and participated in the chants of our host temple and of some of our participants. On Sunday evening, May 25, Fr. Tom Sherman, a Jesuit from Loyola-Marymount University, presided for us at Eucharist. On the next day, our last, we closed with a feeling of gratitude and a sense that the event will reveal its fruits for years and years to come.

The Benedictine participants met near the end of the meeting to plan our report to the MID board for its annual meeting at Mepkin Abbey this October. We hope to propose a second gathering of Nuns in the West, to be held over the Memorial Day weekend in 2005, again at Hsi Lai Temple. Other participants will be drafting their own reports. I would like to conclude this one of mine with some questions that have become important to me:

1. How do we best understand God, and how can we Christians make our understanding of God more intelligible to Buddhists? And what do we mean when we speak of the presence of Christ in our hearts?
2. How can nuns be accountable to traditional lineages when there is such disruption and discontinuity in our times? Is it wise to choose teachers from different traditions? How can teachings be recognized as incompatible and not helpful for promoting one’s inner clarity?
3. In the West, celibacy is difficult but essential for monastics. How do we protect this cherished practice?
4. How important is ordination? Who is qualified to start a new monastic foundation? More basically, what specifies the monastic way of life? So many people want meditation practice and the fruits of a clear mind without going through training and accepting structures. How much training should nuns in the West insist on as part of their heritage? And who and where are the qualified teachers?
5. There are many practical questions about money, lay support, and collaboration. How can be we available for service to others and yet not end up being purchased or corrupted or diluted in our practice?
6. Lay Dharma teachers, or Oblates in the Christian monastic tradition, pledge to live monastic values in lay life, but many of them are now teaching the monastic way of life-and yet this can only be known from the inside by having lived it. How can the monastic have a clear voice and properly collaborate with lay teachers? If there is an “archetype of the monk” in every person, is it just a matter of different outward forms lived according to personal zeal and historical conditions? Or is the monastic way of life truly distinct from the lay way?
7. Lay teachers and monastics alike often select “this and that” in an eclectic way from the whole of the life and make their selection “portable.” For example, can a Christian practice Zazen and also take refuge in Christ? How much mixing and matching can be done without harming the traditions as authentic vehicles of spiritual transmission?

For me, however, far more important than such questions were the relationships built among the thirty nuns who gathered for those days at Hsi Lai. Knowing each other face to face and having the heart-to-heart experience of dialogue was precious. Those who would like to learn more about the meeting and see some photos taken there can go to our MID Website, www.monasticdialog.com and click on the picture of “us nuns.” Further information is also available at www.urbandharma.org/nunsof west.html.