Notes on an Intrareligious Dialogue

from Bulletin 74, April 2005

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A relationship, a dance, begins to develop . . . you are not putting up any resistance. Whenever there is no resistance, a sense of rhythm occurs. The music and the dance take place at the same time. That is the lion’s roar. Whatever occurs . . . is regarded as the path; everything is workable. It is a fearless proclamation—the lion’s roar.—Chögyam Trungpa(1)

Everything I think or do enters into the construction of a mandala. It is the balancing of experience over the void, not the censorship of experience. And no duality of experience—void. Experience is full because it is inexhaustible void. It is not mine. It is “uninterrupted exchange”. It is dance . . . . Word. Utterance and return. “Myself”. No-self. The self is merely a locus in which the dance of the universe is aware of itself as complete from beginning to end—and returning to the void. Gladly. Praising, giving thanks, with all beings. Christ light—spirit—grace—gift. (Bodhicitta)—Thomas Merton(2)

Subsequent to a presentation that I recently gave to my community on the spirituality of interreligious dialogue,(3) I was asked to summarize how my experience of interfaith dialogue has affected or benefited me personally. Since then, as I have reflected on how Buddhism has had and continues to have a positive, subtle, significant, and pervasive influence on my life as a whole, I have realized that to try to summarize how my experience of dialogue has affected or benefited me personally is not simply a matter of stating what I have learned, or of enumerating the insights that I have come to. Rather, what I have learned is contained in what has happened to me as a person whose entire life in one way or another has been shaped or affected by his experience of interreligious dialogue, which at its truest and best is a matter of “cor ad cor loquitur”—heart speaking to heart.(4) Thus, in order to intelligently and responsibly address myself to such a question, I first have to be able to somehow articulate the essence of what has happened to me over these many years as a result of my deepening experience of both Buddhism and Christianity (i.e., of interreligious dialogue), which really has been the existential meeting and, as it were, ongoing interior marriage of two hearts, “of . . . two dimensions of human existence, the rational and intuitive, the conscious and unconscious, the masculine and feminine . . . the marriage of East and West.”(5) Then, once this has been done, I can begin to unpack at greater length some of what I have learned and what I am still learning as a result of this ongoing spiritual adventure. I can then try to bring these notes to some kind of conclusion. But how do I even begin to communicate the essence of what has happened to me in the course of this very wonderful and demanding “marriage”? In the space of a few pages, how exactly do I go about summarizing a lifetime of dialogical experience?

This is, admittedly, a difficult task. For it is one thing to say that, to the extent that I have been seemingly always attracted to Eastern religions in general and to Buddhism in particular, especially in its Zen and Tibetan forms, interreligious dialogue—or, perhaps more accurately, intrareligious dialogue(6)—has been an integral and constitutive element of my personal identity as such—that because this profound attraction has been a part of me for as long as I can remember (so long in fact that I cannot put an exact date to when it actually began), many times over the years it has seemed to me that I was somehow born with this deep affinity for the Buddhist religion in general and for Zen and Tibetan Buddhism in particular; that, this being the case, as a Benedictine monk who is dedicated to a life of contemplation and/or seeking God, I have always found interreligious and intrareligious dialogue to be at the very heart of my personal and monastic identity;(7) that, consequently, Buddhism has been and continues to become in ever more stimulating ways my natural partner in dialogue and in my quest for the Absolute or Supreme Identity;(8) that over the years my studious reading of Buddhist texts and my feeble, rudimentary efforts at Buddhist meditation practice have subtly and significantly influenced for the better not only my Christian faith but my understanding of what it means to be a monk and a person as well;(9) that, at this point, I cannot imagine being an authentic Christian monk and an authentic human being without Buddhism—it is one thing for me to say all of this; it is quite another to summarize its personal significance. And yet I know that this is not an impossible task, for it can be done. I just need to be more specific.

This being the case, how would I summarize what has happened to me as a result of my deepening experience of inter-/intrareligious dialogue? Simply stated, I can say this about my dialogue with Buddhism: It has made and continues to make me a better listener. And this has had a profound influence on my understanding of myself as a person, and on that of my monastic vocation as well. For as I presently try to take a retrospective look at this lifelong and ongoing “multireligious experience,”(10) this intrareligious dialogue, I can see how my reading of Buddhist texts and my practice of Buddhist meditation have indeed helped to open “the ear of [my] heart”(11) in such a way that I am better able to attend to and recognize the richness not only of my Christian faith and monastic heritage,(12) but that of my personhood as well, which transcends and includes both. In other words, through, with, in, and by my experience of Buddhism, I have become a more “heart-y” listener, with the result that I am repeatedly coming home to my Christian faith,(13) to my monastic vocation, and to myself in ever new and vital ways.

But what exactly is it about Buddhism that has made possible this growth in openness and listening? There are of course a variety of things that I could mention, but there are two specifically that I would like to touch on here. The first gift of Buddhism (and here I am speaking with specific reference to Tibetan or Vajrayana Buddhism) that I have found to be most enriching and with which I have resonated most strongly is its fearless, unconditional, utterly sacramental and non-dual(14) view of reality, the spiritual goal of which is “to integrate all aspects of life into one great poem”(15) of “cosmotheandric”(16) transparency. This vision of reality is of course firmly rooted in a deep contemplative(17) penetration or direct experiential knowledge of the ultimate nature of reality that is pure gift and unspeakable grace.(18)

It is important to note, however, that

The “reality” through which the contemplative “penetrates” in order to reach a contact with what is “ultimate” in it is actually his own being, his own life.(19) The contemplative is [thus] not one who directs a magic spiritual intuition upon other objects, but one who, being perfectly unified in himself and recollected in the center of his own humility, enters into contact with reality by an immediacy that forgets the division between subject and object. In a certain sense, by losing himself and by forgetting himself as an object of reflection, he finds himself and all other reality together. This “finding” is beyond concepts and beyond practical projects.

The contemplative does not set out to achieve a kind of intuitive mastery of history, or of man’s [sic] spirit, or of the things of God. He seeks [rather] the center of his own living truth, and there all that he needs to perceive of these other mysteries is granted to him at the moment when he needs it.(20)

Now, this is important to keep in mind because it points to the simple but utterly profound fact that contemplation “means precisely the overcoming of the spacio-temporal categories as the only possible way of being consciously in the world and of participating in the ongoing process of existence.”(21) That

Contemplation does not seek to understand rationally, nor is it an act of the imagination or a product of fantasy; it does not ignore or despise the life of matter, of the senses and of reason (for it is based on them), but [it] transcends them; it is actual participation in the reality one contemplates, real sharing in the things one “sees,” dynamic identification with the truth one realizes. Contemplation is [thus] not merely an act of mind, but is “touch,” real existential contact, to use a metaphor not only precious to Plotinus in the Western tradition but also to the early Tamil bhakti poet-saints of South India. Contemplation, to further trace this line of thought, implies an “eating” of the object and also a “being eaten;” it discloses the absolute mutual transparency of subject and object. Seen another way, contemplation is the actual building of the temple of reality, wherein the onlooker is equally part and parcel of the whole construction. This may be the reason why “concentration,” i.e., the ontic crystallization of what is, the condensation of reality in the self above and beyond the mere psychological state, is in all traditions one of the most important features of the contemplative mood. It is a vision of totality through the discovery of the center within: as above, so below, as the ancient hermetic formula put it. Nothing is then more obvious than that contemplation does not exclusively depend on the will of Man [sic] or the “nature of things.” It requires a higher harmony as an integrating force. Contemplation is an ontological phenomenon.(22)

“True contemplation is thus an experience, not an experiment.”(23) It is not some thing that one can use as a tool to be manipulated as the means by which to achieve a given end. It is, rather, an end in and of itself—“a totally uncluttered appreciation of existence, a state of mind or a condition of [being] that is simultaneously wide-awake and free from all preoccupation, preconception, and interpretation.”(24) And while

We may deny the truth-content of such an act [or experience], [while we may] refuse to accept it or even refer to it as pathological (a product of shamanic “madness” or the magical hallucinations of a bygone age), . . . if we speak of contemplation at all we have to take this claim seriously and deal with it accordingly . . . . The fact that not all [people] have access to such an experience does not deny the possibility or even the plausibility of such an experience, since there is hardly anyone who has not been called upon to transcend his own limitations by an experience of conversion into “something”—or rather “somebody”—else which will maintain alive his constitutive human openness.(25)

To say, therefore, that I have found Buddhism’s non-dual vision of reality to be most enriching is to say that I have benefited immensely from the primacy that this tradition has given to the experience of contemplation and from its elucidation of the same. It is thus also to say that I have gained and continue to gain an ever greater appreciation for the fact that “If there is any possible bridge between the different religious traditions (by which we understand ultimate forms or styles of life), only the contemplative can be in two or more traditions, and thus perform a mediatorial and integrating role.”(26)

Now, the second gift of Buddhism that I would like to consider is of course intimately related to the first. Because of this, and since the constraints of time and space (and my limited knowledge of the subject) currently prevent me from doing more, I will be able to make but brief mention of it here. The gift to which I am referring is Buddhism’s highly developed meditative psychology, known in its classical form as Abhidharma, which has been consistently systematized and refined for over 2,500 years.(27) This breathtakingly thorough and dynamic inner science of the mind describes in unrivalled detail the workings of perception, cognition, affect and motivation, and affords one numerous, varied, and invaluable insights into the nature of human awareness and consciousness, our potential for psychospiritual growth, as well as a wealth of skillful, gentle, and practical means (i.e., meditation practices) by which we can foster comprehensive psychological change and profound spiritual or contemplative transformation. Indeed, while Abhidharma is the classical system of Buddhist psychology (of which there are at present several versions), there are many more meditative psychologies or maps, especially in Tibetan Buddhism, each of which elaborates “its own practical applications in psychospiritual development.”(28)

This being the case, and even though I am only barely acquainted with Buddhism’s “inner science,”(29) though I have caught only glimpses of this tradition’s science of the mind, I can say from my own meager experience that I have benefited considerably from my rather limited exposure to it thus far. More specifically, I feel that I have gained some insight into the nature and workings of my own heart-mind. As a result, I feel that I am more aware of and, hence, a little more detached from all of the thoughts, stories, hopes, fears, dreams, plans, judgments, desires, and roles to which I was formerly so attached and with which I used to identify. Consequently, I feel possessed of a more creative freedom and a vaster or truer sense of self, that I am gradually coming to rest ever more in the sapiential knowledge of my constantly being born and dying into love—the hidden, undefinable wholeness of infinite, timeless, flowing activity(30) that is the mysterious, self-luminous, and life-giving essence of who we always and already are. In other words, my sense of personal identity has shifted(31) and continues to shift to such an extent that I can no longer recognize myself in many of the static descriptions or stultifying predicates that once seemed to define me or distinguish me from others. Thus, through this gift, through my study of Buddhist “mind science” and practice of Buddhist meditation, I feel that I am in more direct contact—which means direct experience—with my true self and with reality as a whole.(32)

Because of these two wonderful and priceless gifts of Buddhism, then, I feel that I have become a truly better listener. That is to say, in learning through study and meditative practice how to let go of myself, “to let go of all the information, all the concepts, all the ideas, and all the prejudices”(33) with which I used to normally or regularly identify, I have become more mindful of and attentive to the ground of my being which is beyond ego, and which is intimately, profoundly and inextricably one with the Groundless Ground from which all being flows. Indeed, through the mutually enriching gifts of Buddhism and Christianity, I have discovered for myself that meditation is the place where I can practice going beyond my senses, beyond my thoughts and feelings, to experience the unity of reality; that it is through, with, and in meditation that

I can become [increasingly] aware of the ground of my being in matter, in life, in human consciousness. I can experience my solidarity with the universe, with the remotest star in outer space and with the minutest particle in the atom. I can experience my solidarity with every living thing, with the earth, with these flowers and . . . trees, with the birds and squirrels, with every human being. I can get beyond all these outer forms of things in time and space and discover the Ground from which they all spring. I can know the Father, the Origin, the Source, beyond being and not-being, the One ‘without a second’. I can know the birth of all things from this Ground, their coming into being in the Word . . . . [which] is the self-manifestation of the Father and the Self of all beings. I have existed eternally in this Word and so have all these things, this earth, these flowers and birds and squirrels. We came forth in the Word from the Father beyond time and space, and there we stand eternally before him [in the Spirit].(34)

1. Chögyam Trungpa, The Myth of Freedom (Boston: Shambhala, 2002), 70-71.
2. Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal (New York: New Directions, 1973), 68.
3. “Radical Openness: Toward a Christian Spirituality of Interreligious Dialogue in Depth,” in the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin No. 73 (October 2004), 38-40.
4. See Aloysius Pieris, “The Buddha and the Christ: Mediators of Liberation,” in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Toward a Pluralistic Theology of Religions, edited by John Hick and Paul F. Knitter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987), 162-164; as cited in Paul F. Knitter’s “The Vocation of an Interreligious Theologian: My Retrospective on Forty Years in Dialogue”, in Horizons 31/1 (2004), 140.
5. Bede Griffiths, The Marriage of East and West: A Sequel to the Golden String (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1982), 8.
6. Recall the important distinction that Raimon Panikkar makes between inter- and intrareligious dialogue. See “Eruption of Truth: An Interview with Raimon Panikkar” by Henri Tincq and translated by Joseph Cunneen, 2; at http://www.emptybell.org/panikkar.html.
7. Because of this I readily and wholeheartedly agree with what Jef Boeckmans said in his conclusion to “Dialogue and Monastic Life,” in the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin No.70: “Our real home is the whole human world with all its diversity of religious and cultural expression, and to leave home is to find the very roots of our own religious tradition. Of course we must also reflect: we need a new Christology and a new pneumatology [and a new or more contemplative anthropology]. Without relationships, without love, there is no truth. Without deep respect there is no truth. We have a long way to go. But the core of our monastic vocation is to recognize Christ in all humanity and all humanity in Christ” (47).
8. See Alan Watts, The Supreme Identity: An Essay on Oriental Metaphysic and the Christian Religion (New York: Random House, 1972).
9. The same, of course, can be said for the reciprocal influence that my Christianity has had on my experience and understanding of Buddhism. As for what would be a specifically Christian contribution to this intrareligious cross-fertilization, and thus to the search for identity that has taken shape and is yet unfolding within this existential context, of paramount importance is the notion that God is unconditional love. Hence the significance of the following statement: “Christian faith is rooted in the unconditional love of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ in a unique way. This love extends to the whole cosmos in space and time, and perhaps embraces even more than that. Unconditionality implies that love cannot be limited spatially or temporally, nor can it depend on the condition of knowing this. Faith as trust in God’s unconditional love, therefore, is a pure gift of the loving God. In Christian theology, God is conceived in Trinitarian dynamics so that God’s actions ad extra are indivisible (opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt). Consequently, the very act of reconciliation is present in creation and in the free presence of the spirit everywhere and at all times, not only implicitly but also explicitly. What follows is that human beings in all their languages, religions, circumstances of life, and attitudes of consciousness are being reached by God’s reconciling presence” (Michael von Brück, “Christ and the Buddha Embracing,” in The Other Half of My Soul: Bede Griffiths and the Hindu-Christian Dialogue, compiled by Beatrice Bruteau [Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1996], 233-234).
10. Raimon Panikkar, The Intrareligious Dialogue, revised edition (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), 50. For an eloquent sketch of the religious attitude required of one who embarks on such an intrareligious or multireligious venture see pages 50-51 of this same text.
11. See the first sentence of the Prologue of “The Rule of St. Benedict”, in RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes, edited by Timothy Fry et al. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1981), 157. Hereafter designated as RB.
12. Here it is worth noting that my being deeply rooted and immersed in the richness of the Christian mystical tradition—e.g., the desert fathers and mothers, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, to name but a few representatives of this tradition—has afforded me (and continues to afford me) valuable insights into the spiritual life that have resonated strongly with the spiritual wisdom of the East; that this is what has enabled me to enter into meaningful dialogue with Buddhism (and Hinduism, Judaism and Islam as well). These insights include but are not limited to the following: (1) the priority of experience over speculation; (2) the inadequacy of words to articulate religious experience; (3) the fundamental oneness of all reality; (4) the realization that the goal of all spiritual discipline is transformation of consciousness; and (5) “purity of heart” or liberation from attachment. See William H. Shannon, “Thomas Merton in Dialogue with Eastern Religions”, in The Vision of Thomas Merton, edited by Patrick F. O’Connell (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 2003), 214.
13. An example of what I mean by this is how I have come to understand who Jesus Christ is for me/us today. And who do I say that Jesus Christ is? For my answer to this question see David Steindl-Rast’s, “Who Is Jesus Christ for Us Today?,” in The Christ and the Bodhisattva, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. and Steven C. Rockefeller (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1987), 113-115; 102.
14. Simply stated, a non-dual view of reality can be understood to hold that the Absolute, be it called God, Buddha, Brahman, or whatever, is not separate from us; that absolute reality and the relative world are “not-two” (which is the meaning of “non-dual”), much as a mirror and its reflections are not separate, or the sun is one with its rays, or the ocean is one with its many waves. Also, it is worth noting that the experience of the non-dual nature of absolute and relative reality is a direct, immediate, and momentary realization which occurs in certain meditative states—i.e., seen with the “eye of contemplation”—although over time and with ongoing meditation practice this momentary realization and contemplative perception can become a very stable, simple, constant, and extraordinarily ordinary perception or realization that is with one at all times, whether one is meditating or not.
15. Michael von Brück, op. cit., 225. See note 7 above.
16. See Raimon Panikkar’s extensive treatment of this theme in his Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), in which he defines the cosmotheandric intuition or principle as follows: “The cosmotheandric principle could be formulated by saying that the divine, the human and the earthly—however we may prefer to call them—are the three irreducible dimensions which constitute the real, i.e., any reality inasmuch as it is real. . . . What this intuition emphasizes is that the three dimensions of reality are neither three modes of a monolithic undifferentiated reality, nor three elements of a pluralistic system. There is rather one, though intrinsically threefold, relation which manifests the ultimate constitution of reality. Everything that exists, any real being, presents this triune constitution expressed in three dimensions. I am not only saying that everything is directly or indirectly related to everything else: the radical [relationality] or pratîtyasamutpâda of the buddhist [sic] tradition. I am also stressing that this relationship is not only constitutive of the whole, but that it flashes forth, ever new and vital, in every spark of the real. . . . The cosmotheandric intuition is not a tripartite division among beings, but an insight into the threefold core of all that is, insofar as it is” (60-61).
17. Here it is worth noting that the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism makes an important distinction between meditation and contemplation that is also found in the Christian mystical tradition. See Chögyal Namkhai Norbu, The Crystal and the Way of Light: Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2000), 112-113. See also Bede Griffiths’ conference entitled, “Dzogchen and Christian Contemplation,” in the AIM Monastic Bulletin No. 55 (1993), 122-123.
18. Here it is interesting to note that, contrary to popular opinion, “grace” is not a foreign concept to Buddhism. Indeed, as Marco Pallis noted in his A Buddhist Spectrum: Contributions to Buddhist-Christian Dialogue (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2003): “The important thing to recognize . . . is the fact that the word ‘grace’ corresponds to a whole dimension of spiritual experience; it is unthinkable that this should be absent from one of the great religions of the world . . . . [For] this is the function of grace, namely to condition [our] homecoming to the center from start to finish. It is the very attraction of the center itself, revealed to us by various means, which provides the incentive to start on the way and the energy to face and overcome its many and various obstacles. Likewise grace is the welcoming hand into the center where [we find ourselves] at long last on the brink of the great divide where all familiar human landmarks have disappeared” (66, 71).
19. This insight is perfectly consistent with the experience of the early (i.e., fourth-century) desert fathers and mothers, for example, Evagrius Ponticus, who wrote, “When the spirit has reached the state…of grace, then it sees in prayer its own nature like…the sky. In the Scripture this is called the kingdom of God” (On the Thoughts, edited by Paul Géhin, Claire Guillaumont, Antoine Guillaumont, Évagre le Pontique: Sur les pensées, SC 438 [Paris: Cerf, 1998], 39). It is also perfectly consistent with what Longchenpa, the great fourteenth-century Dzogchen master, wrote: “Investigate your mind’s real nature/So that your pure and total presence will actually shine forth” (You are the Eyes of the World, translated by Kennard Lipman and Merrill Peterson [Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2000], 33).
20. Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation, edited by William H. Shannon (New York: Harper San Francisco, 2003), 151-152.
21. Raimon Panikkar, Invisible Harmony: Essays on Contemplation and Responsibility (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995), 26-27.
22. Ibid., 27, 28. Emphasis mine.
23. Ibid., 27.
24. Gerald G. May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1982), 25.
25. Raimon Panikkar, Invisible Harmony, 27.
26. Ibid. I am here reminded of a passage from one of the letters of the French Benedictine monk, Henri Le Saux (Swami Abhishiktananda), dated 9.2.1967: “It is precisely the fact of being a bridge that makes this uncomfortable situation worthwhile. The world, at every level, needs such bridges. The danger of this life as a ‘bridge’ is that we run the risk of not belonging to either side; whereas, however harrowing it may be, our duty is to belong wholly to both sides. This is only possible in the mystery of God.” See James Stuart, Swami Abhishiktananda: His Life Told through His Letters (Delhi: ISPCK, 1989), 213.
27. For much of what follows, see Daniel Goleman’s “Introduction” to MindScience: An East-West Dialogue, edited by Daniel Goleman and Robert A.F. Thurman (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1991), 3-6. See also his The Meditative Mind: Varieties of Meditative Experience (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1988), especially Part One (1-38) and Part Four (114-188).
28. Ibid., 4.
29. See Robert A.F. Thurman’s “Tibetan Psychology: Sophisticated Software for the Human Brain,” in MindScience, 53.
30. See Beatrice Bruteau, “The One and the Many: Communitarian Non-dualism,” in The Other Half of My Soul: Bede Griffiths and the Hindu-Christian Dialogue, compiled by Beatrice Bruteau (Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 1996), 276.
31. See Beatrice Bruteau, “Prayer and Identity,” in Contemplative Review, Special Issue (Fall 1983), 2-17.
32. A significant corollary of this is that much of what earlier seemed incomprehensible to me about the spiritual life, about my experience of meditation and contemplation, is now more comprehensible. That is to say, the spiritual or contemplative or mystical life, the “science of love,” has been demystified somewhat. And to the degree that it has been, I am no longer inclined to take anything on mere belief. For, through the existential study of both Christianity and Buddhism, I am convinced that the various meditative disciplines of both traditions are really sets of experiments that have been tried and proven true over the millennia by numerous saints and sages, and that we are invited to test them for ourselves in our own awareness and experience—here and now—to prove the validity of their findings for ourselves; findings that these same saints and sages compassionately preserved for us in the contemplative maps of inner space, of the human mind/consciousness, that they charted. The laboratory is thus my own mind and heart and body, and the experiment is a given form of meditation by which I test my own experience against that of others who have performed the same experiment, so that I too may arrive at the experiential knowledge of certain laws of the spirit, which is wisdom.
33. Sogyal Rinpoche, Glimpse after Glimpse: Daily Reflections on Living and Dying (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1995). See the reading for May 4.
34. Bede Griffiths, Return to the Center (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1976), 36.
35. Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), 27.
36. Raimon Panikkar, The Cosmotheandric Experience, 133.
37. Parker J. Palmer, The Active Life: Wisdom for Work, Creativity, and Caring (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 17.
38. Mark Brady, “What I’ve Learned from Listening,” in The Wisdom of Listening, edited by Mark Brady (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003), 298.
39. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, as quoted by Pema Chödron in her book entitled, The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Boston: Shambhala, 2001), 99.
40. See RB Prol. 49.
41. Loppön Lodrö Dorje, “Ego’s Unmasking,” in Speaking of Silence: Christians and Buddhists on the Contemplative Way, edited by Susan Walker (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), 94.
42. See Raimon Panikkar’s Blessed Simplicity: The Monk as Universal Archetype (New York: The Seabury Press, 1982).
43. John Main, Community of Love (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1990), 119.
44. Ibid.
45. Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 201.
46. Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer, 19.
47. See Parker Palmer, op. cit., 17.
48. See RB 58.7.
49. Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer, 27.
50. Ibid., 29.
51. Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal, 305.
52. I am here reminded of the observation made by Bernard-Joseph Samain in his “Is Poetry the Native Language of Dialogue?,” in the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin No. 70: “In order to elaborate a culture of dialogue, one path seems to me essential. I would like to sum it up in this formula: ‘Poetry, the native language of dialogue.’ By this I mean that poetry is a form of language that lends itself to dialogue. Poetry is a language-form that points towards that which is open, to what cannot be said, to what cannot be grasped, to the mystery that surpasses us. The poet is one who takes words very seriously and yet, at the same time, remains conscious of their poverty and of their limitations. Respect for words goes hand in hand with respect for the other and the mystery of the other” (29).
53. Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal, 306.
54. Ibid.
55. T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, “Little Gidding,” in >The Complete Poems and Plays (1909-1950) (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1971), 145.
56. David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart: The Spirituality of Sacred Sensuousness, revised edition (New York: Crossroad, 1999), 33.
57. Ahead of All Parting: the Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, The Modern Library Edition (New York: Random House, 1995), 137.
58. David Steindl-Rast, op. cit., 81.
59. Here it is worth noting that one of the many distinct but basically related meanings of the Sanskrit word tantra refers to “the ‘expansive,’ all-encompassing Reality revealed by wisdom. As such it stands for ‘continuum,’ the seamless whole that comprises both transcendence and immanence, Reality and reality, Being and becoming, Consciousness and mental consciousness, Infinity and finitude, Spirit and matter, Transcendence and immanence [sic], or, in Sanskrit terminology, nirvâna and samsâra” (Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: The Path of Ecstasy (Boston: Shambhala, 1998), 2).
60. Raimon Panikkar, “The New Monk,” in the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Bulletin No. 72 (May 2004), 12.
61. Ibid.
62. Raimon Panikkar, The Cosmotheandric Experience, 133; 132.
63. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1972), 290-287.
64. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 144.
65. Ibid., 108.
66. Here I cannot help but recall the words of Karl Rahner, “In the coming age we must all become mystics—or be nothing at all.” See Frank X. Tuoti, Why Not Be a Mystic? (New York: Crossroad, 1995).
67. Michael von Brück, op. cit., 239.
68. John Dykstra Eusden, Zen and Christian: The Journey Between (New York: Crossroad,1981), 12-13; 174.