Zen Catholicism


Book Description

The author's reflection upon Zen Buddhism and Catholicism has shown many points of contact between them, in spite of their divergent rituals and philosophies. Although he warns against the weaknesses of Zen, he urges Westerners in general, and Catholics in particular, to draw from its strengths, suggesting that the harmony Zen points to at the heart of religion could bring the West freedom from unnecessary anxiety and a new awareness of the peace of God.




Christian - Zen Dialogue


Book Description

This book is an attempt to contribute to interfaith-dialogue initiatives spearheaded by the Catholic Church with Zen, one of the major and fast-growing spiritual traditions in East Asia. In recent years, the Catholic Church has emphasized the importance of interfaith dialogue in its missionary activities and has encouraged all to take part actively. The number of conferences organized, discussions held, and articles written on interfaith dialogue has escalated. However, interfaith dialogue remains mostly in the realm of specialists. The majority of ordinary believers/laity have not yet become part of interfaith-dialogue activities. Many are unaware of such activities because often they don't take place where ordinary people spend their daily lives. Others shy away because interfaith-dialogue activities are too specialized. But Joseph's experience growing up in a multireligious context in India taught him that the participation of ordinary believers is necessary if interfaith dialogue is to achieve its intended results. Christian - Zen Dialogue focuses on narratives of faith in Christianity and Zen. Can these sacred stories--gospel stories of Jesus and Chan/Zen stories (K_ans)--be a starting point for dialogue between the two faiths? The book focuses on two aspects: First, what model of interfaith dialogue can help Catholics and Zen followers of all walks of life engage in faith dialogue while remaining in their own life situations? Second, how can they make use of the common elements found in their narratives of faith as the most appropriate starting point for dialogue between them? To achieve the intended results, Joseph applies the hermeneutic phenomenological approach of Paul Ricoeur.




Catholicism and Zen


Book Description

Catholicism and Zen explores the history of Christian/Buddhist dialogue, and profiles fourteen modern Catholic clergy who have become authorized to teach Zen practice within their Christian faith. These real-life stories of men and women engaged in a spiritual quest enliven the meaning and form of awakening beyond traditional constrictions. Although there are a number of books written on Christianity and Zen, including several by Catholic clergy, this is the first to take it from its origins with the Jesuit missionaries sent to Japan, to interviews with the many contemporary Catholic clergy - priests and nuns both - who maintain their Catholic faith and practice and find it enhanced by their Zen training.




Christian Zen


Book Description

When Christian Zen was first published in the early 1970's, it was reviewed enthusiastically in many parts of the world. A subsequent edition added new material from the author's experience. This latest edition, from Fordham University Press, includes a new Preface by the author and a letter to the author from the Christian mystic Thomas Merton, written shortly before Merton's untimely death. William Johnston presents a study of Zen meditation in the light of Christian mysticism.




Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit


Book Description

A new revised edition of the classic title on Zen and Christian living. Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit is a study of the intersection between Zen Buddhism and Christianity. Robert Kennedy explores how Zen can help us to live deeper lives and how we can return from a study of Zen to a more profound understanding of Christian living and practice. "What I looked for in Zen," says the author, "was not a new faith, but a new way of being Catholic that grew out of my own lived experience and would not be blown away by authority or by changing theological fashion." Kennedy is unique in being competent in both Catholic and Zen practice and who responds to people who are drawn to this form of prayer and life. This is a refreshingly simple but also most beautiful book.




Zen Gifts to Christians


Book Description

Robert Kennedy is one of three Jesuits in the world who answer to both the titles "Father" and "Roshi," or venerable Zen teacher. In 1991, after ten years of practicing Zen meditation, he was installed as a Zen teacher at the recommendation of his teacher, Glassman Roshi, and of Glassman Roshi's teacher, Maezumi Roshi. Today, he directs a dozen groups of people from many religious persuasions--even atheists and agnostics--who sit weekly in Zen meditation throughout the greater New York metropolitan area. This book is specifically addressed to the Christian practitioners of Zen meditation or those who are curious about it. It is structured around ten well-known ox-herding pictures that have been a consistent source of inspiration to Zen students for centuries. Each picture represents a specific Zen insight to life, and these insights, says Kennedy, are not only fully compatible with Christianity but can help Christians achieve the spiritual goals enshrined in a Christian classic. For example, "The Cloud of Unknowing:" to be silent and attentive, to be wholly present to life, to be able to separate one's true self from one's false self, the self-seeking part of the personality that so often brings on pain.




Zen and the Birds of Appetite


Book Description

Merton, one of the rare Western thinkers able to feel at home in the philosophies of the East, made the wisdom of Asia available to Westerners. "Zen enriches no one," Thomas Merton provocatively writes in his opening statement to Zen and the Birds of Appetite—one of the last books to be published before his death in 1968. "There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while... but they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the 'nothing,' the 'no-body' that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey." This gets at the humor, paradox, and joy that one feels in Merton's discoveries of Zen during the last years of his life, a joy very much present in this collection of essays. Exploring the relationship between Christianity and Zen, especially through his dialogue with the great Zen teacher D.T. Suzuki, the book makes an excellent introduction to a comparative study of these two traditions, as well as giving the reader a strong taste of the mature Merton. Never does one feel him losing his own faith in these pages; rather one feels that faith getting deeply clarified and affirmed. Just as the body of "Zen" cannot be found by the scavengers, so too, Merton suggests, with the eternal truth of Christ.




For Love of My People I Will Not Remain Silent


Book Description

The relationship of China with the greatest secular world power—the United States of America—and the most universal global spiritual power—the Catholic Church—is in a state of flux. President Trump and Pope Francis are major protagonists in this dramatic period. Although what is happening in China has an impact worldwide, it is hard for the non-specialist to grasp what is underway and its significance for the future. There are two Catholic communities in China: the "underground", or unofficial, Church and the official, government-controlled Patriotic Church. Cardinal Joseph Zen is one of the most knowledgeable and credible witnesses to what is happening in China, especially on the relationship between these two communities. He is a courageous defender of the underground Church yet has intimate knowledge of the official Church, in part because hea taught in several of its seminaries. It has been recognized—and Pope Francis himself has confirmed—that the historic 2007 letter of Pope Benedict XVI to Catholics in China remains the magna carta of the Church in that country. On the tenth anniversary of this letter, Cardinal Zen gave a series of eight lectures on its origin, drafting process, and final content, and these enlightening talks are presented in this book. In these lectures, Cardinal Zen explains in detail what he considers is now threatening the fundamental principles of the letter—and therefore 'his people'. As the title indicates, for the love of his people, he will not remain silent.




Living Zen, Loving God


Book Description

The release of Ruben Habito's new book, Living Zen, Loving God has coincided with a rave review from Publishers Weekly magazine: "Habito may not seem himself as a revolutionary, but his humble life calling - to illuminate the commonalities between Zen Buddhism and Christianity - seems a profound gift. Habito excels in illuminating the connective spiritual tissue between the two religions, while explaining the principles of Buddhism. This is an excellent book for readers who want to deepen their understanding of Christianity, as well as Buddhism." - Publishers Weekly Exactly right. This wonderful book, in its friendly, informative tone, carefully explains Buddhist ideas - from key concepts like Emptiness and The Truth of Suffering to an in-depth and enlightening examination of the Heart Sutra - all in terms that will help modern Christian practitioners to deepen their faith, and Buddhists, to revitalize and broaden their perception and understanding. This is a book with immense value to anyone interested in interreligious dialogue and studies, and as such, has already won accolades from Habito's contemporaries. (See below.) Habito, a practicing Catholic and former Jesuit priest - as well as an acknowledged Zen master and professor in the School of Theology at Southern Methodist University - makes a clear case that Zen practice can deepen a Christian's connection to God, further clarify the Gospel teachings of Jesus, and enable one to live a more joyous, compassionate, and socially engaged life. Habito demonstrates that the practice of Zen meditation and even some elements of the Buddhist worldview can enable one to love God more constantly and commit to the service of the Realm of Heaven and the human community more wholeheartedly. Ruben L.F. Habito is the author of numerous publications, in both Japanese and English, on Zen and Christianity and is a prominent figure in the Buddhist-Christian Dialogue. A native of the philipines, Habito served as a Jesuit priest in Japan under the guidance of the great spiritual pioneer Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle and studied Zen with renowned teacher Koun Yamada. He lives in Dallas, Texas.




Zen and the Bible


Book Description

Brought up within a Zen Buddhist tradition and later becoming a Jesuit priest and professor of philosophy, Kakichi Kadowaki's spiritual path bridges the gap between Eastern and Western approaches to religion. In Zen and the Bible he offers an enlightening personal analysis of some central aspects of Christianity, based on his experience of Ignatian spirituality and on the ways of Zen monastic life. Western Christian readers interested in Eastern philosophy will fred their own faith refreshed and strengthened from the insights and illuminations in this classic book, now back in print with a new Introduction by William A. Johnston.