In November 1968 Thomas Merton met for the first time with the Dalai Lama
in northern India. Merton described the spiritual leader of Tibet as a
"very solid, energetic, generous, and warm person, very capably trying to
handle enormous problems--none of which he mentioned directly. There was
not a word of politics. The whole conversation was about religion and
philosophy and especially ways of meditation."

While the conversation between these two monks was cut short by Merton's
tragic death a month later in Bangkok, the Dalai Lama's interest in
dialogue with Christian monastics continued long after his encounter with
Merton. In 1993, at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, the
Dalai Lama and other Buddhist leaders met for a dialogue with the members
of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID), a board of Catholic monastics
and their advisers who coordinate exchange programs with Buddhist monks and
nuns. After this meeting the Dalai Lama expressed interest in continuing
the conversation still further, and the result of his interest was a
gathering this past July of about 50 Buddhist and Catholic monastics and
teachers at Merton's own monastery, Gethsemani Abbey near Bardstown,
Kentucky.

In 1968 such a gathering would have been barely imaginable. An acquaintance
of Merton, Basil Penning-ton, O.C.S.O., noted that his old friend would
have been turning eartwheels at the thought of such an event. Never before
had Buddhist monks and nuns and lay teachers gathered in the chapter room
(the heart of the monastery, normally restricted to monks of the monastery)
to discuss meditation and the interior life with Christians.

Attending the conference, besides His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th
Dalai Lama, were Buddhist leaders from both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhist
countries, including Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Kampuchea
(Cambodia), Tibet, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. American Buddhists from the
Theravadin, Zen and Tibetan traditions also attended. The Catholic voices
included Benedictine, Trappist and Camaldolese monks and nuns from MID, as
well as the advisory members of the board. The sole Protestant participant
was Diana Eck, a United Methodist scholar who teaches at Harvard University
and serves as a MID board adviser.

We soon plunged into a discussion of meditation practices. Two questions
brought to the surface deeply held convictions. A Catholic monk who had
himself done Zen meditation pressed the "Mind" question by asking the
Buddhists: "What is Mind?" For Mahayana Buddhists in particular, the
question of Mind or the Buddha-Mind opens up the question of what is
ultimately real and of what our true identity is. Buddhists were eager to
share their perspectives on how our true mind is Buddha-Mind. In response,
Christians wrestled with the questions of duality and nonduality in the
Christian tradition: what does it mean for Christians to affirm that God is
not some other finite reality "out there"?

The second question involved the cross. Zoketsu Norman Fischer, a Zen
Buddhist teacher of Jewish origin who is the co-abbot of the San Francisco
Zen Center, commented on seeing the body of Jesus on the crosses in the
monastery and asked Christians if they felt sad at seeing the suffering
figure. One Christian after another came forward to express his or her
understanding of Christ on the cross. Later in the discussions, Fischer
stated that he greatly enjoyed chanting the psalms with the monastic choir
at the vesper service, but he asked the Christians about the bloody,
vengeful psalms that in graphic fashion call upon God to crush one's
enemies. "What does it mean to pray such psalms?" he asked.

Judith Simmer-Brown, an American Buddhist in the Tibetan tradition from the
Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, pressed the question of how the
death of Jesus could in any way be salvific: "I just don't get it." We
struggled to explain this central aspect of our faith, reflecting on how to
present the mystery of God's presence at the heart of suffering.

On the Buddhist side, participants also went through a process of
reflection in response both to the diversity of Buddhist perspectives
represented and also to the presence of a Catholic monastic witness that
resonated strongly with central values in their own tradition. For many
Buddhists, this was their first in-depth encounter with Catholic monastics
speaking from the experience of many years of personal prayer and
meditation and from monastic traditions with long centuries of spiritual
experience going back to the desert fathers and the scriptures. When Mary
Margaret Funk, O.S.B., explained the Benedictine practice of lectio divina,
a reflective, meditative reading of the scriptures, Buddhists responded by
talking about the resonances of the sutras in light of meditation. Basil
Penning-ton explained the practice of centering prayer, and Buddhists
explained aspects of their meditation practice.

Buddhists encountered a Catholic monastic environment that bore many
similarities to their own. After hearing repeated references to the Rule of
Benedict, Buddhists asked where they could find a copy of it. By the end of
the encounter, several of the American Buddhists were considering writing a
Buddhist commentary on the Rule.

The setting was peaceful and serene, shaped by the rhythms of Catholic
monastic life. But questions of violence surfaced repeatedly. The gathering
was framed by the TWA crash and the bombing in the Olympic park in Atlanta.
The presence of the Dalai Lama and of Maha Ghosananda (known as the "Gandhi
of Cambodia," the supreme patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, the founder of
Inter-Religious Mission for Peace who has done extensive work for Cambodian
refugees) was a vivid reminder of the unutterable sufferings of their
respective peoples."

Another frequent theme of the discussions was how to view and respond to
anger. James Wiseman, O.S.B., of the Catholic University of America, chair
of MID, explained that some Christian writers view all anger as a negative
and unhealthy emotion, but Aquinas had seen anger prompted by injustice as
proper. For most of the Buddhists, anger is a poison that arises from
ignorance and is never wholesome, even though the energy generated by anger
can be channeled constructively. But the Dalai Lama himself disagreed with
the classical Buddhist perspective and suggested that anger inspired by
injustice and enveloped by compassion can be wholesome and appropriate.

At one point, Havanpola Ratanasara, originally from Sri Lanka and more
recently from Los Angeles, stated: "I think we've talked enough about anger
now. Let's move on to something else." But by my count, at least five more
Buddhist leaders spoke about anger after that.

The question of how to respond to violence took a poignant turn when Armand
Veilleux, O.C.S.O., a French Trappist monk, shared his account of the
recent kidnaping and martyrdom of the French Trappist monks in Algeria. He
had flown into Algeria after the kidnaping as a representative of the
Trappist order. After the military takeover and the beginning of Muslim
fundamentalist violence against foreigners, the monks knew that their lives
were in danger and discussed what to do. In their first vote, two monks
favored staying in Algeria and the rest thought it wiser to return to
safety in France. They did not, however, wish to make the decision by a
majority vote. Seeking consensus, they decided not to debate or discuss but
to pray silently for 24 hours and then take an anonymous vote. The second
vote was unanimous: to stay.

While Christians saw this as an act of courage and witness, a Buddhist
participant stated that from a Buddhist perspective it might be more
compassionate to leave such a situation to prevent one's potential killers
from the bad karma (or effects) of murder. In reply, Dom Bernardo Olivera,
O.C.S.O., the abbot general of the Trappist community worldwide, affirmed
that the God of Jesus Christ is a God of mercy and compassion: "I fully
expect to see the faces of the killers with me in Paradise."

From the Buddhist side, Ghosananda, a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize,
offered a paper that was read by another participant about his work for
peace. Afterward, a Japanese Zen monk, Eishin Nishimura, described his own
journey to the refugee camps in Thailand some years ago. There was little
for the Cambodian refugees to do in the camp; but the Zen monk noticed a
makeshift Buddhist temple set up in one corner and in it, a single Buddhist
monk sitting in meditation. Turning directly to Ghosananda, Nishimura
exclaimed: "That man was you! My question is: What were you doing there?"
Ghosananda replied: "I was making peace with myself so I could share it
with others."

When various Christians tried to draw Ghosananda out on practical questions
of resistance to injustice, he refused to engage in detailed discussions of
tactics and strategy and repeated the pithy wisdom of the Buddha to make
peace with oneself. As the session ended, he who had led marchers for peace
through war-torn Cambodia led us in silent walking meditation to the grave
of Thomas Merton, where he stood alone behind the cross as we gathered
around.

While there were repeated recognitions of difference, the overall mood was
of a harmony surpassing and enveloping our differences. Ratanasara
repeatedly reminded us: "Don't mix the doctrines!" But when participants
were asked to sit quietly and await a word to express their experience,
Geshe Sopa, a learned Tibetan lama, proclaimed: "Unity."

After the encounter had ended, a Korean Zen monk, Samu Sunim, stated that
by the third day he felt at home in the Catholic monastery. Concerning the
differences, which were real, he thought: "It's no big deal." He explained:
"We tend to cling to topsoil, but when you reach the earth soil, it [the
difference] doesn't really matter."

~~~~~~~~

By L.D.L.
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