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In
July 1996, an historic
five-day meeting occurred
of close to fifty Buddhist
and Christian monks and
nuns and other practitioners
at the Abbey
of Gethsemani in Trappist,
Kentucky. It was His
Holiness the Dalai Lama
who suggested that the
meeting be held in a monastic
setting, where he could
be "a monk among
other monks," and
who urged that the setting
be Gethsemani, the home
of Thomas Merton, whom
he had met shortly before
the latter's death in
1968.
The
theme of the Gethsemani
Encounter was the spiritual
life in the Buddhist and
Christian monastic traditions.
From this meeting, a book
was published, entitled
The Gethsemani Encounter.
The
inspiration for the Gethsemani
Encounter happened at
the Parliament of the
World's Religions in 1993.
Prior to the Parliament,
Fr. Julian von Duerbeck,
OSB, and Br. Wayne Teasdale
proposed that the Monastic
Interreligious Dialogue
(MID) host an interfaith
dialogue session at the
Parliament with His Holiness
the Dalai Lama and other
Buddhist leaders. MID
is the official monastic
organization of the Catholic
Church in the United States,
Canada and Central America
responsible for intermonastic
dialogue with other religions.
Its members are men and
women monastics in the
Benedictine, Cistercian,
and Trappist traditions.
The MID Board accepted
the proposal to host a
Buddhist-Christian dialogue
at the Parliament; and
a morning dialogue session
on "Emptiness and
Kenosis" was designed
by Sr. Katherine Howard,
OSB, and Patrick G. Henry,
who also moderate the
event.
His
Holiness the Dalai Lama
participated in that dialogue,
and later—during
the Parliament—suggested
that the dialogue be continued
in a monastic setting.
Discussions were then
held by MID members at
the Parliament, and the
idea of a weeklong, in-depth
intermonastic encounter
on the spiritual life
at Gethsemani Abbey—home
of Thomas Merton—began
to be formulated. The
encounter was seen as
an opportunity to bring
together, for an extended
period of time in a monastic
setting, a small group
of Buddhist and Christian
monastics who are mature
practitioners and teachers
of spirituality. They
would live, practice,
and celebrate together;
and in that contemplative
setting, they would dialogue
about the practice of
the spiritual life and
its value for the world
today. While there had
been local intermonastic
hospitality exchanges
and dialogues in different
parts of the world in
the past, this would be
the first time an organized
international monastic
dialogue on the spiritual
life would be held at
this global level of encounter.
Tapes
and transcripts.
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