Reclaiming the Integration of Body and Mind

Abstract

The week before New Year's Day has often spurred me to evaluate my personal path. I courted my own permission to apply to graduate school, charting scenarios, figuring options, but still I held back. Browsing the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School website, I found a unique course offering: Deepening the Heart of Wisdom: Bud- dhist Christian Contemplative Practice and Dialogue. I knew I had to take it! Class was going to start in a week and as yet I hadn't even applied to the school's graduate program. In a flurry I requested transcripts, garnered recommendations, and consid- ered childcare options. My desire to engage this particular dialogue grew through my Christian practice of Centering Prayer 1 and my Episcopal parish's contemplative interfaith Vital Conversations program. These vital conversations began with an intentional time of silence in which we prepared the eye of the heart to perceive the conversation at a deeper level. Our rec- tor invited a guest from a different faith tradition each month. 2 He engaged the guest in questions and dialogue regarding his or her spiritual practices and personal story. Then, the guest received questions from the group. After hearing a Buddhist guest and visiting the local Zen center, I knew my own spiritual formation would be broad- ened and deepened by taking the two-week, intensive format course. Because actual spiritual practice from both traditions comprised a significant portion of the class, I surmised this course would foster a more complete, integrated form of understanding the two traditions. This essay will explore the contemplative pedagogy of this course, wherein the instructors hoped students (would) walk away with a visceral understanding of these traditions as full-body disciplines for transforming the mind and heart. 3 First, I will give a brief description of the class participants and discuss the types of spiri- tual practices we encountered from each tradition. Then, I will share my experiences related to those practices and how the structure of the course supported an integrated epistemology. Finally, I will consider the phenomenon of Christian interest in Bud- dhist practices and what that implies about popular Christianity and its potential to become a fuller version of itself.