The Gethsemani Encounter on the Spiritual Life

Abstract

From July 22 to 27, 1996, there was a meeting of fifty Buddhist and Christian monastics at the Abbey of Gethsemani, home of Thomas Merton. This encounter was called for by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the 1993 Parliament of the World Religions. At the Parliament, there was a dialogue between Buddhist and Christian monastics on the topics of emptiness and kenosis. That dialogue had been the fruit of over twenty years of intermonastic exchanges and dialogues between Buddhism and Christianity organized by the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue (MID). At the parliament, His Holiness felt that the intermonastic encounter had come to the point that an in-depth dialogue on the spiritual life would be possible. He asked that it be held for a full week with just twenty-five Buddhist and twenty-five Christian monastics at the home of his spiritual friend, Thomas Merton. Shortly after the Parliament, Fr. James Wiseman, OCSO, chair of MID; Sr. Mary Margaret Funk, OSB, executive director of MID; and Prof. Donald W. Mitchell, MID advisor, began organizing the Gethsemani Encounter with the guidance of the MID Board. Twenty-five Christian monastics were selected for their expertise as well as their involvement in the BuddhistChristian dialogue. Twenty-five Buddhist monastics were also selected to represent the different types of Buddhism that have been active in the intermonastic encounter. Also invited were some laypersons from both traditions who are experts in spirituality and dialogue. As time went on, among the persons who asked to be present to observe the dialogue were other monastics involved in the intermonastic exchange. So the MID Board decided to invite these and some other persons-including the press-as observers. In the end, there were the fifty dialogue participants, one hundred observers, and the monks of Gethsemani Abbey. The observers met at a special time each day with Patrick Henry and Robert Thurman to discuss the dialogue among themselves. Their reflections were also presented to the dialogue participants, and they were able to share their thoughts directly with the whole assembly on the final day. The encounter began on the evening of the twenty-second with the planting of a blue spruce tree at the entrance to the monastery in honor of