Posted on 01/22/2006 6:26:02 PM PST by Coleus
Zen master tells curious to embrace a new faith
RIDGEWOOD - The two-hour lecture at the Old Paramus Church Education Center began with several minutes of silent meditation. And for many who attended, participating in meditation was a first step in understanding the basic teachings of Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. "All attempts at mutual education are important to help us grow," said Robert Kennedy, the noted Jesuit priest and Zen master. "It widens our vision."
Kennedy Roshi, as he is known to Buddhists, was the key speaker at Saturday's event, which was attended by more than 100 people of varied faiths. It examined immortality, salvation and schools of thought in Buddhism and Christianity. It is the third lecture in a series to promote the understanding of Buddhism and Eastern thought sponsored by the Dhamma-Chakra Society of New Jersey. Kennedy is a practicing psychotherapist and retired chairman of the theology department at St. Peter's College in Jersey City. After being ordained a priest in the Jesuit tradition, he also studied Buddhism for many years and in 1991 was installed as a sensei, or teacher, of Eastern thought.
Saturday's lecture focused on many aspects of Eastern philosophy as well as Christian theology.
"I think the Buddhist and Christian traditions are both magnificent and both give wonderfully poetic metaphorical examples of what is inexpressible," Kennedy said. "I don't think the metaphors can be reduced to each other but that makes it all the better. Everything is not reduced to one way of looking at things."
Kennedy praised the strong outreach among Catholics and Jews to Buddhism.
"I don't think Buddhism is interested so much in learning from us, but they are open to us," said Kennedy, who holds doctorates in theology and psychology and is the author of "Zen Gifts to Christians" and "Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit." "I think we're coming to appreciate each other on a practical level as in marriage."
Parviz Dehghani is a Muslim who has been married to his Buddhist wife for 25 years and attended the lecture as both religious scholar and admirer of Kennedy as a Zen master. The lecture allowed the public to understand the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, Dehghani said. "This lecture gives people a different direction in their own faith," he said. "It gives them a sense of enrichment in their own beliefs and a different way of looking at what they have been believing all along and through their lives. If Buddhism can enhance them to be a better Christian or Muslim, that's what it's all about."
Kennedy studied with Yamada Roshi in Japan, Maezumi Roshi in California and Glassman Roshi in New York. Glassman installed Kennedy as sensei and conferred the Inka, or final approval, on the cleric in 1997 that elevated him to master, or roshi. John LoGiudice of Paramus is a practicing Catholic who came to the lecture with several family members and friends to gain more knowledge of Buddhism. "I gained an insight of how the Buddhists and other cultures think and from what I gather - with Buddhism being an older culture - perhaps they are a little bit more advanced spiritually," LoGiudice said. "It's a journey. We're trying to learn more about it."
God forbid accepting other religions as anything but blaspheme, especially those religions that preach peace and human dignity.
Zen is very different than Buddhism. Zen is a way of dealing with the world, and more importantly the individual's place within it...especially relating how one can find spiritual peace through their actions in society.
There are connections among the great revealed religions.
Zen does not conflict with anything. That's the idea. >>
Jesus Christ didn't come down to live with us, suffer, shed his blood and die for nothing. There is no reason why a Catholic priest should be conducting a retreat like this. His retreats should be focused on Christ and how a person can become more like and live like Christ. The sacraments of Confession and Communion should be available daily.
I wonder how many young minds he poisoned while chairman of St. Peter's College Theology Department. And those poor parents thinking they were sending their children to a "catholic" college only to have wasted their money.
Zen also does not posit anything. Everythign is absurd, everything is nothing, everything is everything.
No, Zen is Buddhism.
Makes me want to throw in the Tao
LOL!
+
Zen is nonsense- and a Zen Master would be the first to tell you so. The tenents of Buddhism teach abandonment of desire but Zen is a Japanese/Korean permutation of Buddhism and became a way of looking at life, a "suchness" philosophy. I always thought a lot of it is semantic in nature. It just tries to get you tho think beyond causation, not in place of it. Prayer does the same. I'm a Catholic and there's a lot more philosophies I find more offensive than Zen.
ROFL! I never know what I'll find from you on any given thread. (Yes, I'd heckle the heck out of you, BTW.)
Google "Awakening to Prayer", it's a Carmelite classic written by a Catholic convert from Buddhism (now a Carmelite Priest.)
Could the Budhists please weigh in...sounds like a lot of people talking off the cuff?
and what about Thomas Merton? did we forget him? Pretty Catholic monk if you ask me...cloistered also.
"Zen also does not posit anything. Everythign is absurd, everything is nothing, everything is everything."
And let's not forget the delights of the koans. "What is the sound of one hand clapping" -- or was it "the sound of one ham crapping"?
There are still a few good individual Jesuits left, but I'm sorry to say that the Jesuit order as a whole, with the approval of almost all of its leaders, has betrayed the Church and betrayed Jesus, after whom they originally named themselves.
They are formally known as the Society of Jesus. I don't think the name is appropriate any longer.
I regret to say that Thomas Merton went off the rails in his last years.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican Thursday cautioned Roman Catholics that
Eastern meditation practices such as Zen and yoga can ``degenerate into a cult
of the body'' that debases Christian prayer.
``The love of God, the sole object of Christian contemplation, is a reality
which cannot be `mastered' by any method or technique,'' said a document
issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The document, approved by Pope John Paul II and addressed to bishops, said
attempts to combine Christian meditation with Eastern techniques were fraught
with danger although they can have positive uses.
The 23-page document, signed by the West German congregation head Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, was believed the first time the Vatican sought to respond to
the pull of Eastern religious practices.
Ratzinger told a news conference that the document was not condemning
Eastern meditation practices, but was elaborating on guidelines for proper
Christian prayer.
By Eastern methods, the document said, it was referring to practices
inspired by Hinduism and Buddhism such as Zen, Transcendental Meditation and
yoga, which [may] involve prescribed postures and controlled breathing.
Some Christians, ``caught up in the movement toward openness and exchanges
between various religions and cultures, are of the opinion that their prayer
has much to gain from these methods,'' the document said.
But, it said, such practices ``can degenerate into a cult of the body and
can lead surreptitiously to considering all bodily sensations as spiritual
experiences.''
Read the document itself here:
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFMED.HTM
But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 4For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. 5But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those "super-apostles."--2 Cor 11:3-5
Very good piece. It pisses me off when "Christian" yuppies sit down with the intent to become "buddhists".
I think it comes from our materialistic and scholastic world view.
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