Meditation in Buddhist-Christian Encounter: A Critical Analysis

In the last fifty years, Buddhists and Christians have come together in inter-monastic exchange, joint meditation retreats, dialogues concerning the relationship between meditation and social action, cross-tradition pupil/teacher relationships and joint academic explorations into the parallels between Buddhist and Christian spiritual practice. The practice of meditation has been important in all of these encounters and has become one of the most significant ‘grounds for meeting’ within contemporary Buddhist-Christian relationships. This book critically analyses the role in Buddhist-Christian encounter of the variety of practices embraced by the term ‘meditation’. The contributors use the academic tools of historical inquiry, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and comparative textual study. The result is an interdisciplinary contribution, which takes the religious experience of those involved in Buddhist-Christian encounter seriously, without reifying it above its cultural and socio-political contexts. With contributions by: Ursula Baatz, Karl Baier, Thomas Cattoi, Elise DeVido, Sybille Fritsch-Oppermann, Elizabeth Harris, Leo Lefebure, John Makransky, Andreas Nehring, Thao Nyugen, Robert Sharf, Sarah Shaw, Elizabete Taivane, Nicholas Alan Worssam.