Zen Gifts to Christians [Paperback]

Robert Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2004

Robert Kennedy is one of three Jesuits in the world who answer to both the titles "Father" and "Roshi," or venerable Zen teacher. In 1991, after ten years of practicing Zen meditation, he was installed as a Zen teacher at the recommendation of his teacher, Glassman Roshi, and of Glassman Roshi's teacher, Maezumi Roshi. Today, he directs a dozen groups of people from many religious persuasions--even atheists and agnostics--who sit weekly in Zen meditation throughout the greater New York metropolitan area. This book is specifically addressed to the Christian practitioners of Zen meditation or those who are curious about it. It is structured around ten well-known ox-herding pictures that have been a consistent source of inspiration to Zen students for centuries. Each picture represents a specific Zen insight to life, and these insights, says Kennedy, are not only fully compatible with Christianity but can help Christians achieve the spiritual goals enshrined in a Christian classic. For example, "The Cloud of Unknowing:" to be silent and attentive, to be wholly present to life, to be able to separate one's true self from one's false self, the self-seeking part of the personality that so often brings on pain.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kennedy is a Jesuit who teaches theology at St. Peter's College, a psychotherapist in private practice and a Zen teacher who believes that Zen Buddhism has much to complement Christianity. In this book--directed primarily toward Christians who already practice Zen or those who are curious about doing so--Kennedy draws on the symbolism of 10 12th-century Chinese depictions of ox herding to demonstrate the quest for one's true nature. (The ox represents a person's true self, while the ox herder is the one seeking that self; the 10 pictures symbolize 10 stages of spiritual growth.) Throughout, the book is a mishmash of East and West: interspersed with the pictures are Zen koans and poetry and prose from Western culture. While the illustrations and koans are interesting, something almost Zen-like has happened in the book--Kennedy's literary selections (from Denise Levertov, Mary Oliver and H.L. Mencken, to name a few) are so exquisite that they surpass the narrative rather than simply complementing and explaining the Buddhist teachings. Also, Kennedy sometimes has to perform difficult theological gymnastics to reconcile Buddhism to Christianity, as when he tries to align an Eastern understanding of humanity as divine with the Western Christian doctrine of humanity being created in the image of God. Despite these flaws, this book may appeal to those Christians whose temperament predisposes them toward the practice of Zen as they strive to grow in their spiritual lives.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Kennedy, a Jesuit and trained psychotherapist, has written a book that attempts to find new means of dialog between Zen Buddhists and Christians. The germ of the book is simple: Kennedy addresses in turn each of the famous "Oxherding pictures," an essential teaching tool in the Buddhist East and finds commonalities in Christian belief and culture. While Kennedy does not address his subjects with the depth one might hope for, and finding common points of interest from one faith to the other has a limited effect on true understanding and tolerance, Kennedy's chapters are capably written reflections on the shared issues of the two faiths. For larger collections, or where there is a strong interest in interfaith dialog.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (October 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826416543
• ISBN-13: 978-0826416544
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #560,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars And Not Just For Christians., January 29, 2001

By 

Peter Fennessy (Bloomfield Hills, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zen Gifts to Christians (Hardcover)

This is a small, but very wise and compassionate book. It is difficult to keep from reading it at a sitting, but even then it invites rereading perhaps many times, not just to try to penetrate the obscurity that necessarily cloaks all things Zen, but to rise to the challenges each chapter sets one's personal growth. The Catholic Church has discovered at Vatican II the working of the Spirit and the presence of the good beyond its borders and even the possibility that members of that Church might learn from those without. Who better to help that task along than Robert Kennedy who is both Catholic priest and Zen Roshi. In this book Kennedy comments on the ten traditional Zen ox-herding pictures, an allegory of the search for the true self. He illustrates their meanings with koans and stories of the Zen masters, but even more extensively with a wealth of modern poetry and literature. This is a guide for the searcher more than a theology for the theorist. The gifts he has in mind are: commitment to practice, transcending our latest theologies in an attitude of unknowing, self-reliance, accepting impermanence and constant change, self-mastery that is really vibrant living, experiencing the absolute incarnated in the relative, the coorigination of all things, finding the absolute within, being transformed into it, and compassionate service to others. These are Zen gifts Kennedy explains and commends principally to those Christians drawn by temperament to Zen practice. But he writes in such a way that I think the book suitable for people of any and even of no particular faith, who yet feel some calling to the way of Zen. The book is written with elegance, grace, generosity and compassion. But if one pays too much attention to Kennedy's message, that compassion can be the compassion of ten firm strokes from the Roshi's keisaku (stick) that strike at our sloth, illusions, dependency, mediocrity, and self-centeredness. I recommend it highly.