The 1996 Gethsemani Encounter took place before my appointment as an advisor to the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Board. For me, this small book is an invaluable window to that event. Professor Donald Mitchell culled the “advice” from the Dalai Lama’s four lectures and several hours of actual dialogue during this encounter with participants who were Buddhists and Christians.

In chapter l, His Holiness speaks about how religions are like medicines healing humanity and how they can contribute through interfaith dialogue to building a more peaceful and united world. In chapter 2, he goes on to discuss how the inner journey of meditation can heal our afflictive emotions and bring us peace and happiness. In chapter 3, His Holiness gives us suggestions that can help Christians as well as Buddhists concerning the process of reaching calm abiding through confronting such ills as low self-esteem, laziness, and self-doubt. In chapter 4, he discusses and gives advice about such qualities of the spiritual life as charity, love, and compassion. He also explains the nature of wisdom from the Buddhist point of view. In chapter 5, His Holiness describes the characteristics one should look for in choosing a spiritual guide. Finally, in chapter 6, His Holiness presents the Buddhist goals of overcoming ignorance, finding the mind of clear light and attaining Nirvana . He recognizes the difference between this attainment and the Christian ideal of union with God and goes on to suggest a spiritual goal for all humankind, namely, to cultivate “the positive human qualities of tolerance, generosity, and love” (p. 12).

This book clarified my motivation. As a religious brother, God blesses my particular path and out of my own experience I feel a kinship with other practitioners. The point for me is to practice rather than debate the merits of differing views of reality. To participate in dialogue, the Dalai Lama recommends that we minimize the conflict that sometimes emerges from differing views. We can dialogue in several ways: with scholars; by traveling on a pilgrimage; by participating in conferences or prayer events; and by dialoguing face-to-face about matters of the heart. But by far the biggest contribution I can make is striving to be faithful in my practice of the religious life as a Holy Cross Brother.

This book is small and short but it is certainly not one for light reading. Thanks to Professor Mitchell’s scholarship, it contains a reliable clarification of difficult, technical distinctions as taught by the Tibetan Master Teacher. The various meditation practices are laid out in an orderly fashion. The two main types of meditation discussed are analytic meditation, thinking about some kind of a conviction we wish to cultivate, and single-pointed meditation, setting the mind in that belief and moving through deeper levels of consciousness. These two types can be further described as focusing on a particular object and forming an attitude the mind wishes to make its own. As Christians we might cultivate faith or love, whereas Buddhists will meditate on the attitudes of compassion or loving-kindness in order to transform the mind into that kind mentality. Other forms of meditation can be used to reduce such afflictive emotions as selfish desire, hatred, confusion, pride, or discursiveness. For each afflictive emotion there are different objects on which to meditate in order to lessen these afflictions. There are also objects of meditation to be used for the development of special insight and for the ways to enter into calm abiding. Some of these meditation practices produce special insights, e.g., observing the varieties of phenomena, while others lead to a place of calm abiding where one observes emptiness.

Several qualities of the mind are taught to further the need for mind training. To enter into mind training one must develop good habits of personal discipline, for example, going to bed early and rising early. The Dalai Lama illustrates this point by revealing his schedule of going to bed at 8:30 p.m. so as to be able to rise at 3:30 a.m. He states that a well-ordered life prepares one for death. A balanced life also develops a mind that is alert, avoids mental dullness, and is single-pointed so that excitement is reduced and mental stability fostered. The major obstacles to overcome in this are laziness and mindlessness (or forgetfulness). By overcoming laziness we set our minds on any virtue we want and achieve the promise of that virtue. In overcoming mindlessness we develop a dexterity of mindfulness and achieve calm abiding. The Dalai Lama points out that to maintain mindfulness continuously it is necessary to have conscientiousness. To achieve conscientiousness we must have the ethical behavior required for this level of practice.

Speaking about silence, he points out that to stabilize the mind we must practice reducing the number and intensity of thoughts. This is silence. He says that any kind of scattering is harmful to the practice of meditation. One can become scattered by meditating when one should be at work in compassionate service. A balanced life is maintaining equilibrium between laxity and excitement.

As I said, this book isn’t for casual readers. There is a passage on page 55 describing the Buddhist meaning of nothingness. It is the concentration in meditation practice. In describing this lofty practice he seems to be cautioning Christians from thinking they are prematurely at that stage. He recommends that Christians develop calm abiding or the level of single-pointedness of mind that is included within the so-called desire realm. He says that stability in this kind of meditation will make one’s faith very strong.

Characteristic of Eastern teachers, the Dalai Lama provides many helpful distinctions that can be easily translated for Christians. Concerning the three types of patience, he distinguishes between being concerned about any harm that might come to oneself, voluntarily accepting hardships, and the patience or forbearance involved in ascertaining doctrine. In regard to love and compassion, one first realizes that he or she has self-cherishing and lacks a cherishing of others. It is from this point that it is necessary to reflect on the disadvantages of cherishing oneself and the advantages of cherishing others. Through this process of meditation, self-cherishing is diminished and the cherishing of others is developed. His Holiness also distinguishes between two types of teachings: scriptural teachings and realized teachings. The community and/or sangha are the embodiment of the scriptural teachings. The community internalizes the practices of the teacher and teachings stored in the tradition. In celibacy our goal is liberation and the complete elimination of afflictive emotions. To be celibate gives us a freedom to practice disciplines. While our celibate life may be less colorful, our mental stability is much more stable. And in the long run, this is also good for our health (p. 79). In addition, one is freer to be of greater help to others. Speaking of the spiritual teacher, he says that the teacher must be learned, disciplined, and must have a good heart. Finally, liberation is a state of having extinguished contaminated actions and afflictive emotions. It is attainable in our lifetime because the mind has the nature of clear light and the defilements of the mind are superficial.

There are other distinctions and teachings contained in this book, e.g., the nature of emptiness. The teaching on emptiness is the root wisdom of the Buddhist way. There are two schools of thought on this subject: the Mind-Only School and the Middle Way. The Dalai Lama’s teaching found on pp. 64-67 ends by saying, “So, the emptiness of such inherent existence of phenomena is the subtlest selflessness of phenomena. Finally, it is this fact that is realized by wisdom.” Although I do not fully understand the Buddhist notion of emptiness, I do see a parallel in our Christian tradition where John Cassian, speaking of the Third and Fourth Renunciations, describes how we must renounce our very concept of God and absorb in our consciousness God as God and merge into God in and of God’s very self.

Though a small book, this is a profound one. I recommend it to all who are engaged in dialogue, whether with Buddhists or with our own hearts, as we seek to merge into a loving union with God and to participate in Universal Sanctification.