Robert Kennedy SJ and Kevin Hunt OCSO.

LONGING FOR AN EXPERIENCE OF THE ABSOLUTE

Close to forty years ago I began to practice Zen meditation (zazen). I started this practice because I was looking for a way of meditation that was simpler than the traditional methods of meditation handed on to me in my early monastic training. One of my goals was to find a method that prevented me from falling asleep. The first few years I practiced zazen on my own with the help of a couple of books.

After five or so years I had the good fortune of encountering a Japanese Zen Master, Joshu Sasaki Roshi. At my invitation the Roshi visited my monastery and agreed to return the following year to introduce some of the monks to Zen practice. He returned at least once a year for the next ten years. Circumstances terminated his visits. For some years I continued to practice on my own. After these years of solitary practice I again had the good fortune of meeting a Zen Master, Father Robert Kennedy SJ, who agreed to become my teacher.

I continued to practice Zen under Father Kennedy who approved my insight and made me a Zen teacher about six years ago. I was installed as a Sensei (Zen teacher) in 2004. I continue to live the life of an ordinary Trappist monk. Since my way of life is that of a cloistered monastic I am limited as to the amount of teaching that I can do outside the monastery. Even with the limited access that I have to the general population, my experience does enable me to highlight some aspects of the desire for and practice of Zen meditation in America, especially among Catholics. The first thing I have noted is the age of the practitioners.

Generally they are older than I expected. Most are in their forties or older. They often are retired or nearing retirement. This means that they are set in their careers if they are still working, and have reached their level of achievement. The majority are married with children.

Most often the children are adults and no longer dependent on their parents. They (the adult parents) now realize that they have a certain dissatisfaction with life, they feel that something is lacking.

The people who come to Zen retreats (sesshins) are most often rather traditional in the practice of their religion. This does not mean that they are not confronted by the same difficulties faced by many of the adherents of the main line churches in our American culture. Nor does it mean that they are entirely happy with their religious experience. One of the most common remarks I hear when they speak of their religious practice is that they do not find much satisfaction going to their respective churches or synagogues. Many will say that Judaism or Christianity has no a tradition of meditation. Their most common difficulty is that they feel drawn to an experience of meditation, but they cannot find any support or resources in their churches. When they ask to be taught to pray or to meditate, the response they often receive is “Well, just pray”. Some will say that any inquiry about meditation is met with indifference or even hostility. While it is true that some traditions of Christianity or Judaism have a certain fear of meditation, such fears are usually traceable to particular historical circumstances.

Even those who have had some experience in meditation remark that their efforts are unsatisfactory:  “I just don’t get anywhere”, or “It doesn’t click with me.” Many Catholic religious and priests say that they were taught to meditate according to traditional Catholic methods (for example, those of Saint Ignatius of Loyola or Saint Francis de Sales) or by doing “spiritual reading,” but they never felt they were growing spiritually.

Others have heard about Zen practice and want to learn more. “It quiets the mind.” “Enlightenment sounds really cool.” For some it appears to be a way of getting high without drugs.

I sometimes think that our culture today leads many to non-conceptual meditation. In today’s society we are continually over stimulated. Our imaginations and emotions are subjected to bombardment by advertising, our reason is often fatigued at work, and the result is that a certain atrophy sets in. There is a sense of being continually manipulated. This feeling often spills over into the way people react to what is happening or not happening in their church or synagogue. They begin to distrust their own experience: How can I interpret what I am experiencing or what I am not experiencing? If I even knew what it is that I experience in my religious practice, could I trust it?

The result is that many people cannot find any satisfaction in traditional Western forms of prayer and meditation. There is an inability to identify with traditional forms of piety and the ways in which religious experience is formulated. This longing for an experience of the Absolute leads to a search for ways of prayer/meditation different from those they have known. Sometimes this leads to experimentation in different forms of religion and religious practice. It is not unusual for me to encounter people who had attempted to practice a religion different from the one in which they were raised.  Their desire to change their religion is not always the expression of mere curiosity but a sincere searching for a religious practice that is satisfying or promises to answer a deep yearning within.  Sometimes people will say that they are spiritual but not religious. What they mean by this is that they do not practice any particular religion. The abandonment of traditional forms of religious practice is fairly widespread.

There are also individuals who are attempting to return to the religious practice of their childhood. Such a return is not simply a “return to the womb,” but an adult realization that their earliest religious practices are in many ways still the most fulfilling. Yet still there is that yearning for something more.

I believe that the coincidence of the arrival of Zen practice in the West, a resurgence of interest in the meditative experience in the West, and the cultural interplay taking place throughout the world will result in the bridging of religious differences unknown in former generations. Call it divine providence or good karma, the result will be wonderful.