Word: zens
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...office in the Jesuit Curia building, where the Jesuit superior general interrupts interviews to answer his own phone and otherwise shows little patience with pomp and ceremony. Just outside the office, Wynn noticed a small green cushion. That, Arrupe told him, was where he sits to pray in Zen Buddhist style, a habit he picked up while serving for 27 years as a missionary in Japan. "When we send a man to China, he becomes a Chinaman," explained Arrupe. "When we send him to India, he becomes an Indian...
...catalogue of current U.S. spiritual movements. So, too, do the offshoots of Buddhism, which began in India as a reform movement within Hinduism in the 6th century B.C. Gautama Buddha, the Enlightened One who founded the Buddhist family of religions, de-emphasized the Hindu gods; some schools of Buddhism-Zen, for instance-still reflect a kind of agnosticism. But the basic spiritual focus in the many forms of Buddhism is the attainment of nirvana, an ineffable state of liberation and union with ultimate reality in which suffering is eliminated, and compassion and wisdom are attained...
...current fascination with Buddhism in the U.S. centers on three distinctly different varieties: Zen, Tibetan and Nichiren Shoshu of America, the U.S. branch of Japan's 20th century, militantly evangelistic Soka Gakkai, which bears little resemblance to classical Buddhism of any kind. Nichiren Shoshu claims more than 100,000 members in the U.S.-mostly neat, middle-class individuals who commit themselves to hour after hour of chanting the sect's brief ritual prayer, often for the material prosperity and success that they believe such chanting brings...
...Eastern mystical traditions into two ecumenical contemplative centers he has built, one near Sedona, Ariz., and a newer one in Nova Scotia. His visitors, who stay anywhere from a few days to a year, are Episcopal ministers, Catholic priests, Jews and even atheists. Daily meditation periods include readings from Zen, Hindu and Islamic literature, and participants spend long hours in silent and solitary contemplation amidst wilderness surroundings. One notable visitor to the Arizona retreat was Jesuit Theologian Walter J. Burghardt, a member of the Pope's Theological Commission. "What do I think of it all?" he wrote about...
...more serious objection to Western religious infatuation with the East, claim other critics, lies in what they see as an inherent opposition between Eastern and Western spirituality. Zen Master Philip Kapleau disdains Christian enthusiasm for Zen and other Buddhism. "There is no God concept in Buddhism," he says flatly. Both Buddhist and Hindu paths, some Western theologians worry, may lead to a kind of quietism and otherworldliness that remove the spiritual person from any part in the struggles of society...