Monastic Encounter Bulletin February 2008

As always, we feel greatly encouraged by the prayer and different kinds of support we receive from monasteries around GBI—including Anglican communities, and now individual oblates as well. We thank the enclosed contemplative communities particularly, for keeping us regularly in prayer.

From January 14-16^th our new General Secretary for DIM/MID, Fr William Skudlarek from St John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, visited us in Turvey Abbey. Of the committee, Abbess Thérèse and Sr Catherine OSB from Edgware, and Sr Rosemary, slg, from Fairacres, together with Turvey Oblate Marie Heath were able to attend the meeting on Tuesday 15^th January. Fr William’s purpose in coming was to get a good idea of how things are with MID-GBI for his eventual report on DIM/MID to the Abbots’ Congress in Rome later this year. We had some good discussion together as a small group. The Anglican Sisters were able to speak from their own perspective, and I was able to speak of my experience as Coordinator for the past couple of years. I found his visit encouraging and felt quite animated. We are not the only commission working under difficult circumstances. A couple of ideas for future development came up, which the Committee will need to discuss.

Members of the committee meeting with Fr William Skudlarek, OSB
(General Secretary, DIM/MID)

Abbot Emeritus Timothy Wright carries the torch of Interreligious dialogue. He is based in Rome and is an adviser to the Vatican for dialogue with Islam, appointed by the Abbot Primate. He has visited several countries and engaged in dialogue with Muslims in each. He was able to attend the last DIM/MID annual meeting in Morocco. We hope to hear more about his work in future editions of MEB.

In the autumn, conscious as we are of being in the midst of a multifaith society, we welcomed the Slough Faiths Fellowship, a group of people with responsibilities for education, social service, economics and so on, under the chairmanship of an Anglican priest. They kindly invited us to join them in discussion and this proved very worthwhile. There were Anglicans, Methodists, a Buddhist, a Brahma Kumaris young woman, and a Muslim doctor. The Jewish and Sikh representatives were unable to attend, unfortunately. It was enjoyable because we were honest in expressing our doubts and difficulties in our own faith journey and, as always, it was humbling to appreciate our common humanity. The group based in Slough meets at a different venue each time.

Sr M Catherine Barker continues to be an important member of our MID Committee and to take the Minutes of all our meetings. We thank her for this work. The community supports us in regular prayer as well as financially.

Douai Abbey continues to maintain contact with Reading Interfaith, and hosts retreats in their guest-house from Buddhists and others. They will be hosting our MID-GBI annual meeting in July, and a longer Christian-Buddhist conference in August 2008.

The community of St Mary at the Cross continue to offer us every kind of help and hospitality. Abbess M Thérèse is on the Committee representing the Anglican members of UMS. She also helps significantly with administration by informing Anglican communities of important MID events.

Abbot Christopher Dillon reports that most of their energy has gone into an Annual Ecumenical Conference running since 1963. In 2007 the topics included “Islam” and there were Muslim speakers. Some years previously, they also had a brief encounter with Judaism through a visit from a Jewish Rabbi.

Sr Mary Mark, as well as her continuing work in photocopying and circulating our Monastic Encounter news, has been able to attend our recent meetings together with an oblate of West Malling. The community of West Malling will host our Committee Meeting on February 21^st, offering gracious hospitality to committee members coming from afar.

In his capacity as President of the UMS, Abbot Joseph informed all the UMS superiors of the proposal by the Chairman of Monastic Superiors of France at the request of the DIM Coordinator, to hold a public day of prayer and fasting in solidarity with the Buddhist monks and nuns of Burma.

Abbots Francis and Aldhelm continue to support MID to the utmost, attending all our meetings. Abbot Aldhelm also sends us reports and reviews of books. Our MID account operates from Prinknash and the General Manager there is our Treasurer, Mr Adrian Jones.

Fr Dunstan is a member of our Committee and attends all meetings. He also contributes to articles for the web site and Monastic Encounter.

Sr Rosemary has just joined our Committee, to represent the non-UMS Anglican communities that support MID-GBI. She was present at Turvey Abbey to meet the General Secretary, Fr William Skudlarek, OSB. Her appointment will be confirmed by the Anglican Religious Communities Conference later this year.

Br Nicholas Alan SSF, MID contact member for Glasshampton Friary, has been following up his intensive immersion into Zen life during retreats at Zen monasteries and at Amaravati Theravada Buddhist Monastery.

Sr Rita Elizabeth SSB, who is engaged in Interfaith work in Portsmouth Diocese, writes: The annual Muslim/Christian evening was held at Portsmouth Anglican Cathedral in December 2007. A good number of Muslims, (adults and children) from the Wessex Shi’a Mosque in Wickham, together with Christians from several denominations, joined in an act of worship centred on the reading of the nativity narrative from St Luke’s gospel. The Imam gave a homily in which he stressed the commonalities in our scriptures and our commitment to be servants of God. We were then invited to make small mixed groups and walk around the Cathedral so that the Christians could explain to the Muslims some of the features of the Cathedral, and they could ask any questions about it. This was a very successful exercise and we found the Muslims extremely interested and quite open in questioning us on matters of faith and practice, and it was good for us to be challenged to give explanations. We then shared a very lively social time during the eating of a delicious buffet supper.

Sr Agnes Wilkins is a member of our Committee. She also attends and contributes to the Dialogue of Theological Exchange especially with reference to the Catholic/Shi’a Conferences in Heythrop, Ampleforth and (2007) Worth Abbeys. She has written a paper on Christian de Chergé and the Tibhirine monks, which will be published in The Downside Review this year in a special edition dedicated to Catholic Encounters with Islam. This would be worth purchasing, including articles of special interest for Interreligious Dialogue

Turvey Abbey continues to host gatherings for Interfaith prayer, generally in Advent and Lent, which draw representatives from the local religious groups of Bedford, Milton Keynes and Northampton areas. The monks’ community also hosts meetings 2 or 3 times yearly for the Council of Christians & Jews, which are very well attended. The nuns’ community offers three Christian-Buddhist weekend retreats yearly, and these too are very well attended. One is based on our traditions of meditation and mindfulness and is jointly led by Buddhist nuns and a member of the Turvey Abbey nuns’ community; the other two are led by a lay Buddhist, member of the Eckhart Society, and a Turvey nun. The last two are based on texts from Meister Eckhart and Buddhist, Hindu, Sufi and modern Quantum science sources, and make use of the method of Lectio Divina as an aid to “Inner Silence & Awakening”—the name of the weekends. Sr Lucy has contributed a chapter to “The Oblate Life” (Ed. Fr Gervase, Douai Abbey) on “Oblates and Interreligious Dialogue”. The book is to be published later this year by The Canterbury Press.

Fr Paul Fleetwood is a member of the MID Committee. He is also active in the Crawley Interfaith Network. He writes: 2007 has been a busy year for the Crawley IF Network, and, while progress in forming relations with members of the various faith groups is a slow one, I feel that we’ve made steady progress over the past year, and from our official launch, just eighteen months ago. The Network involves members of the local Hindu and Sikh communities, and of the Sunni and Shi’a Muslim, and the Ahmadiyya Muslims, together with Christians from different traditions. We have had several social meetings, including one at an adventure playground, when we all found out that we were much younger than we imagined! We have visited schools to answer pupils’ questions, and organised a large photography exhibition about the various places of workshop in the town, which has gone to several public buildings—the Town Hall, the Library, the Theatre, etc. We have organised talks by our own members about their faith traditions and hosted other speakers—in particularly two men from Jerusalem Peace Makers, telling us about their edifying and, at times, dangerous work in Israel/Palestine. We have taken part in one another’s celebrations—we all found ourselves doing the stick dance at the Hindu festival of Navarati, and enjoyed celebrations of the birth of Guru Nanak in the Gurdwara. We have had outings to Southall to visit a Mandir and a Gurdawara, and to experience the fascinating atmosphere of the whole area, and, on a different level, we visited the Sacred exhibition at the British Library, and a concert in St Ethelburga’s Our latest project is the planning and construction of a Peace Garden in the town, with the help of the local council.

At a more personal level, I was asked to represent Bishop Kieran or Arundel & Brighton Diocese, speaking at an IF Forum organised by a department of the Home Office for its own members. I was asked to speak about Living your faith in public. I tried to outline some of the issues, pointing out that while Christians are fully committed to public life and society, we insist on taking the space to stand back when necessary, and to act and speak from a critical or prophetic position. I outlined various strands within the new Testament, and then added almost as a footnote, that we remember that Jesus was put to death as a criminal by members of the Jewish and Roman State authorities and that this fact also influences us to take a critical stance towards the State at times. My talk evoked a quite explosive response from a Jewish member of the audience, who for some ten minutes, accused me of telling lies, spreading anti-Semitism and ended by linking me with the Holocaust. Some time later, a Rabbi who had been present wrote to ask me if the Catholic Church still accused the Jews of deicide. As I gradually digested all this, I became aware that my words had been interpreted in the context of the tragic history of the persecution of Jews by Christians over almost two millennia, and that to heal such a history will require infinite patience, dedication and love, as well as perhaps a very long time. It was indeed a steep learning curve for me, as they say. I mention this in case it may be of help to anyone else who may be involved in a similar situation and I would be grateful for any suggestions from readers about how they handle the theme of the death of Jesus. (See Books & Articles section)

The book by Fr Martin McGee on the Tibhirine Monks will be published later this year.

I was pleased to attend the annual ARC conference this year. We had two very able speakers. One was Maureen Henderson whose theme was friendship among the different traditions, and she had a fruitful experience of this years ago as a religious sister in Walsall. She spoke of her experience of what is now called “the Dialogue of Life”. Her book “Friends on the Way: a life enriched by engagement with people of many faiths” is published by Epworth Press, 1999, ISBN 0-7162-0529-7 describes her spiritual journey from being a member of a religious community to living as a solitary and devoting time to interfaith encounters. As she says, “What has been experienced as a very deep loss is also the threshold of another great adventure.”

The second speaker was Alfred Agius, on the Westminster Interfaith team, who has the gift of inspiring others. He is also interfaith advisor to the Archbishop of Westminster. One of the events he facilitates is the London multifaith pilgrimage for peace each year, when the walkers enjoy a day of visiting temple, mosque, Gurdwara, church and synagogue. Alfred recalled the Church’s early history with its certainty of being “right” with no opportunity for dialogue, until modern times when a wider vision has prevailed. He provides counsel for many mixed (Muslim and non-Muslim) couples wanting to marry, advising on technicalities.

One afternoon we visited a Norwich mosque where we received pleasant and generous hospitality. On the last evening, in the spacious chapel of the retreat house, we enjoyed being taught various dances in honour of the diverse Names of God, within all the different cultures. This was such a joyful evening. Altogether it was a very good conference, but I came away, I must admit, wishing there could have been a few participants of other traditions, too.

At 3.00a.m. the sound of chanting and the steady beat of the wooden moktak broke the freezing pre-dawn stillness of the night. Each day the Haengjas (postulants) walked between the buildings of the monastery rousing the community for the 108 full prostrations in the meditation hall that would start the day at 3.20am. Then, after a quick cup of tea, all processed up to the main shrine hall for the morning chanting. Every day the same chants were used in the Sino-Korean translations of ancient Sanskrit scriptures, sung from memory. The interior of the hall itself was covered with ornate carvings and paintings of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, dragons and protector spirits. Then off to the meditation hall for an hour and a half of sitting meditation before the blissful warmth of the breakfast rice-gruel at six o’clock in the refectory.

This was the start of each day for the three months of the winter retreat at the Zen Buddhist monastery and retreat centre at Musangsa in Korea, which I was able to attend this winter of 2006/7. The monastery has an international community of monks and nuns, from America and Europe, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Korea itself. All are members of the Kwanum School of Zen, founded by Zen Master Seung Sahn. Seung Sahn Sunim (Sunim is the honorific for a monk or nun) was a native Korean monk who, after a deep enlightenment experience as a young man, and work for the Korean Buddhist Chogye Order in Korea and Japan, ended up in the USA with the zeal of a missionary come to spread the teaching and practice of Zen. From his arrival in the West in the 1970s, without much knowledge of the English language, people began to gather around him, and eventually Zen centres were founded which now spread around the world. Musangsa is their Korean headquarters, and is run by close disciples of Zen Master Seung Sahn, who died just a couple of years ago.

Korea has held a fascination for me for fifteen years. After finishing an MA in Buddhist Studies at Bristol University I wanted to spend some time in the Far East, experiencing something of Buddhism as lived in a cultural environment steeped in Buddhist tradition. Many people from the West have been to Japan to study and practise Buddhism, and Chinese Buddhism has suffered greatly since the Chinese Communist revolution. But of Korea, a Buddhist country since the Fourth Century CE, hardly anything is known in the West. So in 1992 I travelled to Seoul, as a Mission-Partner with the Anglican Church Mission Society to teach at the Anglican university and theological college, and to explore the world of Korean Buddhism. After three years I decided myself to follow the monastic path so central to traditional Buddhist practice, and came back to England to join the Anglican Society of Saint Francis. Since then I have been able to keep up contact with friends in Korea, and last winter was able to spend four months in Korea, staying at the Korean Franciscan Brotherhood in the far North East of the country, and taking part in the three-month winter retreat at Musangsa, on the slopes of Mount Kyeryong just West of Taejon.

Buddhism was introduced to Korea in the fourth century CE, and is now predominantly of the Zen tradition. Buddhism was the state religion for a thousand years, until a change of dynasty in 1392 brought Confucianism to the fore, and the Buddhists had to retreat to the mountains. Perhaps this was even a help to their practice. Before, the monasteries had become rich landowners, like the medieval monasteries in Europe, but now without state patronage they had to return to the roots of Zen – an ascetic life of manual labour and rigorous sitting meditation. Monks and nuns were of course celibate, living in community. During the colonisation of Korea by Japan from 1910 to 1945 the practice of monks marrying was introduced, but after independence, the celibate Chogye Order was re-established and took back control of all the major monasteries. Each year there are two retreat seasons, summer and winter, for three months each. During this time those dedicated to a life of meditation practice will sit in meditation for at least 8 or 9 hours a day, with some monasteries sitting for fourteen hours each day. Rising is generally at 3 am, retiring in the evening at 9pm or later. Other monks and nuns follow the route of scripture study or administration in the large temple complexes, or working more as parish priests in small temples in the countryside or more increasingly in the cities. But it is the contemplative path that is most highly esteemed, and Zen (in Korean, Son) which most captures the imagination of the Korean Buddhist world.

The heart of the practice of Zen is simply sitting, with an emphasis on awareness of the breath and posture. But similar to the Rinzai school in Japan, Koreans often work with koans (Korean: Kong-an) in their meditation practice. These pithy stories of dialogues between master and disciple defy logical analysis but illustrate in a concrete way some aspect of the awakening to the omnipresent Buddha-Nature which is the experience of enlightenment. At Musangsa there are weekly dharma talks, addresses by the resident Zen Master or other teachers, which explore aspects of the practice, often using stories of the ancient masters. In addition, twice a week, participants in the retreat have one-to-one interviews with a teacher during which the depth of their insight into the koans is tested. These interviews can be eagerly anticipated or dreaded wholeheartedly, but one nearly always walks away with a sense of having being confronted with the mystery of the True Nature beyond discrimination discovered anew in the here and now.

As a Christian, I have found such experiences immensely valuable. To be separated from the theological systems and religious practices I know so well can be disorientating, but over the years I have found enough fluency in the language of Buddhism to realise that there are things I can understand and express in this context which I struggle to hear or find voice for in Christianity. Buddhism and Christianity are not the same, and both are making claims to speak of ultimate reality in ways that seem to be irreconcilable, but I cannot deny that I recognise in my bones the truth of them both. No exact translation is possible from one to the other, but when a Zen Master speaks from experience of the clear bright numinous awareness of a silent heart and mind, an awareness that knows no separation and is full of peace, joy and compassion, then I cannot help but feel I have caught more than a glimpse of the Mind of Christ, shining in a different cultural context in the robes of a Korean Zen Buddhist monk or nun. Here is surely a living experience of the stillness (hesychia) and passionlessness (apatheia) leading to love and knowledge (agape and gnosis) so esteemed by the desert fathers and mothers of early Christianity.

But Korean Buddhism is not simply about peace of mind. It is very heart-centred also. Devotion to Kuanseum, known as Kannon in Japan, the ‘Hearer of the Cries of the World’, is widespread in Korea. Kuanseum is a feminine representation of compassion, usually depicted as a graceful young lady in flowing robes being carried on a cloud, but sometimes even pictured as a mother cradling a child. Just reciting her name is a common form of meditation in Korea, often making use of a wooden rosary with 108 beads. Echoing the compassionate heart of Kuanseum, Zen Master Seung Sahn would always stress the importance of helping other people, and of the goal of any religious practice being not just personal salvation but the salvation of all beings. This life of dedication is possible for people in all walks of life, but a particular expression of it is found in monastic life. I find particular encouragement in the way the monastic life is central to Buddhist practice in Asia. In the modern West, lay Buddhist groups and meditation centres are often the primary contact people have with Buddhist teaching. But in the East, it is always the monasteries to which people turn. In Korea there are thousands of monks and nuns, many being young people eager to practice meditation and study with immense energy and dedication. As a Franciscan I find great encouragement in fellowship with these other mendicants who have ‘left home for homelessness’ in order to bear witness to the truth.

So returning to England I feel greatly enriched by my Korean journey, and by the chance to meditate alongside fellow practitioners of the spiritual path. I hope others may also have such a chance to see for themselves how God’s Spirit works in ways that we do not understand.

“Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion, from The Bible to The Big Screen”

“Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus”

(See News from the Monasteries: Worth Abbey) My experience in talking about “Living your faith in public” and the reactions from two Jewish members of the audience to my comments took me by surprise. The above two books have been very useful in helping me reflect on this experience.

Cohen is a Jewish University professor in USA and Israel, and his book examines anti-Semitism in the Christian Tradition, from the New Testament to the present day. In the first chapter he draws heavily on Crossan’s book above. Crossan sets out to refute Raymond Brown’s conclusions in his work “The Death of the Messiah, which argues that the greater part of the passion narratives may be accepted as historically accurate, while Crossan argues that the opposite is the case. In Crossan’s words, the passion narratives are basically “prophecy historicized” rather than “history remembered”. In particular, Crossan affirms that there is no evidence within the passion narratives to suggest that the Jewish authorities had any formal part in the death of Jesus, but that all the references to such in the Gospels are merely examples of late first century polemics between the separating, or recently separated, Jewish Church and Synagogue. His conclusion about the trials of Jesus is that there probably was no actual trial or trials—unnecessary for a “peasant nuisance nobody like Jesus;” rather, “The trial narrative was created from Psalm 2”, he writes. Crossan suggests that Caiaphas and Pilate perhaps had an informal agreement to remove trouble-makers, especially at Passover, by the traditional Roman method of crucifixion: 2instant punishment with immediate crucifixion”. (p. 117)

While it has long been accepted by Christian scholars that there are some very big problems over the historicity of the passion narratives, it has to be added that Crossan’s book is highly speculative. It depends on his hypothesis that there is a kernel within the apocryphal Gospel of Peter which dates from the first half of the first century, and that it served as the (unique) source for the passion narratives in the canonical gospels.* This is the opposite of the judgement of the great majority of scholars who regard the Gospel of Peter as a second century document, created by drawing on the canonical gospels. Crossan forms this theory because it is easier for him to find in this *(hypothetical) document the evidence that prophecy in the Hebrew scriptures is the basis of almost all the narrative of the passion story. Cohen however seems by implication to take Crossan’s thesis a little further. On p 23 he quotes Crossan: “At the end of the day, he arrives at a striking conclusion: ‘I cannot find any detailed historical information about the Crucifixion of Jesus. Every item we looked at was prophecy historicised rather than history recalled. There was one glaring exception. The one time the narrative passion broke away from its base in the prophetic passion (i.e. material drawn from the Hebrew scripture) and treated as prophecy of Jesus’ passion) was to asset Jewish responsibility and Roman innocence.” Cohen here seems to assert that there was no Jewish involvement in the passion and death of Jesus at all, a step beyond what Crossan actually states.

It is, of course, accepted now that there is a great deal of anti-Jewish sentiment in the passion stories of the canonical gospels, reflecting the violent relations between the Church and the Synagogue in the late first century, and that this has indeed had some very tragic consequences over the past two millennia, most especially the Holocaust (Shoah) as Cohen shows in his book. (One need only remember Mt 27:25—His blood be upon us and upon our children. But, if I am correct in my reading of the first chapter of Cohen’s book, and Jewish scholars now really do deny any Jewish involvement in the death of Jesus, then the debate has moved significantly further on. I would be grateful for the experience and reflections of any reader on this theme.

N.B.: Would anyone like to follow this up? We would be glad to have further information and comment on this subject for MEB as well. It is of concern to all of us committed to Interreligious Dialogue.

mid-gbi committee meeting: to be held on February 21st 2008, at West Malling. This meeting will also include a meeting for dialogue with Mrs Farida Usman and Hala Khan, who will speak to us on “Living as a Muslim in Britain Today”.

mid-gbi annual meeting for business & dialogue, 16^th July, 2008. Venue: Douai Abbey.

Meeting for Dialogue: a visit has been arranged to the Theravadan Buddhists of Cittaviveka monastery, Chithurst, which we visited for our AGM ten years ago. Details are to be refined at and after the Committee Meeting. It is likely that the Committee will hold a brief business meeting on the morning of 16^th July at Douai. Then with packed lunch en route, we will travel by car to meet the rest of our group at about midday in Petersfield, Hampshire, the nearest town to the Cittaviveka monastery. We will proceed from Petersfield to Chithurst (by car), and have a meeting with our Buddhist brothers and sisters on a similar theme to ten years’ ago: “The Trials and Blessings of Monastic Life” and then return either home or to Douai. Further details will be sent to all monasteries after 21 February. Booking for the day to Sr Lucy. Douai can offer 8 rooms for overnight accommodation, of which the committee has the greatest need! If you would love to come but need overnight accommodation please contact Sr Lucy to see about availability of rooms at Douai.

NB The Coordinator would be grateful to hear any news of dialogue events in the monasteries, including article or book reviews, for our next MEB to be published September 2008.

Please send to:

Sr Lucy M Brydon, OSB, Turvey Abbey, TURVEY, Beds MK43 8DE.

Tel. 01234 881 432

Email: lucy.brydon@btinternet.com