The Ground We Share Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian

These dialogues between Robert Aitken Roshi, one of the first American-born Zen masters, and Brother David Steindl-Rast, the Roman Catholic monk and hermit, took place during a week-long retreat the two old friends undertook in 1991 in a remote part of the island of Hawaii. Their aim was to approach the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity in a fresh way, one that takes as its starting point a comparison of the personal experiences of the dialoguers-as a Buddhist and as a Christian, respectively-rather than abstract concepts. The result is the discovery of a surprising amount of common ground-the kind of shared experience that forms a solid foundation for further dialogue.

Robert Aitkin Roshi is the author of numerous books, including The Gateless Barrier, The Practice of Perfection, and Taking the Path of Zen. Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., is the author of A Listening Heart, The Music of Silence, and, with Fritjof Capra, Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontier of Science and Spirituality.