ABSTRACT
Is it possible to make Zen practice among Christians theologically plausible or even to justify it on theological grounds? If so, is there a preferred form of Christian adoption of Zen? This chapter explores these two questions and argues that a reflective Christian adoption of Eastern forms of meditation offers the Church the possibility of greater growth into the fullness of divine truth (cf. Jn 16:13) and thereby also into the promised fullness of Catholicity. Drawing upon a document worked out by the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue and articulated in a heretofore little-known text of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, a proposal will be made that avoids the dual strategies of assimilation and synthesis and, in their place, considers religious alterity as a particular stimulus for the deepening of one’s own Christian faith and tradition.
