Finding Peace in Troubled Times: Buddhist and Christian Monastics on Transforming Suffering
Editor Prof. Donald W. Mitchell, Editor Fr. James A. Wiseman

The first Gethsemani Encounter was held in 1996 and came about in response to a request made by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He had taken part in a Buddhist/Catholic dialogue on “Kenosis and Emptiness” at the Parliament for the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1993. At its conclusion he suggested that there be a sequel in a monastic setting, where he could be “a monk among monks.” He expressed his hope that such a gathering could take place at Gethsemani Abbey, the monastery of Thomas Merton, whom he had met in India in 1968, a little more than a month before Merton’s accidental death in Bangkok on December 10.

The theme of the first Gethsemani Encounter was the spiritual life in the Buddhist and Christian monastic traditions. The meeting brought together an international group of about fifty leading Buddhist and Catholic practitioners and teachers of spirituality, both monastic and lay. The second Gethsemani Encounter took place in 2002, in which North American Buddhist and Christian practitioners who had been in dialogue with each other since the first Gethsemani Encounter addressed the subject of suffering and its transformation from their respective traditions. The third Gethsemani Encounter, which occurred in 2008, involved a discussion on Buddhist and Christian responses to the environmental crisis.

Gethsemani I
The Spiritual Life
A Dialogue of Buddhist and Christian Monastics
Edited by James A. Wiseman and Donald W. Mitchell

Gethsemani II
Finding Peace in Troubled Times
Buddhist and Christian Monastics on Transforming Suffering
Edited by James A. Wiseman and Donald W. Mitchell

Gethsemani III
Green Monasticism
A Buddhist–Catholic Response to an Environmental Calamity
Edited by Donald W. Mitchell and William Skudlarek, OSB

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