page_title: Japanese Zen
section_title: Christian Zen
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese Zen / Zen in the Western world / Christian Zen
caption_attribution_description: English: German Jesuit father Enomiya-Lasalle, missionary in Japan
context_page_description: Japanese Zen refers to the Japanese forms of Zen Buddhism, an originally Chinese Mahāyāna school of Buddhism that strongly emphasizes dhyāna, the meditative training of awareness and equanimity. This practice, according to Zen proponents, gives insight into one's true nature, or the emptiness of inherent existence, which opens the way to a liberated way of living.
context_section_description: Thomas Merton (1915–1968) was a Catholic Trappist monk and priest. Like his friend, the late D.T. Suzuki, Merton believed that there must be a little of Zen in all authentic creative and spiritual experience. The dialogue between Merton and Suzuki explores the many congruencies of Christian mysticism and Zen.
  Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle (1898–1990) was a Jesuit who became a missionary in Japan in 1929. In 1956 he started to study Zen with Harada Daiun Sogaku. He was the superior of Heinrich Dumoulin, the well-known author on the history of Zen. Enomiya-lassalle introduced Westerners to Zen meditation.
  Robert Kennedy (roshi), a Catholic Jesuit priest, professor, psychotherapist and Zen roshi in the White Plum lineage has written a number of books about what he labels as the benefits of Zen practice to Christianity. He was ordained a Catholic priest in Japan in 1965, and studied with Yamada Koun in Japan in the 1970s. He was installed as a Zen teacher of the White Plum Asanga lineage in 1991 and was given the title 'Roshi' in 1997.
  
  In 1989, the Vatican released a document which states some Catholic appreciation of the use of Zen in Christian prayer. According to the text none of the methods proposed by non-Christian religions should be rejected out of hand simply because they are not Christian: 
  On the contrary, one can take from them what is useful so long as the Christian concept of prayer, its logic and requirements are never obscured.
caption: Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle
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