Edgar, Chris,
I'll just kibbitz by saying I wish *I'd* had a Sunday School teacher who
practiced Zen!
We went on Wednesdays, though, for one thing. ;-)
Our teachers wore sesshin black. But they were nuns!
Catholic nuns.
As far as the Teaching went, what was not _prescribed_ was _proscribed_.
I was a good student, though, and can still recite the Catechism we learned on
a third-grade level.
I'm afraid that many Christians -- Catholics -- do not proceed beyond that
level of appreciation or understanding. They seem to do all they can to avoid
it. My experience was not a bad one, by any means, and I was too taken by
"Science" -- after Sputnik -- and by an early love of Astronomy, to take too
much to heart what I could see was probably metaphoric, even then, just by
looking up at the night sky from my parents' back yard.
I'm grateful for those early lessons, and especially for their giving me
something to "push against". I revere the tradition to this day as a beautiful
one, and consider Jesus a great, great Bodhisattva.
Our Roshi in Tucson for 20-plus years was the late Patrick Hawk Roshi, heir of
the late Robert Aitken Roshi of Hawai'i, also a priest of the Catholic
Redemptorist Order. Pat never mixed the two teachings. He taught both
Christian Contemplative retreats and Zen Sesshin. On Contemplative retreats,
he let his Zen students practice Zen methods and be taught in Interview
(Dokusan) in the Zen way, *if* we wished.
An awakened master of both traditions such as Pat who is one in the same person
is very rare. Sometimes I practiced in the Christian way on his Contemplative
retreats, just to see the nature of it. Not much difference! May he rest in
Peace, the Old Man. He died too young: it was cancer. He made two new Roshis
here before he died: Dan, and Susan.
Best,
--Joe
> Edgar Owen <edgarowen@...> wrote:
>
> Chris,
>
> You are a Sunday school teacher!?
[snip]
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