Zen and the Spiritual Exercises. By Ruben L. F. Habito. Orbis Books, October 1, 2013. 192 pages. ISBN-10: 1626980462 ISBN-13: 978-1626980464
摘要
As a former Jesuit priest and current Zen teacher in the Sanbō Kyōdan lineage, Habito is uniquely qualified to address interfaith issues in Christian/Buddhist conversation. A valuable addition to Habito's corpus concerning interfaith dialogue, this practice‐oriented volume illuminates the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola through insights from Zen tradition while demonstrating how the practice of Zen can be enriched by an engagement with the spiritual exercises. The author casts the methodologies of spiritual practice as respectively left brain (the spiritual exercises) and right brain (Zen). The book is divided into four sections corresponding with Ignatius's four “weeks,” or phases of spiritual practice to be carried out over the course of a month. This is followed by three steps which Habito characterizes as perennial stages in the mystical path to the divine: purification, illumination, and union. Habito sees these two traditions as forms of contemplative practice that launch seekers on an inward journey leading to a mystical horizon that empowers them to live a life of service. It is his final argument that these two forms of practice engender “contemplatives in action,” or “engaged mystics,” who “cannot remain confined to the cloister but go out into the world and the marketplace…to live out the implications of love.” Written in a straightforward style that nonetheless showcases the author's capacious grasp of the field of comparative religion, this volume can serve variously as an insightful reference on comparative Christian/Zen practice or as a handbook for the engaged mystic‐to‐be.
