Fordham Interfaith Zen

On Tuesday, December 1, Roshi Robert Kennedy, S.J., will sit, give a dharma talk and take questions at Fordham's Interfaith Zen Group, in the Blessed Rupert Mayer Chapel, Room 221 Lowenstein Center, Lincoln Center campus, from 6:10 to 7:45 p.m.

For this visit, Roshi Kennedy will speak on the question, "What is it when the story ends?" He will bring to this his uniquely seamless experience of both Zen and Catholic practice, a subject very much in the air since Paul Knitter's book, Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian.

When interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter in 2007, Roshi Kennedy said:

"I was talking with a Chinese Zen master once and he said one of the difficulties of dealing with Catholics is that they love their spiritualities ... as if it was a parallel life," Kennedy tells Tom Fox. Buddhists root us in this moment, he said. "Buddhists would say, 'If God isn't present in this moment, where is he? You meet God in doing the deed of this moment in front of you. Never withdraw from it.' "

The podcast is available at: 'I wanted a faith that was deeper': Jesuit priest and Zen master

Beginner instruction will be given during the first sitting period. Roshi will then speak and take questions from the group as a whole rather than the usual daisan (individual meetings with the teacher).

More information on this branch of interfaith Zen meditation is available at kennedyzen.org.

Sheila Ross, Facilitator, Fordham Interfaith Zen