Purity of Heart and Contemplation

This is the fruit of a weeklong intermonastic dialogue held at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California. Chinese traditions of Taoism, Confucianism, and Chan Buddhism are included, in addition to Zen Buddhism and Hinduism. Encounters between Christian and Hindu or Buddhist monastics have been occurring for several decades, most notably signalized in the 1998 book The Gethsemani Encounter. The themes "purity of heart" and "contemplation" are central to the monastic quest and they are also universal, offering a meeting point, an area of spirituality that is shared by all the traditions involved.