Interspirituality

Brother Wayne Teasdale with the Dalai Lama

"Interspirituality" is a term coined by Wayne Teasdale (Catholic Monk, Mystic, and Christian Sannyasi, i.e., Christian monk in the East Indian monastic tradition). 

Reading Wayne Teasdale's book, A Monk in the World, caused us to embrace Interspirituality as a cornerstone of our practice.

You can read more about Interspirituality here

"I began to appreciate and value other traditions. I discovered that Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, the Kabbalah, Hasidism, did not take me away from my faith, but augmented my deep commitment to Christian contemplation. I became impassioned in my interest in these traditions. Interspirituality, and the intermystical life it entails, recognizes the larger community of humankind in the mystical quest. . . . to leave out any spiritual experience is to impoverish humanity. Everything must be included."  ~Brother Wayne Teasdale, (The Mystic Heart, p. 236)

Thich Nhat Hanh said this about spiritual traditions:

Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Thich Nhat Hanh at the Paris Peace Talks, 1966

" ...Why not? If you love mangoes, you are free to continue to eat mangoes, but no one forbids you to eat pineapples or oranges. Your favorite fruit is the mango, yes, but you don't betray your mango when you eat pineapple. I think it's too narrow-minded, even stupid, to enjoy only mango, when there are so many different fruits around in the world. Spiritual traditions are like spiritual fruits, and you have the right to enjoy them. It is possible to enjoy two traditions, to take the best of two traditions and live with that. If you like to eat Italian food, you can still enjoy French and Chinese cooking. You cannot say, "I have to be faithful to my Italian cooking", that's too funny.
 


Thich Nhat Hanh with Thomas Merton
Kentucky, 1966

This year I would like to publish another book, as a continuation of my book Living Buddha, Living Christ. I would like to publish the book with the title: Buddha and Jesus as Brothers. In fact, they could have taken each other's hands and practiced walking meditation, so why not the two of you, one as a Buddhist and one as a Christian? You are the continuation of the Buddha, and you are the continuation of Jesus Christ. That is only beautiful, if you can share your wisdom, your insights, and you can learn from each other and enrich yourselves. That is what I envision for the future, that we remove the barriers between different spiritual traditions, and we behave as people do in the circle of psychotherapists. They enjoy and learn from all other traditions, and I think that each tradition of psychotherapy has something to offer. It's too narrow if we only want to be faithful to one school of psychotherapy.  You are welcome to continue your practice of Buddhist meditation, because you find it practical and helpful, transforming and healing. But you can think of other people who have come from the same tradition as you, and who have not encountered the practice. You can do it by sharing your Buddhist practice, and also proposing to them that you go back to your spiritual roots, and you might discover things that you have not seen. You might begin anew, so that your tradition will become very refreshing, something that can provide true answers to the questions of the new generations, and that will benefit many people. When I say that you have to go back to your roots, that does not mean that you have to abandon the Buddhist practice that you enjoy now. But the Buddhist practice will help you to understand more deeply, so that your work of transformation and renewing of your tradition will be possible; and especially so that your heart will open to embrace the people who do not seem to be open and understanding enough when they try to transmit their tradition and values to the new generations of people."