The silent dialogue

by David G. Hackett

In August 1974, following conversion to the Catholic faith while living in a Trappist monastery, David Hackett set out on a two-year journey to Japan and Southeast Asia. Hackett became a Catholic through Zen meditation and an understanding of Catholicism acquired by the patient guidance of a Trappist monk. Yet baptism marked the beginning of a new inquiry. What was the relationship between Buddhism and Catholicism? And how could Zen meditation best be employed to deepen Christian faith? Asking these questions, Hackett began a journey which led to meetings and meditations with Catholic priests and Zen masters sympathetic to Catholicism. The letters which he sent to Father Thomas Keating - one of the founders of the Contemplative Prayer movement - chronicle Hackett's changing experience with Zen meditation and Christianity.