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.

In this lovely book, Sr. Joan looks at 50 "aspects," all of which in some way can fill our hearts and our lives. She talks about a prayerful heart, a peaceful heart, a risking heart, a wise heart, a cosmic heart, a compassionate heart. Each brief chapter offers abundant food for reflection and prayer, and each offers an opportunity to become persons who "produce Good from the treasure of the heart" (Luke 6:45).

An idealized view of the lifestyle of a Buddhist monk might be described according to the doctrinal demand for emotional detachment and, ultimately, the cessation of all desire. Yet monks are also enjoined to practice compassion, a powerful emotion and equally lofty ideal, and live with every other human feeling—love, hate, jealousy, ambition—while relating to other monks and the lay community. In this important ethnography of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Jeffrey Samuels takes an unprecedented look at how emotion determines and influences the commitments that laypeople and monastics make to each other and to the Buddhist religion in general. By focusing on "multimoment" histories, Samuels highlights specific junctures in which ideas about recruitment, vocation, patronage, and institution-building are dynamically negotiated and refined. Positing a nexus between aesthetics and affect, he illustrates not only how aesthetic responses trigger certain emotions, but also how personal and shared emotions, at the local level, shape notions of beauty. Samuels uses the voices of informants to reveal the delicately negotiated character of lay-monastic relations and temple management. In the fields of religion and Buddhist studies there has been a growing recognition of the need to examine affective dimensions of religion. His work breaks new ground in that it answers questions about Buddhist emotions and the constitutive roles they play in social life and religious practice through a close, poignant look at small-scale temple and social networks. Throughout, Samuels makes the case for the need to account for emotions in making intelligible the behavior of religious participants and practitioners. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork that includes numerous interviews as well as an examination of written and visual sources, Attracting the Heart conveys the manner in which Buddhists describe their own histories, experiences, and encounters as they relate to the formation and continuation of Buddhist monastic culture in contemporary Sri Lanka. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of religion, Buddhist studies, anthropology, and South and Southeast Asian studies.

Studies in particular monastic revivals in the 19th and 20th centuries, as epitomized by Trinity-Sergius.

Every age has answered the questions and challenges of spiritual living in its own particular ways through its languages, arts, and lifestyles, giving seekers various concepts for guidance. In this original manifesto, bestselling author Joan Chittister delivers a roadmap based on the ancient Rule of Benedict that stands as a practical model upon which to build a satisfying life, despite the seemingly limitless (and at times meaningless) supply of options in the modern world. By giving spiritual seekers - individuals, couples, families, and small groups - a new opportunity to live a better life from the very centre of their world without ever having to withdraw from it, Chittister's new approach redefines Benedictine living for modern day seekers while remaining firmly rooted in its monastic values.

In this little dictionary of monastic wisdom, Joan Chittister offers an A-Z of how to 'be in the workd, but not of the world.' In her inimitable style, she eschews the quick fix in favor of a solid spiritual direction that has stood the test of time. Each chapter is devoted to a letter that illuminates a spiritual quality to be cultivated, from Awareness to Zeal, Community to Interiority, Enlightenment to Yearning--and many more. Every illumination opens with a story from the desert mystics, then seques into a practical application of that value to our tumultuous times.

Known as one of the most challenging and charismatic leaders in Christianity, Joan Chittister is a Benedictine sister with an ecumenical outreach and vision. Listen with the Heart is her insightful, personal call to reach beyond the immediacy of a moment in everyday life and savor the sacred rituals that underlie it. This volume encompasses such rituals as Blessing, Fasting, Prayer, Community, Music, and Waiting - Sr. Joan makes the ordinary gleam with light and meaning. Each of the 12 chapters begins with an introduction on that topic, followed by a collection of meditations. Listen with the Heart is an inspiring invitation to stretch the soul and understand the messages of rituals that are common to monasticism and, in many ways, to us all.