In 2000, monks from Christian, Hindu, Zen Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian traditions gathered at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California, for five days to present papers, do rituals, and dialogue together. The topic of the conference, purity of heart and contemplation, was expanded to take in paradox and mystery, desire and detachment, meditation, nonduality, self and self-transcendence, wholeness and multidimensionality.

As David Steindl-Rast notes in his foreword: "Interreligious dialogue becomes a different reality in a monastic setting. Shared practice gives it a new actuality. When silence is the matrix for dialogue, the partners do not start out from positions set over against one another; rather, they start out from a shared position. Starting from their common ground, they proceed to compare their respective peculiarities. This kind of dialogue between traditions holds great promise for increased cooperation and understanding, because a deep communality is present from the outset."

At the core of all these religious traditions is a respect for the heart. Norman Fischer, a Zen Buddhist teacher of Jewish origin makes the point that this commonality takes precedence over doctrines and beliefs. Huston Smith would agree. He once quipped, "Everyone possesses a God-shaped hole in the heart." Many essays shed new light on the education of the heart. Two of our favorites are Heng Sure's "Cleansing the Heart: Buddhist Bowing as Contemplation" and Laurence Freeman's "Purity of Heart: Discovering What You Really Want."

One essay that really stood out for us is "Zazen: A Path from Judgment to Love" by William Skudlarek in which he discusses the meaning and importance of the command not to judge in the teaching of Jesus and in the practice of early Christian monastics. He then uses the nondualistic worldview of Buddhism to elaborate on the subject. Purity of the heart, it seems, can be expressed in a nonjudgmental attitude towards others and toward oneself. As editor Bruno Barnhart reveals in his closing essay, the Christian community can benefit from more exposure to the Asian traditions' emphasis upon "unitive identity."