Sister Elaine MacInnes is a member of Our Lady's Missionaries, an order of Roman Catholic nuns. An accomplished violinist, educator, and social worker, she is one of the few teachers to be accredited by the Sanbo Kyodan in Kamakura, Japan, one of the foremost centers for the study of Zen. For nearly 30 years MacInnes has used her training to minister to the incarcerated, working personally with more than 3,000 inmates. She has also trained teachers for 86 prisons in the United Kingdom. In 2001, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2002 she was awarded the Commemorative Medal from Queen Elizabeth II for making a profound and lasting contribution to British society. MacInnes is the author of Light Sitting in Light.
In this volume of reminiscences, MacInnes unravels some of the many strands of her life which began in Canada where she studied violin, taught music, and played in the Calgary and Edmonton symphony orchestras. She believes that this artistic training was of great spiritual value because it helped her realize how important it is to step aside in order to create anything of lasting value. As a violinist friend said when someone asked how he managed to play a Beethoven concerto so beautifully: "I have splendid music, a splendid instrument, a splendid bow. All I have to do is bring them together and step out of the way."
In 1953, Macinnes joined a Canadian foreign mission community; her first assignment, in 1961, was to Japan. While there, she was introduced to zazen (sitting meditation) and after eight years of study with Rinzai Buddhist nuns in Kyoto, she went on to the program of koan studies at the Soto Zen Sanbo Kyodan at Kamakura. After 15 years in Japan, Sister Elaine transferred to the Philippines in 1976 where she opened a Zen Center for the Catholic Church in Manila. Then in 1992, she was invited to become the Director of the Prison Phoenix Trust, Oxford, which encourages prisoners to meditate and do yoga. MacInnes writes about the many ways Zen has enriched her spiritual life.
