I'll introduce myself. I've been shortly successive generations of novices in this house. It's a girl. And some still survive. So I'm always glad to see so many old friends and new friends and future friends and the sister and the guests. So I've always Worst. Worst mark. I've always been a giant of egg. The worst sort of mark, so... But what I can do is share with you my little impressions, experience of my last journey. But I'm always in enclosures. We're from enclosure to enclosure. Because I keep my solid wall of stability. It's dynamic stability.

[01:02]

I'm saying everywhere, I'm used to letting my mind, so to say, letting go. So, this year I went from Spain to Istanbul, to Colombia, to Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and always it was glorious. It's very refined to meet real monks, you know, when you are not from the real world. And, of course, it was quite an experience. I was in Chile for the second time. It was before I joined the Thailand. During the end of it, or more soon. And everywhere in South America, you know. I was, as every Western, I mean, Westerner interested in theology of revolution, you know. But I discovered that it's not important, you know. For us, and that's why they, They don't like that we speak of the theology of the revolution because for us it's just a sort of academic topic to be discussed about.

[02:10]

It's a very interesting topic. But for them it's an obsessing and oppressing immediate need to think and rethink Christianity in terms of the situation of oppression where we are. I mean, it's not only a political and financial, but even religious. Because the political powers manage the religions and make use of religion to oppress people. For instance, in Brazil, certainly in the poorest part of Brazil, in other states, the government is exploiting old Negro and Indian religions to favor, to really make of religion the option for the people, you know? So they have to keep quiet about all these superstitions and a mixture of Negro, Voyager, and ancient Serbs.

[03:23]

Amerindians, it means poor Indians, and Christians, and so forth. There is one monastery who, when Albert and I communicated on, there was time to discern what is really Christian in that, what is evangelical, and what is just controlled as political. It's political abuse of religions to be Christianic. And so for them, the theology of evolution is something very much alive. And I must say, it's deeper than we used to think. We used to think in terms, and I think for them, so it started by the cloud, the level of the Holy Spirit, in the people of God. There are people, if you please, now preaching progressively in the bishops. And at first it was, a sort of liberation from political oppression and financial oppression, but then they discovered that beyond the related forms and ways of oppression, there is the main oppression, which is sin.

[04:40]

And always more, the theology of liberation becomes a theology of liberation from sin. and therefore the theology of Christ, Christ the liberator. And so it has been a real deepening of the approach to Christ. There is now quite a theistology for South America and that is a specific contribution of this part of the world to our modern contemporary theology and I think we have much to learn. There was a beautiful synthesis in Portuguese written by a Portuguese Franciscan, a Brazilian Franciscan, I hope it will be translated later in the book. It is a sort of synthesis of histology, trying to integrate all that in a new approach of the meaning of Christ's day for these people.

[05:41]

It's very exciting to live in this country. It's very stimulating for the path. And then I came back to Europe and went to various conferences in Italy, Spain, and so forth. And then I went to Israel to be part of a program of a seminar called HOPE. which is at the same time an initials of a House of Prayer experiment. So there was a group of about 80 persons, English speaking, from all over the world, and trying to prepare for where they are, this House of Prayer movement. which is represented, I think, here by the Sisters of Nibiru. I was just speaking, mentioning Sister Anne Chester, who was there, who has been one of the most energetic to launch this movement years ago in this country.

[06:51]

And she was very worried. We had, it took place in the new Ecumenical Youth Center for Ecumenical Spirit, founded by the Holy Father, between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, it was time to wear a group of monks of Monserrat here, the monastic presence, and there were ladies of the Karel, taking care of the house, and it was a very interesting place. And so there were very much people, and the day Father Bernard Herring left, I came, and so we were always, interesting people, Sufis, Muslims, Jews, and religious Muslims with their Sheikh. So we had various experiences of the various forms of prayer in different conditions, all denominations. very extreme fundamentalist Pentecostals from time came and so forth.

[07:56]

Jerusalem is a wonderful place to meet people and it's amazing to see the thousands of young people who go to Jerusalem in search, in search of property, in search of God. And later in search of Christ and whether there is a light, some enlightened, is torn in the wall of Jerusalem which is a whole history of Judaism and for the first century Jesus is not mentioned nothing happened for them you know the first time we hear about Jesus Christ is on occasion of the crusades and actually that's something we have to be forgiven for but even and so in I don't want to hurt or shock the many Christians who live there. So, I have to speak favorably of the Crusaders, the time for us to be here, the profession of a tender-blood knight and so forth. But I remember, just before starting the program of the show, quite a group of young people were standing, singing, Jesus is Lord, He's alive, and so forth.

[09:07]

There was a great search for Jesus in the Holy Land. And I would say one of my sufferings was to see that nobody takes care of them. The churches are more divided in Jerusalem than anywhere. It's a continuous, not only division, but they all fight, and struggle, and sometimes fight, you know. And so, fortunately, the Jews are out of the struggle, so to speak, than being objective Jews, or dying between the Coptic and the Ethiopian, and all these people who are really fighting in the Holy Sepulchre. But that's what we are busy doing there, you know? And then all these thousands of people are there in camps and use hostels and wandering and trying to pray. So if I had the charism of a farmer to do something to take care of the hippies, holy crap! And then it ended with what they call the Peak Experience, which consisted in going to, in pilgrimage, to Sinai, Mount Sinai, and staying a short stay in St.

[10:15]

Catherine's Monastery. I met by chance, I'm very fortunate. I always meet the right friends at the right moment. One of them, he's a professional photographer, gave me a set of slides which I showed yesterday, being a genius, but I didn't foresee that I stand to show everything. But we went there, and I understood many things. Also, we were traveling. It's the American way of traveling, with planes and cars. But when we realized that in this country of blazing sun, no water, we were prepared. The American priest said, we should prepare a one-day fasting. And there was a lady who had already been in the experience, and she said, don't worry, you will be exhausted, you will be thirsty without... similarity.

[11:21]

And I remember one night, I was dehydrated, and I couldn't sleep out of thirst. So I re-read the biblical story of the exiles. And I was just being blind to think. And I said to myself, I should surely have been with the people murmuring, taunting, against God and against Moses. But God was faithful. And so I understood also what it means, what meant for them, fidelity. Sometimes when we read these things, we say, oh, these poor Jews around, they didn't understand anything. We would have been more courteous. But when you are in the land, the conditions, and when they realized that they were fighting continuously, you know, forty years, and for us it was just forty hours. So I think it's an experience to understand the existential aspect, the experiential aspect of this exodus.

[12:31]

And of course it would be one thing, some cats in monasteries would think, you know, It has been found that in the end of the 4th century, by monks who came not from Egypt nor Palestine but further from Syria. And then in the 5th century, the Emperor Justinian built for them this sort of fortress where they are still. A holy city in Spanish basis for monks. Then there are lots of Muslims helping them, serving them. There's a small mosque in the monastery. And the monastery is dedicated to the history of the Transfiguration. And with a beautiful absence of the church, a six-century mosaic of the Transfiguration, something marvellous, all the people, and all the icons there.

[13:37]

They are icons from the 5th century, before the iconoclase. The best and the most ancient collection of icons in the world. And it was certainly everywhere. It was the eye of the people. It was a symbol of contemplation. The holy mountain, contemplation of God by Moses, contemplation of the Transfiguration of the Father by Jesus, and Jesus by the Father, and Jesus by Peter and James, and John and the monks. And there, during the Middle Ages, the community was that there were up to 400 monks of all the different tribes and churches of the East. And still in the exhibits of the library, you'll find books from a very different oriental languages, including one Latin Psalter. So it was quite an experience to be there and to see all that. It was just before the war, the last war.

[14:40]

And then I came back to Europe, I decided to go to Italy. And then, now it's a pleasure for me to be at this conference in Belgrade, where I was privileged to meet Professor John Bacchus, without knowing that he was from Montenegro. So I'm going to show you some slides of that, but before I want to mention that it has been also a great experience. Four years ago, I remember we had a Microsoft conference and This time we took place in a very western place, a Southeasian seminary in Bangalore, and it was not very picturesque, but we absolutely wanted to avoid what happened last time one died, it was Thomas Merton, and we all were sick, low on energy, during one day or more, so we wanted to be in good shape to work and live, and nobody died, till now.

[15:46]

And we were about 100 people in there, yeah? So, most of them were very handsome, very clean, followed by a young man who was dressed in a white Christian uniform. And the program was very carefully prepared before. There was no talk to listen to. It's a great advantage, you know, sometimes so boring. So, just discussion groups, then there were discussions. The peak moments were moments of prayer, three times a day we had prayer times, and we tried to have various rites, new rites, and it was very interesting to share in Catholic liturgies. The Vietnamese carrying all their guns, and it was mostly English. Then we had two Indian masters, and then we had the local instruments, and all the artisans, offering flowers.

[16:51]

very, very nice. And also, what was the main problem? And then we have to think in the Chinese group, the Korean, trying to give us idea also of what is the, what could be and what is, but begins to be too late. It begins to be the Catholic tribe, in this contrast, trying to integrate the traditional values. One of the main problem was, the use of non-christian text and everything like that you know and uh... it's uh... it's surely going on with some resistance but uh... I got here some I took some text was an indian anaphora you know uh... indian church it's very very beautiful then uh... towards indianization of the liturgy The text of the Office of Readings is Christian and non-Christian texts, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, and so forth.

[18:10]

Then I went back via Ceylon and I attended what's called the Workers' Mass by the Workers' Christian Fellowship, and I even attended a meeting with... I read in three languages, English, Spanish, and Norwegian. It's a combination, not only of Christian and Buddhist rites and ways of expression and text, but also of the real problem of the workers. That means, they call it, this Christian association, Christian Marxist. because it has nothing to do with Marxism. It seems the only people who care, who are out there studying, promoting the workers are the Marxists. The only way to set up workers is to set up Marxists. And actually, as the Australian, that was Antoine's position, they bring the red flag, as the Australians always do. The African bishop was there, he took place at the in the Anglican Cathedral, and I was introduced by a Jesuit.

[19:20]

So, and this Jesuit, who was a very distinguished man, is very much working for the creation of new Sudanese liturgy. Here I have a list of pages of a diary, which is a journal published by the Division of Buddhist studies of the study standard for religion and society, and it's a special issue on liturgy and dialogue with Buddhists and experts. a buddhist appraisal of the liturgy an appreciation of the buddhist appraisal a christian critique of the liturgy his comment on the christian critique, you know we take for granted that it's easy to have a liturgy it takes time to talk about it and discussion to find it, to create it, to invent it but it all started so I take care, I remember when the impression I got from this what this experience was that of the vitality of our church

[20:21]

Then also, at the level of theology, a lot of work is being done in Banu's field, particularly even on the notion of God. Since now, the idea of personal personality, of a personal bond with God, was totally absent of Hindu thought. And now, trying to do this dialogue between experts, perhaps at the top level, but it has started, you know, they begin to accept the idea of person as much as we accept volumes of their ideas. Also in the field is the one of the relationship between incarnation and avatar. Become closer to understand that, perhaps, one day to find the synthesis. Then another one is the concept of God, perhaps. not the mother. We have used to patriarchalize God, to masculinize God.

[21:25]

So, quite a part of the Old Testament, she said, is absent. So, traps her into the idea of God as mother who helps us to recover this part. Another field in which intense work is being done is the problem of the scientific values. value of non-Christian religions. This fellow gave me this booklet, which is a list of publications, the scientific value of non-Christian religions according to Asian Christian theologians. Writing in Asian published theological journal 1965 to 1970. So only in five years, and only in Asia. Now all these things on the on the presence of God, the action, the salvation, that means the salvation through this non-Christian religion. That's quite a new approach, a new problem, and very encouraging too, for us and for them.

[22:30]

And, well, with his father Caricide went to St. Anne, and He used to sit at his, you know, very well in the back. He was a very old scholar. He was from the Palli Dexter Society of London. He was a Palliographer. And he was also a Pastor of the Mind of God. And this time he spoke, in fact, he very well kept track of people's minds. And especially, he always spoke of Jesus as somebody who exists. And so, it took me a minimum of time in Ceylon and Kandil, which is a holiday city in Ceylon, the maximum of places, maximum of people, and I could discover the vitality of Buddhism. It's a very great religion, you know. I remember when we were in the Oxford Symposium just before, in August, I met Calyxtus Ware, who was here last year, I suppose.

[23:33]

And he said, well, if I were not to remain an Orthodox, I would become a Sufi. I said to him, I said, if I were not to remain a Catholic, I would become a Buddhist. Not an Hindu. I'm a bit afraid by this... and all those misogynies and so forth, which is also fair, but I think Buddhism is such a true, well understood, of course, as everywhere, as in Christianity in Brazil, it can be degraded very, very long, but the real Buddhism is really a great religion, and it's expanding. It's like a mission and movement now. I just picked up in the store, Buddhist Publications Society, just a catalogue of titles, you know, hundreds of them, and you could just adapt them to Christianity. The egolessness and the ignorance, Buddhism and Christianity, the Russian Buddhism.

[24:36]

the removal of distracting tones, and so forth. And, you know, I picked up a journal, then in Germany, Buddhistic Human Exploitation, and Buddhism was for children, and so forth, and there were, they published journals in Swedish, everywhere, you know. And somebody, I think it was Panikka, said that there are now ten millions of Hindus and Buddhists in the West, which is more than Christians in India. So, we used to send missionaries and think that it's legitimate. We are very old people, we send missionaries. No, they do, they do. And they convert people. In each place, Buddhist place I was in, Senanda was a white Buddhist place. At least one Westerner is a monk, converted to them. So, I think that's a challenge for us. And for instance, I picked up by then the message of the Buddha for you on the moon.

[25:39]

So they are very timely and I think appealing to many people. So I think we have to consider all that and that's why we issued in the conference a message to our community. I think you are seeing that already. I sent a copy. I sent a message to our communities, which was addressed to the Asian communities, but is also very important for us, very insistent on the monasticity of life. The conference was opened by the Bishop of Belgrade, who was representing the in the Indian bishops of India and he said, he started saying, speaking with tremendous experience he had, he said, I've been doing 15 years professor and counselor in a high school, a Catholic high school and college, and I've made friends with all the boys who came for me, for sacrament, for their problems, but then suddenly I discovered that what they wanted, as they say, as he said, when they wanted to seek this God, which in the vocabulary means to pray,

[26:53]

They went to a inn. They never thought that a priest could help them pray. So he was very happy. And then all the bishop friends says to him, please be monks and just monks. And he had small monastic communities everywhere. So it's very blessed. So he said in this. And this committee of three people was appointed to prepare the reading of this message. And then it was discussed in the groups and then approved by the General Assembly. It has become clear to us that seeking God in our times calls for a radical openness and flexibility in our religious life and structure. We are in a moment of challenge, and if we do not respond, we will lose our right to exist as the monastery. That's very strong. And this response consists mainly in many men and women of God. who are helping in the building of the secret of man. Particularly, we have to support the poor in their striving for their human dignity and liberty.

[27:56]

In my group, we are helped by these Vietnamese. And we also realize that almost all the Vietnamese we spoke to were almost in a sort of continuous pressure, aggressiveness. You can understand that people all over the world has been brought up and lived in the world. So you see, that was something very... and then we... very alive. And then we had also two lamas from Tibet representing the Dalai Lama who was in Europe, so he couldn't come. And... and one teacher and one I met two days ago in... in the religion... my order in Europe that you should want to see me to go to an airport. So after he came, last Sunday, he was going back to Tibet.

[28:59]

And so venerable monks and nuns, on behalf of the Tibetan monastic order, and of his Holiness the Venerable Lama, and so forth, he started the... And the bishops also prepared in The hero of our conference sent us a sort of message to us. Everything was so old that we published soon in French and English. And so after this too long, in tradition, we tried to go and look some sites. They were not particularly exciting, but... between Avlocet and that photographer. Then Avlocet, the seahorse, and the photographer. But at least we give you an idea of the variety of the people who are there. And then, as for ideas, Brother Lapis, who knows more me than me, will take over later. Thank you. And in this temple, we just went there and saw the place at the moment of the solemn procession in the morning when they bring their offerings to the temple about 10 o'clock every morning.

[30:06]

So that is quite a procession. I made a photograph. I just put it. I immediately took the direction to this. And you see the variety and the art of this very ordinary temple, one among so many others. And that was an aspect of the same position, and there were times... instruments... Yes, that was to take the... the guard. The Indian guards. Tell us, these are... You know, it's the most extraordinary thing. They had these short shorts, bare legs, bare feet in sandals, and then these little knitted sort of... leg traps, but they're fearless. See, just the leg has this mythic stalking thing. He's quite serious. And I also understood why we have always to take off your shoes when you enter the temple, because they are in leather.

[31:09]

And also the pets, we were warned not to wear leather pets, because they come from cocks. And when we suppose, back in the day, we went, we saw the panica and a giant monk to buy an Indian dress for him, you know. The Jain man took us to a shop where we could find things in leather. Because when the cows die from natural deaths, then it's possible immediately to take the skin and make leather. Otherwise, it's forbidden. Yeah, that was a Japanese, too. I've been several times in Vietnam, so they are very friendly to me. Nice. And that was his, the only other here. That's the Jain temple. was buried before he's been crawled in.

[32:11]

Yes, yes, he's just off the back of the human position. And that's a Jain temple, right? You are being led. Yes, yes, yes. And that's Panikkar, and that's a man, the Jain. Tell me the story of this man. I suppose you know. He was an important political person. He attended various international conferences and so forth. And then he converted, he left everything, His wife, his properties, everything, he now is a sort of beggar, still for a flat. And you see, it's very old, but it has its time. So we have the right when we come there to get a pseudo-Gothic thing. Now that's a nice one, don't you think? And we went to the concert in the monastery. There were a few people who were there for concerts. We had quite a long talk with the Acharya, Albert.

[33:15]

One of the things that impressed me is that Jain monks have no home. Yes. And they are, except during the monsoon season when they stay in one place, the rule of life is never to stay in one place. Well, now we pass through Seranio.

[34:16]

I think this Buddha, which is a very modern one, it's nothing of a medieval Buddha, because I think we have to realize that Buddhism is very, very alive in this country and In all the Buddhist schools there seems they are free from colloquial power. And that's why, that explains also that various people who were the highest Christians of the Golden Age, or who become Christians are still in Korea since the late age there, because it's... it has some advantages. Now, they go back to Buddhism. And all the cities are full of, everywhere you'd be a sinner. Of the modern statues of Buddha, like really, somebody for him, for them, being very present. So you see how beautiful this inward way of looking, this pacifying attitude. So we appreciate it. And today, it brings something for the people to see everywhere, this millet of beads and meditation.

[35:22]

I remember in Indonesia, near the Tathagat Mara, there is a Barabuduro temple with 600 statues representing meditation. So we have to be modest when we are in the lovely forest with the beads. And that's one of the thousands of stupas there are everywhere. And that's some of the use of this webbing in the African cathedral, you know. And all that is this soft floor, a particular floor, not to sink the force, has a meaning in the... into life. I think that life has to go, to join, to signify that they want to remunerate themselves and to force themselves. So it's good. No, no, [...]

[36:28]

And then we had all the drums, exactly the same way as in the timpani and the instrument. It's a long story, but we have time, we have time. What you say about the vigorous drum play certainly was my experience. Not even in wild rock groups have I ever heard such trumpet and drum work as in the temple at Chidambaram. You know, as if this group was playing flutes and long, long trumpets, all kinds of drums for about an hour. while the devotees are waiting for the puja, for the offering service. Back in one's neck just rippled up and down. Quite something. But this is a Catholic wedding?

[37:41]

No, that's like Peter and Anika on the village. But you know, Anglo-Catholic, no? So, perhaps now I could tell you something about my recent research. The youngest among you have been following my relations. I asked him a question. If he had my keys, that didn't matter. They were necessarily South Vietnamese. They were all coming from the South, but some of them were refugees and they left. Well, all of them, because they had masteries in Gnoll, then the Gnolls, nobody could come south. And even at the last moment, we didn't know whether they would get the visa. In fact, they got one, the most elegant one in France.

[38:42]

got the result at the very last moment because very intelligently he suspected that in a combination of the two of them he's not totally er... er... er... I don't know if he's lying. Entering with a... with a... with an ego tantrum. Yes, yes. Yes. Er... So you see, my... I would like to ask you also if you can appear and you help. My present problem now is that The relationship between faith and culture. Faith and culture. And for us, evangelism and culture. I've been thinking and gathering material on that since about two years now, and next year in the summer program of the University of San Francisco, and I hope to reach to a certain synthesis and perhaps produce a book on that. I don't believe in this, you know, idea of God, God and Mother, or not, you know, all the cryptic ideas which we project on the mysteries of faith.

[39:51]

A new problem, for instance, which is very new for me, perhaps for you, is the suffering of God. Is God suffering? I was introduced to that by the Buddhist, some Buddhist, I mean, Asian, Sichuan Korean, make a list of all the religions with the Buddhist background, you know, of the importance of suffering and so forth. And so, is God suffering? Or is he a Greek God, living in a passive world, immortal, immobile, everything which is in us being not denying Him, so... they sort of got it, nobody is interested now. So here is an example of that. And then I discovered the beautiful pages of Epictetum of that, and it's great, there's a comment such a famous part, and so on. The last book in German of Morseman, The Crucified God, the whole example, and that helped to be translated, showing the direction of Jesus, and in Jesus, God suffered, the Father suffered, the Spirit suffered, and so forth. And that's very, very wonderful for the theology of of liberation, you know, in South America, I should speak of a God who just is a spectator, that is not involved in your suffering, you know, that they don't find.

[41:04]

So I think it's one of the many problems we have to try to deal with in our eyes. You know that, remember that's in the Old Testament, and the Jewish theologists, if they are oriented by Esther, you have plenty of ideas of this God who shares in the joys and the suffering of his people and the prophet is the one who interprets the name of God for the people. So there are many, many plenty of problems from God to the last problems of theology, practical insecurity. But I think For us, at least amongst the topics in which we are most directly concerned, is monasticism, and therefore we try to situate the monastic fact, the monastic phenomenon, into a larger view of the human phenomenon,

[42:07]

human existence manifested in various structures. For instance, Oswald's dissertation on the supposed microbe and the wallpaper of all the monasteries around the world, and the types of monasteries, as a worldwide phenomenon, trying to elaborate a sort of sociological approach to the fact of being monks, that monks exist in all the religious traditions. There are monastic structures, always the same, except in separation from the ordinary life in the society, except in search for a spiritual reality, spiritual meditation, nirvana, contemplation, then based on a certain asceticism which always implied a part of, an element of sexual condiments, then

[43:20]

either alone, and alone, stable, or wandering, and the Peregrinatio is a continuous topic in all the Mahasastras, in Hindu, Buddhist, Hinduist, Christian, the Zenikega, up to now it's divided in, and the all in group, and then I always find the communicate, the for the whole, the superior, and also a basic common feature is dis-appropriation, renunciation to public labels. And so, I have been trying to elaborate that, I'd actually come first in, probably first in France, it's now in the Suplement, in English, in proceeding of the It's probably just because scientists take a very superstitious account of it. I came to the idea that monasticism is a phenomenon of large narratives.

[44:23]

recovered, more or less, by the society. If it's just marginal, it gets out of the bag. It is simply recovered, it just becomes one wheel more in the system, in the machine, political or ecclesiastical, and so forth. And all the rest of history is a sort of dialectic between this element of freedom, spontaneity, freelance, and obedience, submission, communion, coinonia, So there is no solution, it's always to be reinvented, to be recreated. And that explains also the meaning of self-monasticism. I was last Friday giving a lecture in Rome to my students on the kid peas in the time of St. Augustine. The first thing St. Augustine did, was to reform the monks who existed before him in Africa. And they didn't want to spend their time, they didn't want to be soldiers, they didn't want to work.

[45:25]

He wrote a book that proved that they have to work. And the very last pages are, I guess, their long hair. They are like his trinities. And it's quite improper, you know what I'm saying? That led me to study all the problems of health, of drugs. All the conditions which created the milieu in which monasticism, Christian monasticism, appeared in the third century, you know. St. Anthony used to be considered as the founder of monasticism, the first, and the father of monks now is considered as the first reformer of monasticism. And they were already decadent. And so... [...]

[46:32]

I think that's why they're problematic. And then, since they asked me to give another paper, Oxford, to open Oxford, I prepared one on pathways between Christian and non-Christian forms of monastic life. It's relatively easy to see similarities between all these structural, institutional, psychological, liturgical, literal, and so forth. to accumulate debts civically. There are many. And then there is a problem of historical influence, whether one monastery has influenced the other. The more you look for, the more you find. I'm gathering quite a material on that. Influence of Hinduism on the early Christian Marxism. Influence of Buddhism, and we know through which ways, and forth, from Central Asia to Syria, especially, and Egypt. Influence of Christianity on Buddhist religion.

[47:40]

uh... influence of uh... jewish uh... monasteries ethians, qumran, taraqis, or christian monasteries on islam influence of qumran on the first uh... taraqis islamic communities which shows that uh... Some communities like Qumrans, of which we have no evidence or historical evidence, still existed when Islam started, you know. And the first monastic communities which appeared in spite of the will of the Prophet Muhammad that there should never be monks in Islam, there were. And some Islamic monks took secret orders and behemoths. And in North Africa, in the 10th century, after the Islamic invasion, there were still monasteries. with rules directly inspired from the Maccombs, and so forth.

[48:45]

And then the Christian orders also influences the Muslim orders, and there were reciprocal influences on the military orders in our church. Well, just a copy of the military rabat of the German church. of the temple of Morocco, of monastery. There was a city, a monastic fortress in Nissan. And so you see, the more you look, the more you find influences. But you don't find influences sufficiently to explain all these things up. So that you have to go deeper and find, beyond historical evidence, a level of deep psychology where, so to speak, to use the ancient vocabulary, the archetypal structures of man manifest themselves always in the same cause. And still deeper, that is the theological level, the image of God, God working in all men, and leading them to Him, through ways which are very, very different.

[49:54]

So there is a certain, you know, I still remember after the Bank of France, I visited with another Western monk and an Egyptian, who was an Arab minor, who went to visit a Buddhist hermit in his hut near Bangkok. And we didn't know each other. So we just sat down a few minutes in silence and we understood one another. There was something in common, in spite of being so different culturally and religiously at first. I think there is something banal. But now, since that began to to disturb a certain evolution in all of this process of formation of the monastic phenomenon as we know it now in the two main monastic, the two highest monastic forms of life, which is Buddhism and Christianity.

[51:01]

Namely, the passage from the sacral to the sacred, from the ritualistic to the interior. from exterior to interiority. A real continuous purification, leading to this sort of peak experience, which has been the experience of Buddha and Buddhism, and then, chiefly, to the experience of Christ. But ten years ago it was a sort of commonplace in the NCR and everywhere that plastic life was just a by-product of a subculture influenced by Neo-Catholicism, Neo-Nazism, you know what I'm saying, but basically it was something so different as common industries, chatting with people and so forth. And now, it's as sad as the opulent, it's a progress of beautiful science. I suppose you are aware of the very recent volume of the Anchor Bible, the commentary on the Hebrews, published by a certain Buchanan, I believe, and other people, he seems to be a Jew, tries the first one, you know, where he tried to show that the epistle to Hebrews was written for a monastic shepherd, extremely monastic, and Jesus was presented to them as having been a monastic celibate, you know,

[52:18]

very much influenced by the ritual concept of purity and so forth. And I have spoken with biblical scholars in Rome, and that's why I said it might be a bit exaggerated, you know, but there is something, too. But then, the most recent works I could read appeared this year, this last week, sometimes, on religious anthropology, comparative religions, are all in the sense of a continuous purification, reaching to, and even when it's not written by Christian, by non-Christian, taking the gospel, insists always more on the solitude of Jesus. Jesus, as a real martyr, the perfect paradigm, as I said today, perfect example of what is to be a martyr, is moment of solitude, and shifle on the mountain, the temptation, the importance of temptation, that particular temptation, to renounce Power, influence, selfishness, self-love, self-care, self-reliance.

[53:23]

Hygiene. Aesthetics. All of these fundamental structures of monastic life are in perfectly realized terms and then incriminated in the church. Each time, in the progress of this monastic phenomenon, we start the day early, so that by the time of St. Anthony it's already begun, we see integration of values coming from all these traditions, from Neo, all this Neo, Neo-Platonism, Neo-Cynicism, Neo-everything, you know. It's very difficult to discern what was the percentage of each tradition, as well as in an American campus or people coming 10 years ago, it would have been difficult to say that so much percent of Neo-Marxism, so much percent of Neo-Marxism, and then all that led to this sort of peak and truly the pure experience of the last life in Jesus Christ.

[54:31]

And then in the development of everything was accomplished once forever in Christ, but culturally it has still to develop, and it's still developing. And each time we see there is wonderful integration of all these currents that he was coming from ancient Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Buddhist traditions, Jewish traditions, Islam, Muslim traditions, for instance, of many of the observances and even of the images and ideas of the Camelite tradition just directly from Islam to Indonesia and so on. Not only the trails and the baths of the Indonesian ladies, I took slides in the streets of Santiago, Medellin, everywhere, just to show that it's just a cultural fact, you know, which you don't only find in the Hispanics.

[55:36]

And so it allowed People tend to impose it in the name of the gospel. Nothing to do with it. That's the principle. But there are more important elements. And so I think that the capacity of the incarnation is this capacity of integrating all the religious values of all the traditions. And that's what we have to do now in Asia, in Africa, and also in Bosnia. and even among the other things of Australia, not just to impose a very limited, small, Western, modern, Benedictine thing, but try to integrate and to create a new, future, monastic phenomenon, and I think it has started, and we must be very grateful for God to be alive today. Well, it's time, eh?

[56:34]

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