The contemplative heart is a universal dwelling place where compassion, emptiness, and divine love are one.
I have been a Vajrayana Buddhist for almost 30 years now but being from rural Kentucky, that is not the tradition I was raised in.
Gethsemani is a Trappist monastery located not far from where I grew up in Kentucky and I had the experience of staying there for a few days and during that time, my “assigned brother” was Brother Rafael Prendergast. Brother Rafael was a brother alongside Thomas Merton or “Father Louis” as the monks called him. “I remember Father Louis was very good at communicating with people” Brother Raphael told me. “I thought that I and some other lay brothers could learn from him. Father Louis said ‘I would be happy to. I just need to take care of some business first’”. Shifting in his chair Brother Raphael said “We never saw him again”.
Brother Raphael was referring to Merton’s untimely death in Bangkok in 1968. It was a freak accident, he was electrocuted when the wet floor he was standing on made electrical contact with a faulty fan. It is what Buddhists call a “severe ripening of karma”.
Thomas Merton saw Buddhism not as a rival faith but as a mirror — a way for Christians to rediscover the contemplative depth of their own tradition. He showed that one could remain deeply Christian yet learn profoundly from Buddhist wisdom, without mixing the two superficially.
Buddhists can learn from Christianity similarly.
While Buddhism and Christianity differ in theology, they are profoundly aligned in ethical intent and spiritual practice, particularly in their shared pursuit of unconditional love, patience, and compassion.
In speaking of compassion and love for all beings, in Buddhism, one cultivates compassion even toward enemies, viewing them as “spiritual teachers” who offer opportunities to develop patience and understanding. This mirrors Christ’s message of loving without discrimination, symbolized in the Gospel passage by “the sun [that] makes no discrimination where it shines”.
In speaking of equanimity and universal love, both traditions advocate this. In Christianity, man is created in the image of God and Buddhists similarly rely on the idea that all sentient beings possess buddha-nature. Each tradition provides a spiritual basis for overcoming bias and cultivating universal compassion.
In speaking of inner transformation through practice, there are parallels between the Christina contemplation on the life and example of Jesus while Buddhism emphasizes analytical meditation on compassion and patience.
Despite differing metaphysical views, their ethical and practical teachings converge on compassion, forgiveness, and the transcendence of ego.