Meditation: Buddhist and Christian

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This class introduces students to the aims and methods of meditation with a particular emphasis on its Buddhist and Christian forms. It covers the stages of meditation in both traditions, their Scriptural foundations, the wide variety of techniques used to attain contemplative states, and the doctrines meditation is intended to express and inculcate in believers. Christian sources will include writings from Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus, John of Sinai, Ignatius Loyola, Teresa of Avila, Pavel Florensky, and Joseph Ratzinger (among others). Buddhist sources will include Tsongkhapa, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Lati Rinpoche, and other modern Tibetan authors. Special attention will also be given to recent controversies over the adoption of yoga by Christians.