"Buy My Bumper Stickers... Please!!
But Nancy won't wear a mantilla or kiss a bishop's ring


He denies the Divinity of Christ, he denies every single Sacrament, he denies The One, True Church. But according to the Claretians, this mook is the shining religious example for us to emulate. I guess 2,000 years of Catholic Saints aren't worthy.

Here's some of the article; Looking inward leads to love, Dalai Lama tells Christians
By Tania Mann

The Dalai Lama laughs, his dancing eyes made even brighter by the yellow hue of the large, square lenses of his glasses. He has been awake since 3:30 a.m., having started the day as usual—with four hours of meditation. In this inner search he taps into a fount of gleeful passion that is nothing if not contagious.

If meditation is the key to this man's happiness, what does that say of the value and the power of contemplation? Is it better to sit in search for God's presence, or to go out and aid those in dire need, bringing God's love to the world? Can one necessitate the other? How does Christian contemplative prayer connect to the Buddhist search for understanding?

These questions, among many others, were explored during a colloquium on contemplative prayer featuring the Dalai Lama as keynote speaker, held in the United Kingdom at Oxford University's Dominican-run study center, Blackfriars Hall.

Deep meditation, then, serves to seek the truth within and is the only path to "real transformation," the Dalai Lama says, that can "bring about the flowering of love in oneself."

Prayer, then, can teach us not only about ourselves and our relationship with a loving God, but can also unite those of all religions with each other in a search for a "happy, joyful, meaningful life." And that, the Dalai Lama says, is our "real purpose" here on earth.

Thomas Merton, figures in the "centering prayer" movement such as Thomas Keating and John Main, and many others were important in communicating and making accessible the practices of the contemplative monastic tradition, taking it to a wider audience.

"By meditation, I penetrate the inmost ground of my life, seek the full understanding of God's will for me, of God's mercy to me, of my absolute dependence upon him," Merton wrote in "Contemplative prayer."Icing on the cake... quoting Thomas Merton. The very same Thomas Merton who advocated melding Zen Buddhism and Islamic Sufiism with Catholicism, as well as being a big proponent of praying to the God within yourself.