Healing Breath: Zen for Christians and Buddhists in a Wounded World

by Ruben L.F. Habito

Healing our wounded Earth is not unrelated to healing our own personal wounds. The pains of the Earth and those of the individuals making up our Earth community cannot be separated. Thus the healing of our individual lives can become the basis of the healing of Earth. This book sheds light on Zen as a spiritual path that leads to healing - in the personal, social, and ecological dimensions of our being. If you are seeking a form of spiritual practice that addresses all three of these dimensions or simply seeking to deepen your understanding of the Zen path, it is written for you. If instead of fragmentation, disorientation, and vacuity, you seek wholeness, groundedness, and integrity in your life, it is written for you. Perhaps you, too, have come to realize that our global community is in a sad state of affairs, that we need to radically change how we live and relate to one another and to the Earth. You may already be engaged in some form of social or ecological action addressing these issues-and you may feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. If you've been tempted to pessimism or have thrown up your hands in despair when your best efforts don't seem to make a dent, this book is for you, Healing Breath offers a way to integrate a spiritual path with active, socio-ecological engagement as the ground.

This book also addresses another set of can a Christian genuinely practice Zen? How is Zen practice compatible with a Christian faith commitment? To fully engage in a Zen practice, what kind of belief system is presupposed or required? How can spiritual practice in an Eastern tradition inform Christian life and understanding?

In the process of describing the Zen way of life, Healing Breath will consider various Christian expressions, symbols, and practices - not as an apologetic for that belief system, but to show how they, too, point to the transformative and healing perspectives and experiences provided by Zen.

Genres: Buddhism, Spirituality, Christianity, Philosophy

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

associate dean for academic affairs and
professor of world religions and spirit

Reviews

[Brian Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those looking for an introduction to spirituality as relating to the global and ecological crisis, this is a good source, and by an author who identifies himself as "intraspiritual" (for Habito, Zen and Christianity living within). The book, an integral treatment, addressing what Habito refers to as "spiritual healing" or "ecological healing" reads like an instructional manual and would work well in a group study. Persons well-familiar with Zen and Integral Philosophy would find here a repeat mostly of what he or she is familiar with, while Habito's treatment is a superb source for persons new to either of the above.

While this is, as in the subtitle, "Zen for Christians and Buddhists ...," I found the book to lack ample connection to Christianity to be an attractive resource for most in the Christian tradition not already interested in Zen. A book "Zen and Christianity in a Wounded World" would be more applicable to persons from both traditions, but one cannot fault an author for the delimitation he or she clearly informs a reader of. My reading is the author took on a huge task in a brief space, and the book is introductory only, likely enough to whet the appetite for a more thorough looking-into this matter through other written sources and personal reflection. This latter of personal reflection would comply with the Zen way of meeting Truth, not foremost in words, even of spiritual Masters, but in the intimate experience of meditation and daily living moment-to-moment.

Certainly, if one reads Habito here, this book can be a good starting-pointing for anyone Zen, Christian, of any spiritual path, no such affiliation, to see that spirituality to be viable in the 21st Century must be global, must be ecological, and must be about all Nature, not just humans. I appreciate Habito's work here, calling us to empowerment in a time he admits there is a widespread sense of helplessness about what difference we can each make in the huge morass of abuse of person, community, and Earth.

Habito wisely employs the word "communion" as what we are and what we are to become. In this, honoring all we hope for together must be seen as possible now in-time (i.e., realized eschatology), even if we believe in some fulfillment, likewise, beyond our earthly Pilgrimage.

[Jim Kuenzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wish I could like this book more, but it just got infuriating. What starts as a practical guide to Zen practice and the ties with the Christian faith—and how it can help heal a wounded earth—plummets into a morass of New Age gobbledygook and made up words. This is pleonasm at its finest.

I have to wonder what the purpose of this book actually is, because of its an invitation and and introduction, it’s an invitation few would want to accept.

[Larry Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Healing Breath by Ruben L.F. Habito is a clear and compelling description of Zen practice, which is written from a Christian perspective by a former Jesuit priest. In the book, Habito suggests that Christian beliefs are compatible with Zen practices.

[Belle Meade School]

294.3444

[David Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruben Habito is the one writer who writes about Christianity and Zen equally well, because he's a former Jesuit who lived in Japan for years. Parts of this book seem theoretical to me, and other parts seem quite down to earth and helpful. He sometimes sees breath and spirit as one and the same, and that makes for some interesting reading of scriptures.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had the pleasure of being in a Global Healing seminar with Dr. Habito, and his breath has transparency throughout this whole book. Loved it.