The History of our Contemplative Tradition
Since the Christian mystical tradition never developed a formal instructional style for contemplative practice outside of monastic settings, it has only been in recent decades, particularly since Vatican II, that lay practitioners have been able to access Christian contemplative practice. The work of Catholic priests Thomas Merton and John Main opened the way for many Catholics to pursue the lost tradition of sitting contemplation. This movement went on to develop into the International Christian meditation network, which teaches centering prayer practices.

Our own contemplation community at the Augustine Centre has its roots in a related interfaith movement, pioneered by Westerners who came into contact with Japanese culture and Zen. Zen had already entered the west in America through the work of Daisetz Suzuki, Nyogen Senzaki, and Shunryu Suzuki. Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle (1898-1990), a German Catholic priest living in Japan since 1929, started practising Zen meditation, named zazen. His principal teacher was Koun Yamada Roshi, who gave authorisation to Father Hugo to teach Zen. In the late sixties and early seventies some Christians, mainly Catholics, began to take a vital interest in Zen. It was Yamada Roshi who opened the door for many Christians to become not only Zen practitioners, but also Zen teachers. Many of these teachers went on to rediscover their own Christian mystical roots, and are now able to better direct students in the way of sitting contemplation.

Robert Aitken Roshi, a western student of Zen who also studied under Yamada Roshi, established the Diamond Sangha in 1959. One of his dharma heirs is Fr. Pat Hawk Roshi, a Redemptorist priest who is the resident teacher at Zen Desert Sangha in Tucson. From the late eighties until 1995, Fr. Pat Hawk came to Melbourne several times at the request of the Melbourne Zen Sangha to lead Zen sesshins (retreats). In 1992, Rev. Paul Sanders established an ongoing connection with Fr. Pat Hawk Roshi after attending one of these retreats. 

Paul introduced Christian contemplative practice at the Augustine Centre in 1997, while continuing to remain a student of Zen. The Augustine Centre has also been assisted through the support and teaching of Bob Walker, a lay contemplative and Zen teacher. Rev. Paul Sanders has undertaken numerous trips to the USA to study with Fr. Pat Hawk and Bob Walker, and has participated in more than thirty intensive contemplative and Zen retreats.



Our community is also indebted to Fr. Willigis Jager, a Benedictine Priest, Zen teacher and student of Yamada Roshi, who introduced our present ritual and practice structure of sitting meditation, one on one interviews, teacher talks and ritual. This approach lies within the Christian mystical stream, with the Zen tradition contributing to the teaching style and structure. 

Yamada Roshi apparently once remarked he thought Zen would become an important stream in the Catholic Church. We at the Augustine Centre are grateful to be part of this progressive interfaith movement, in which two ancient wisdom practice traditions can learn from each other with integrity and respectful understanding.

Ruben Habito, Zen master, practising Catholic, and professor in the Perkins School of Theology, writes,
‘The whole life of Jesus is permeated with this dynamic presence, the breath of God, from the time of his conception in the womb of the Blessed Mother - “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35), up to the completion of his life on the cross when he gave the breath back to the father - “Into Thy hands, I commend my spirit” (John 19:30).’

For Christians, spirituality is a life in attunement to the Spirit, the Breath of God, wherein one lets one’s total being be taken up in the dynamic presence. Paying attention to one’s breath, whether in contemplation or zazen, is not simply a physical exercise that keeps the mind concentrated on a single point, but the very abandonment of one’s total being to the breath of God, here and now.

The contemplative way, like the way of Zen, is a path of emptying – as we enter more deeply into our life, we shed the many layers of false identity. This can be a challenging path, but liberation and peace is the natural state of our unborn mind or Self. This practice requires a steady and humble willingness to look, to feel, and to show great faith in our natural unconditioned ground (God). The core of this work is ‘availability’, our willingness to attend to our life as it presents, as it is given. The practice of posture, sitting and breath attention are not techniques, but the way itself, as we allow body and mind to drop away. This is a path of surrender to the very bottom of our mind, yet, like Zen, there is nothing to attain, for it is already vividly present.

When Jesus told the rich man to go and sell all he had and give it to the poor in his search for eternal life, Jesus was asking him to give himself to an unknown territory, to leave what he had invested his life in. This is the contemplative way, the journey into the unknown. Jesus constantly invited people to enter God’s realm, but this requires action on our part - to find, to follow, to dig, to knock, to look. Our breathing in and out is work. It is the activity of uncovering - we discover this was always our own inheritance.
In the words of the famous Zen master Dogen:
‘To attain the Way of Enlightenment is to attain one’s True Self. To attain one’s True Self is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to be enlightened by the myriad things in the universe.’