Gratefulness

I have discovered David Steindl-Rast. What a treat, a blessing for the day !!

Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S..B was born July 12, 1926, in Vienna, Austria, where he studied art, anthropology, and psychology. After receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1952, he followed his family to the U.S.

In 1953 he joined the newly founded Benedictine monastery in the Finger Lakes area of New York State, Mount Saviour, of which he is now a senior member. After 12 years of monastic training and studies in philosophy and theology, Brother David was sent by his abbot to participate in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. His Zen teachers were Hakkuun Yasutani Roshi, Soen Nakagawa Roshi, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi and Eido Shimano Roshi. Together with Thomas Merton, Brother David contributed to the renewal of religious life, especially through the House of Prayer movement.

For decades, Brother David divided his time between periods of a hermit's life and extensive lecture tours. His audiences have included starving students in Zaire and faculty at Harvard and Columbia, Buddhist monks and Sufi retreatants, New Age commune residents and naval cadets, Green Berets and participants at international peace conferences.

He has contributed to books and periodicals from the Encyclopedia Americana to the New Age Journal. He authored "Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer" and "A Listening Heart," both of which have been reprinted and anthologized for well over a decade.
Brother David co-authored "Belonging to the Universe," with physicist, Fritjof Capra, and "The Ground We Share" on Buddhist and Christian practice with Robert Aitken Roshi. His most recent book is "The Music of Silence," co-written with Sharon Lebell, and his website is Gratefulness.org.