1. The nature of Eastern forms of enlightenment from the perspective of Christian metaphysics and mysticism.
2. Catholic participation in contemporary dialogues with Buddhism and Hinduism.

Our Approach:

1. Eastern forms of enlightenment fall in the same family as Thomas Aquinas’ intuition of being, but instead of being expressible in concepts, they could be called forms of metaphysical mysticism, or mystical metaphysics, which touch the very existence of the soul inasmuch as it is created and sustained from moment to moment by God.
2. Catholic scholars and practitioners are deeply interested in Eastern religions, and rightly so because of the great riches they contain. But for various reasons that we explore, they often have difficulty bringing their own deep mystical and metaphysical traditions to bear on this dialogue. The result is that they sometimes reinterpret Christianity in Buddhist or Hindu categories.